The scar-faced dealer stared at the heavy pile of gold coins. Then he looked at Hugo's unnervingly calm face. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.
He had been a fixture of the Tortuga black market for a decade. He had dealt with desperate captains, silver-tongued smugglers, and drunkards who would sell their mothers for a keg of powder. But he had never encountered a buyer like this, a man who possessed the technical eyes of an admiral and the reckless extravagance of a king.
"These eight pieces... and the shot..." the dealer muttered, his voice cracking. He tentatively held up five fingers, then added a thumb. "Six hundred... no, seven hundred gold doubloons!"
He had originally intended to quote four hundred. But seeing the way Hugo carried himself, and the ease with which the first pouch had hit the table, his greed and his nerves, pushed the price into the stratosphere.
"Seven hundred," Hugo repeated. He didn't blink. He didn't even pause to haggle. He simply reached into his belt, pulled out another of Barbossa's heavy leather bags, and tossed it onto the scarred wood of the table.
Clack.
"Seven hundred it is," Hugo said. "And I'll add another fifty if your men haul these pieces to Berth Three by sunset and help my crew hoist them onto the deck. I want them delivered with care; if I find a single scratch on the bores, I'll consider the contract void."
The onlookers in the market were nearly bug-eyed. Seven hundred gold doubloons for eight cannons and a few crates of iron. It wasn't a purchase; it was an execution of wealth. Hugo was spending Barbossa's gold with a lavishness that signaled he didn't value the money, only the result.
"No... no problem, sir!" The dealer's attitude underwent a frantic, fawning shift. He bowed so low his forehead nearly touched the cannons. "I'll have 'em there myself! I'll carry 'em on my own back if I have to! You won't find a better service in all the Caribbean!"
By the time the sun began to dip toward the horizon, the eight gleaming British barrels were being winched onto the deck of The Explorer. Gibbs and Billy watched the process with a mixture of awe and growing dread.
"Master Hugo," Gibbs stammered, looking at the massive iron behemoths now sitting on his ship's deck. "These are twelve-pounders. This is a sloop. If we fire a broadside with these, the recoil will tear the ribs right out of the hull! We'll sink ourselves faster than the enemy can!"
"The ship's too small, sir," Billy added, scratching his head. "One shot and the boat'll fall apart like a dry biscuit."
In their experience, a sloop of this size carried six-pounders at most. Twelve-pounders were the "teeth" of frigates and ships-of-the-line.
"I'm not building a standard sloop," Hugo said, a mysterious smile playing on his lips. He pulled out a new set of blueprints, the ones he had developed after unlocking the first tier of the Medieval structural mechanics.
"Everyone, gather 'round," Hugo commanded.
He spread the parchment across a crate. It showed a complex gun carriage design, far more sophisticated than the simple wooden blocks used by the pirates.
"Standard carriages transmit the recoil directly into the deck and the bulwarks. That's why small ships break," Hugo explained, pointing to a series of slide-rails and heavy, tensioned ropes. "We are going to build a 'Recoil Buffer' system. The guns will sit on a sliding track. When they fire, the energy will be absorbed by these heavy hempen springs and the friction of the rails."
He moved his finger to the deck beams. "And beneath the deck, we are installing 'Lateral Braces' that connect the gun-ports directly to the main keel. The force won't hit the side of the ship; it will be distributed through the entire spine of the vessel."
The pirates stared at the drawings. Words like "Recoil Buffer" and "Lateral Braces" were gibberish to them, but the diagram was clear. It was a masterpiece of mechanical engineering, an evolution of technology that wouldn't be seen in the Royal Navy for another century.
"Do you understand?" Hugo asked.
The crew looked at the blueprints, then at each other, and slowly shook their heads in unison.
Hugo laughed. "It doesn't matter if you understand the physics. Just follow the dimensions on the templates. If a bolt is off by a hair, the system fails. Now, let's get to work! We're turning this lady into a sea-hedgehog!"
With the experience of the hull repair behind them, the pirates threw themselves into the work with a frantic, inspired energy. They were no longer just repairing a wreck; they were creating something that shouldn't exist.
Over the next few days, the shipyard was a cacophony of drilling, hammering, and the heavy thud of iron being seated into wood. The deck of The Explorer was reinforced with cross-hatched oak beams, and the new carriages were assembled with a precision that made the pirates feel more like clockmakers than sailors.
When the first cannon was finally mounted and pushed into its port, the transformation was undeniable. The Explorer was no longer an unassuming merchant scout. She looked lethal. Her dark, resin-coated hull and the gleaming British steel protruding from her sides gave her a predatory, unnatural aura.
Billy ran a hand over the cold, smooth barrel of the stern chaser. "By the powers... I feel like if we ran into The Dauntless herself, we'd have a fair shake at bitin' her back."
The sentiment resonated through the entire crew. They looked at the ship they had built with their own hands, and then at Hugo, who stood at the center of it all. Their loyalty was no longer a matter of silver or fear. It was the pride of men who knew they were sailing on the most dangerous secret in the ocean.