Galactic Exchange: The Merchant Sovereign-Chapter 72 – The Whisper Market

Power is the loudest voice in the galaxy. But secrets... secrets are the ones that never need to speak."—Sovereign Codex, Black Edition

The Message in the Coin

A week had passed since the Obsidian Auction.

The Unyielding Trust drifted near a blue dwarf star, its crew running logistics and reviewing trade routes—but Kairos hadn’t left his quarters once.

Not since it appeared.

A single faceless coin had been placed on his ledger the morning after the auction. No entry. No ping. Just... there.

On one side: nothing.On the other: a whisper.

Not a sound. But a feeling.

A pressure behind the eyes, a taste of copper, and a message only Kairos could hear.

"Come alone. Trade a secret. Learn one."

The signature below it wasn’t digital.

It was psionic.

Kessie scanned it seven times, then shook her head. "There’s no trail. No hack. No send pattern. Either it’s a Sovereign-grade encryption key... or it’s something far worse."

Kairos pocketed the coin. "Then it’s worth checking."

The Whisper Gate

They docked at a dead relay station in the neutral Void Crescent—a zone where signals vanished and scanners wept static.

Kairos came alone.

The station’s only feature was a pressure-locked chamber with a voice-coded door.

He didn’t speak.

He only thought—projecting the phrase engraved in his memory.

"Trade a secret. Learn one."

The door opened, revealing nothing but shadow and fog.

And then a voice—neither male nor female, synthesized yet painfully organic—slid into his mind like a cold wire.

"Welcome to the Whisper Market."

The Market Without Light

The Whisper Market had no stalls.

No vendors.

Only voices.

Floating terminals hovered in the air, their screens blank until approached. Each one responded only to mental intent.

Kairos moved slowly, touching none.

He watched a cloaked alien press its head to a terminal and whisper in a guttural dialect. Moments later, the screen displayed: "Access to Guildmaster Qel’s murder timeline - 3 Secrets."

Another trader uploaded a scream—raw and biological. The screen rewarded her with: "Formula for S-class stealth jump."

Kairos approached a dormant node.

It flared to life with a question.

"What will you trade?"

A Sovereign’s Secret

Kairos thought for a long moment.

Then he offered one of his own:

"I never wanted the system. I was going to sell the chip. I took it by accident."

The terminal blinked.

Trade accepted. Now retrieving a secret of equal value.

Lines of code bled onto the screen, forming a phrase Kairos could barely comprehend:

"The Scarcity Protocol embedded in your Sovereign Key was copied. There is another."

He froze.

"Another... Scarcity System?"

The terminal responded:

"It was replicated before your system fully bonded. The copy is unstable. Rogue. Hidden in a collapsing reality string."

Kairos clenched his fists.

"Who has it?"

The screen went dark.

But a new coordinate appeared, floating in red text:

String Collapse Zone 7-A, Sector Rho-TalTrader ID: Null-Tag. Access: Whisper Market verified.

The Null-Tag Trader

Back aboard the Unyielding Trust, Kairos paced the bridge.

Kessie was the first to speak. "What’s wrong?"

Kairos turned slowly. "Someone else has a version of my system."

Kessie paled. "That’s not possible."

"No, it’s worse than that. It’s unstable, rogue, and according to the Whisper Market... they’ve already started trading."

Vael looked up from his console. "If they’ve got a fragment of the Scarcity Protocol, and it’s damaged... that could mean they’re making illegal trades. Trades outside the bounds of the Sovereign Web."

Kairos narrowed his eyes. "Then we find them."

The Journey to Collapse Zone 7-A

The route to Sector Rho-Tal was anything but direct.

Wormhole storms. Decaying nodes. Cracked jump relays.

The sector was, for all intents, dying.

And yet, someone was still there—trading.

When they finally arrived, the sector had only one functioning station left: a junk planet’s orbital platform made of stitched hulls and half-burned engines.

Kessie scanned the region. "No sovereign beacons. But there is activity on a sub-layered net. Shadow deals. Ghost accounts. Pingless trades."

Kairos strapped on his overcoat.

"Prep the shuttle. I’m going down." fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

The Encounter

The surface of the planet was worse than expected.

Rust storms. Gravity shifts. Memory echoes from timelines that bled together.

Kairos walked into the central husk of a market dome.

And then he saw him.

Or rather, what was left of him.

The trader had no face. No eyes. His system shimmered on broken glass that hovered around his body. He held a scepter made of fractured credit chips.

"Who are you?" Kairos asked.

The figure tilted its head.

"I... was. I traded before I understood. I gave up time for value. And now... I only exist between failed moments."

Kairos felt his system pulse.

It recognized the other.

But it also recoiled.

[WARNING: Protocol Conflict Detected.][Rogue Sovereign Thread. Status: Unstable.][Probability of system interference: 67%]

The Offer

The Null-Tag raised a fragment of code—an offer.

"I give you what was taken. I show you the trade you never saw."

Kairos narrowed his eyes. "In exchange for what?"

The being responded:

"Trade me a future you haven’t lived yet."

Kairos froze.

Kessie’s voice buzzed in his ear. "Sovereign, don’t. That’s irreversible. You’d be selling a path you don’t even know exists."

But Kairos saw it for what it was—a trade of potential.

He thought for a long moment.

And then he agreed.

"I trade... my 900th trade. Whatever it is. I give it up."

The Revelation

The Null-Tag’s body pulsed.

The system fragment released a burst of light.

And a memory—not from Kairos’s past, but from someone else’s—flooded his mind:

A boardroom filled with Sovereigns. A vote. A motion to delete the Scarcity Protocol permanently, fearing its volatility.

And a hand—Kairos’s hand—refusing.

His choice had preserved it. But someone had made a backup anyway. And that backup became the Null-Tag.

"You were never supposed to survive," the broken trader whispered. "But because you did... I exist. As your consequence."

Kairos backed away.

And for the first time in weeks, he felt real fear.

Status Panel

Cosmic Units (C.U.): 61,300

Star Credits: 12.9 million

Trust Index: 96.7%

Name Index: 95.2%

Titles:

Ledgerborn

Paradoxkeeper

Threadcutter

Echo-Survivor

New Passive Unlocked: Trade Nullifier – Immune to trade loops initiated by fractured systems

New Risk Detected:

Another entity now owns Kairos’s 900th trade (details unknown)

System anomaly logs spiking by 3.7%

Potential system hijack attempt projected at 2.1% in coming 50 trades

Whisper Market Access: Re-established

Notoriety Boost: Kairos now watched by Rogue Trade Regulation Agency

Kairos stood aboard the Unyielding Trust, silent.

In his hand was a broken coin—the same one that invited him to the Whisper Market.

But now, it had one new word carved on its surface:

"RIPPLE."

A name? A threat? A faction?

He didn’t know.

But he did know one thing.

The next trades would not be fair.

They would be fated.

The sourc𝗲 of this content is fre(e)novelkiss