First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess-Chapter 435: Escape Plan

Requiem broke the silence first, rubbing a hand across his jaw like he was trying to grind the thought into something simpler. "If Kylus decides to move on this," he said, "he won’t announce it. He won’t threaten us again either. Things will just start happening."

Viola nodded immediately. "People showing up where they shouldn’t. Routes getting blocked. Services suddenly unavailable. That’s how it starts."

Requiem glanced at her, then back to the room. "Once his name gets attached to a bounty—even a quiet one—we’re stuck. Leaving Jupiter won’t work. Moving districts won’t work. Someone will always be waiting."

"And it won’t be idiots," Viola added. "It’ll be professionals. Guild types. Contractors who don’t care why they’re hunting, only who’s paying."

Requiem let out a slow breath. "We won’t outrun that. And we won’t outlast it either."

Viola shifted her weight. "Hiding isn’t an option. Lyra gets noticed everywhere. Even when people don’t know what they’re looking at, they still look. That makes tracking easy."

Requiem didn’t argue. "So timing matters. We don’t sit on this. We move before he locks things in."

Viola looked up at him. "Which means there’s really only one place we can go."

He nodded once. "Helior Prime."

She didn’t explain right away, letting the name sit there. Then she said, "It’s the only place on Jupiter where he can’t just reach out and take someone."

"Too many interests piled on top of each other," Requiem added. "Corporations. Security groups. Private authorities. Everyone watching everyone else."

"And everything costs more," Viola said. "Violence. Pressure. Mistakes. You don’t grab someone in Helior Prime without setting off problems you didn’t plan for."

Requiem crossed his arms. "It’s noisy. Crowded. People come and go all the time. Moving fast doesn’t stand out there."

Viola straightened. "If we stay here, we get hunted quietly. If we scatter, we get picked off. Helior Prime is the only place where being visible actually buys us time."

Requiem looked around the room. "Once we go in, there’s no easing back out."

Viola nodded. "Yeah. But if we wait, we won’t get a choice anyway."

They stood there for a moment after that, the seriousness of the decision settling in, nobody rushing to fill the silence because everyone knew the next part was going to be messy.

Reva was the one who finally spoke. "So how do we even leave this place," she asked, irritation bleeding through. "If he can move people this easily, what’s stopping him from locking the city down around us?"

Viola rubbed her temples. "Helior Prime is on the opposite end of the planet. If we take a direct flight, that’s still hours, and it’s the fastest option we have. Fast also means visible. Tickets get logged. Passenger lists get scanned. Every port runs background sweeps."

Requiem frowned. "What about the ship?"

Viola shook her head. "Worse. We’d need departure clearance, trans-orbital permission, fuel authorization, and docking approval on arrival. Each step costs time, money, and paperwork. Each step puts our names into systems that don’t forget. One alert in the wrong place and someone starts asking why we’re in a hurry."

"And once that happens," Requiem added, "Kylus doesn’t even need to chase us. He just waits."

Viola nodded. "Which is why we don’t take one route. We break it up. Road first, then water transit where traffic blends, then air where it makes sense, then back to ground. Different operators. Different regions. Different logs. We move like we don’t know where we’re going."

Reva stared at her. "That sounds exhausting."

"It is," Viola replied. "It’s also the only way to avoid looking like prey."

Requiem folded his arms. "We leave fast. We don’t linger."

Viola glanced around the room. "Exactly. We pack what matters and move before anyone decides to check why we’re still here."

Her eyes then shifted to Lyra.

"And before any of that," she said carefully, "we deal with the obvious problem."

Lyra frowned. "What problem?"

Viola didn’t answer right away. She just looked at her, then at Reva. "You."

Reva’s expression tightened. "What about her?"

"She can’t travel like this," Viola said. "She draws attention without trying. We don’t need people recognizing her in transit."

Lyra crossed her arms. "So what, you want to hide me."

"Yes," Viola replied. "We disguise you. Hair, scent, clothing, posture. Enough that people look past you instead of at you."

Requiem nodded. "It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to work long enough."

Lyra didn’t like it, but she understood. She exhaled slowly and gave a short nod.

"What about food?"

"You..." Viola held her anger. "Yoou can eat as much as you want."

"Fine," she said. "Let’s do it."

Viola tapped her console once. "Then start packing. We move as soon as we’re ready."

Meanwhile, Kylus boarded his ship, boots echoing across the ramp as systems powered up around him. The vessel was built for long hunts and short wars, heavy hull, deep engines, no ornament anywhere that didn’t serve a purpose.

Crew moved out of his way on instinct, reports already queued on his wrist display. He didn’t stop to read them. He already knew the pattern. It was one of his ships, after all.

"Take me below," he said.

The ship’s lower section was quiet in a way that felt deliberate. No noise from engines, no chatter from crew. The prison compartment sat behind layered doors that opened only after multiple checks, each one slower than the last.

Inside, a man was tied to a reinforced chair, wrists and ankles locked, body bare except for a cloth draped over his head and another covering what little dignity remained. He was breathing hard, trying to keep whatever courage he had left intact.

Kylus stepped in and rolled his sleeves up without a word. He reached out and yanked the cloth off the man’s head.

The man squinted against the light and immediately started talking. "What do you want," he said quickly. "Why am I tied up like this? You know who I am. I’m a registered mercenary. I’ll report this to the administration. You can’t—"

Kylus punched him in the face.

"I am the administration!"