VANGUARD OF THE BAY

CHAPTER 4: The Hand of Justice

The seal on Jax's helmet hissed as pressurized air released, and he pulled the heavy piece off, exposing his face to the rain for the first time.

He looked to be in his late thirties, with a sharp jaw, short dark hair, and silver eyes that carried the weight of a hundred battles. A jagged scar ran from his right ear down to his collarbone, old and pale, the kind of mark that had healed a long time ago and stopped being new to him years back.

"You have courage, kid." He examined the bruising on my chest and jaw with something almost clinical, the way a mechanic checks a dent for structural damage. "Courage is rare in Aethelgard Bay these days. Most people just bow their heads and hand over their coin to Marcus and his thugs."

"You know my uncle?" I asked, sitting up straighter with Thomas's help, my ribs protesting the whole way.

"Everyone who fights for justice knows Marcus Vance." The woman stepped forward and removed her own helmet. Sharp features, dark skin, fierce eyes tied back with a woven headband that looked handmade, not standard issue. "He's the cancer eating this city from the inside. He uses syndicate muscle to clear out independent workers so his corporate monopolies can control the docks, the transport, the food supply. Every boat he sinks is a family he doesn't have to negotiate with."

"My name is Valerie," she added, giving me a nod that felt like it meant something, coming from her. "The big guy over there is Mason. He doesn't talk much."

Mason, still at the railing with his shields, gave a silent nod and kept watch, scanning the dark water like he expected the raider ship to circle back. Up close, even at rest, he looked like something built rather than born, every plate of his armor scorched and dented from fights I couldn't begin to guess at.

"Why are you helping us?" Captain Thomas asked, looking between the three of them, his voice rough with something between gratitude and suspicion. "The city council calls you vigilantes. Outlaws."

"The council is bought and paid for by the Vance Corporation." Jax stood to his full height, water sheeting off his armor. "Law without morality is just tyranny with a badge, Captain. We don't fight for the council. We fight for the people who build this city with their sweat and blood, and we don't ask them to thank us for it."

He reached into a compartment on his belt and pulled out a thin metallic rectangle, about the size of a credit card, glowing faintly orange with lines of encrypted code across its face, the light pulsing slow and steady like something with a heartbeat.

"What is that?" I asked, unable to look away from it.

"An encrypted vault key," Jax said, holding it out. "Recovered from one of Marcus's private security vaults three weeks ago. It holds the master registry for emergency security assets, hidden supplies, and defensive infrastructure the city's founders built before the syndicates corrupted the government. It's older than Marcus. Older than most of what he's built his empire on top of."

"We almost lost two people getting it out," Valerie added, her voice quieter now. "We weren't sure it would ever find the right hands. Then we heard your name on the radio chatter tonight and Jax made the call."

I stared at it in shock. "Why are you showing this to me?"

"Because we're fighters, Leo, not administrators." He pressed the cold metal into my hand and my fingers closed around it on instinct, the card warmer than I expected, almost alive against my palm. "We can destroy raiding parties. We can't rebuild a broken city. That takes someone with a clean heart, a sharp mind, and the blood of the men who built Aethelgard Bay in the first place."

"I don't know how to run a resistance," I admitted, looking down at the glowing card, feeling smaller than I had all night. "I'm just an eighteen-year-old deckhand who couldn't even keep his own uncle from stealing everything he owned."

"Your father knew." Captain Thomas set a heavy hand on my shoulder, his grip firm despite the tremor still running through him. "He built the original harbor trust to protect us all, Leo. It's in your blood whether you feel ready for it or not."

"He talked about you sometimes," Valerie added, quieter now. "Not by name. Just a man on the docks who wouldn't sell out his workers no matter what Marcus offered him. We didn't know his son was still alive until you climbed out of that wheelhouse tonight with a fishing hook like it was a sword."

"This card grants access to a vault beneath the old harbor lighthouse." Jax's silver eyes held mine, dead serious, no room in his voice for anything but the truth. "Inside you'll find the resources, equipment, and records to expose Marcus and reclaim your legacy. But listen carefully. If Marcus learns you have this, he'll send every mercenary in the state after you. There won't be any more flares in the sky to save you next time."

"Let them come." My voice hardened as I closed my fist around the card, feeling the edges bite into my palm. "I'm done running. I've been running since the day they buried my father, and I'm done."

Captain Thomas let out a breath that was half laugh, half something rawer. "Your father used to say the exact same thing, word for word, the year the first syndicate crew tried to shake down this harbor. I didn't expect to hear it twice in one lifetime."

Jax allowed himself a small, grim smile, the first real expression I'd seen cross his face. "Good. Because the real war for Aethelgard Bay starts tonight."

Before I could ask anything else, a sharp alarm beeped on Valerie's wrist console, cutting through the moment like a blade.

"Jax, multiple patrol gunboats heading this way from the central pier," she reported, already moving toward the railing. "Marcus knows his team failed. He's sending official law enforcement to cover it up before the sun's even up."

"Time to vanish." Jax pulled his helmet back over his head, the seal hissing shut, and just like that the man was gone again, replaced by the mask.

"How do I contact you?" I shouted over the wind, suddenly desperate not to be left alone with just a glowing card and a decision I didn't feel ready to make.

"You don't." His voice came metallic through the helmet speaker as he vaulted onto the railing. "Use the card, Leo. Rebuild the shield. We'll be watching."

Jax, Valerie, and Mason cleared the railing together and dropped into a stealth launch anchored in the fog. A quiet motor hummed, and within five seconds they were gone, leaving only the dark waves behind and the weight of the card in my hand, heavier than anything that small had any right to be.