The Shadow Sovereign: Level Up from the Dirt

The Private Frequency

The giant twin cannons of the Vanguard warship locked onto us with a heavy, mechanical click.

The white light from the ship's main spotlight was so bright that it made my eyes water. We were trapped on a wet stone ledge three inches wide, with the deep, black water of the lagoon swirling right below our boots.

"Do not move," a loud voice boomed from the warship’s speakers, shaking the air. "You are in a restricted defense zone. Put your hands on your heads or you will be destroyed."

"Zane, give me the rifle strap," Kemi said. She did not look at the massive guns pointing at us. Her fingers were already typing a furious code into the guard's stolen wrist-pad. "Tariq, lean your body over mine. Block the light from this screen so the ship's long-range cameras cannot see what I am typing."

Tariq shifted his bulk, his dead mechanical arm hanging low, using his wide back to create a patch of shadow over Kemi. "You better have a massive trick up your sleeve, girl. Those cannons will turn this entire ledge into gray dust in about ten seconds."

"I am opening a direct line to the flagship," Kemi said, her teeth digging into her lower lip. Her face looked incredibly pale under the bright white spotlight. "The Island runs on a tiered communication web. The regular patrol units do not answer to the Chairman directly. They answer to Vice-Chairman Kola, the head of harbor security."

"The guy who is stealing money from Femi?" I asked, keeping my body low.

"Yes," Kemi said. She tapped a large red button on the screen. "I just sent an encrypted packet straight to the captain's private cabin. I included the first three pages of Kola's illegal bank transfers to the offshore sectors. If that ship fires on us, the data will instantly upload to the public mainland networks. Every news channel in the lower city will have it."

The warship’s engines roared louder, pushing waves of dirty water against our ledge. The giant cannons did not drop, but they stopped adjusting their angle.

For five long seconds, nobody moved. The air felt thick and heavy.

Then, the bright white spotlight suddenly blinked out. The sudden darkness made the lagoon look pitch black. The loud voice from the loudspeaker did not tell us to surrender again. Instead, a small, private radio channel crackled inside the guard's wrist-pad.

"Who is this?" a sharp, angry voice came through the small speaker. It was not the captain. It was a voice from the upper city, full of panic and hidden fear. "How did you get these account numbers?"

Kemi took the pad from my hand and held it close to her mouth. Her voice was cold, completely smooth, and entirely lethal. She sounded like a judge, not a fourteen-year-old girl from the slums.

"It does not matter who we are, Vice-Chairman Kola," Kemi said. "What matters is that Chairman Femi is currently tracking a stolen data drive. If he finds out that your private accounts are linked to the same sector where the drive disappeared, he will realize you have been robbing him for three years. He will strip your family of their citizenship and drop you into the mining pits by noon."

A long silence came from the speaker. We could hear the faint sound of glass clinking on the other end, like someone's hand was shaking against a desk.

"What do you want?" Kola asked, his voice dropping to a low whisper. "Money? A transfer to the outer sectors? Name it."

"We want an invitation," Kemi said. She looked up at me, her red eyes flashing in the dark. "We need three VIP guest passes for the luxury harbor, fully cleared through the genetic scanning checkpoints. And we need them registered under fake names on the passenger list of the Sovereign's Pride."

"The Sovereign's Pride?" Kola gasped. "That ship is carrying the high-value cargo for the board members. The security there is handled by Femi's personal hunters. If I forge those passes, I am risking my life."

"You are already risking your life," Kemi countered without a single beat of hesitation. "The passes must be in the secondary harbor drop-box within two hours. If they are not there, the rest of your files will be sent directly to Femi's terminal."

She cut the connection before he could reply.

"He is going to kill us the moment we step into that harbor," Tariq said, a rough grunt escaping his chest. "A man like Kola doesn't leave loose ends walking around his docks."

"He will try," Kemi said, wiping a line of sweat from her forehead. Her body shivered slightly, the internal heat from her missing core taking a heavy toll on her strength. "But he knows that if we die, the data uploads automatically through a timed script I set up. He has to keep us alive until he can find the main server."

The massive warship began to turn away from our ledge, its large engines pushing it back into the deep fog of the lagoon. They were leaving us alone.

"Let's go," I said, putting my arm around Kemi's waist to help her walk along the narrow ledge. "We need to reach that drop-box before the sun comes up."

We followed the outer boundary wall for another hour, moving through the damp shadows until we reached the lower maintenance docks of the luxury sector. The air here smelled different, it didn't have the smell of rot and burning oil like the iron market. It smelled like clean salt and expensive fuel.

Tariq checked a small metal box hidden behind a water pipe near the pier. He pulled out a small black plastic case and opened it. Inside were three glowing silver cards.

"He actually did it," Tariq said, holding up the cards. "VIP passes. They have the official harbor seal."

We walked toward the grand glass archway that marked the entrance to the luxury harbor. Giant digital screens showed pictures of the beautiful upper city, completely clean and sparkling under a perfect sky. Two automated guard towers stood at the gate, their blue laser beams scanning every person who approached.

I held my breath as we stepped into the scanning lane. I slid my silver card into the slot.

The tower clicked. A mechanical voice spoke through the iron gate. "Welcome, Sector Director Julius. Scan complete."

The heavy glass doors slid open. We walked through, our eyes instantly locking onto the massive white ship docked at the center of the harbor. The Sovereign's Pride was larger than three city blocks, its tall decks shining with gold trim.

But as we neared the boarding ramp, a group of four hunters in heavy black armor stepped out from the shadows of the cargo crane. They did not look like Ifunanya's squad. Their armor carried the golden crest of the Chairman’s private guard.

The leader of the squad looked straight at me, his hand resting on the grip of a massive heavy plasma rifle.

"Hold on," the guard said, his voice cold through his helmet visor. "The ship is under lockdown. Chairman Femi just ordered a full genetic blood test for every single passenger boarding this vessel."