First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess-Chapter 497: Getting the Hovercar

The guards worked fast once they decided to stop pretending this was still hostile.

Panels on the hover slid open. One of them crawled halfway under the chassis, muttering about thrust curves and lift response while another adjusted values on a handheld tuner. The tension eased the way it always did in Ashfall, not through apologies, but through noise and talking over each other.

One of them laughed suddenly. "We had a bet, you know."

Xavier glanced over. "About? Who would take on most of my punches?"

"About who’d show up," the man said. "Thought it’d be some rich idiot. You know the type. Soft hands. Loud mouth. Thinks owning something means he understands it."

Klatos snorted quietly. "You lost."

"Yeah," another guard said. "Badly."

There was a pause, then the same guy tilted his head, studying Xavier again. "We were also curious about something else."

Xavier didn’t answer.

"How someone like you got Angel to take this job so seriously?" the man continued. "She doesn’t do that. Most gigs are clean, distant. This one? She hovered over it. Triple-checked instructions. Made sure we didn’t touch a single thing we weren’t supposed to."

Xavier let out a slow breath and muttered a curse under his breath, more tired than embarrassed.

"Relax," the guard said, grinning. "We’re just saying it’s unusual."

Klatos folded his arms. "You people always talk this much."

Xavier shrugged slightly. "She and I know each other."

The looks they exchanged told him exactly what question was coming next.

"So what," one of them said, "you friends?"

Xavier tilted his head, thinking for half a second, then answered casually. "We’ve slept together. I have fucked her a few times"

There was a beat.

"More than a few times, actually," he added, like it was an afterthought.

They all looked at each other, then broke into loud laughter, the kind that bounced off metal and concrete and didn’t care who heard it.

"No way," one of them said. "That’s who she’s been doing all this for. You probably just paid her a large amount, or didn’t pay at all and said that you would pay after the job is done or something."

Xavier shrugged his shoulders and pointed his thumb toward the hover. "That thing’s seen more than cargo. We have fucked a few times in the hover too and there is probably a recording of that. And before you ask, no, I’m not showing you anything. But I can let you hear how she was moaning my name and begging me to fuck her harder and deeper."

The laughter slowed, turning into groans and exaggerated complaints. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"Damn," one of them muttered. "That’s brutal. We got NTR’ed and we weren’t even aware."

"Straight robbery," another added. "Didn’t even know we were competing."

Klatos shook his head. "I hate every word coming out of your mouths."

One of the guards slapped the hover’s panel shut and stood up. "Alright. She’s good to go. Lift adjusted. Controls won’t fight you anymore."

Xavier nodded once and stepped toward the vehicle. "Appreciate it."

They climbed into the hover. Klatos took the passenger seat while Xavier slid into the driver’s position. The canopy sealed, the interior lights adjusting automatically as the systems finished syncing to local conditions.

The vehicle lifted cleanly this time, thrust balanced, no stutter, no protest, and slipped out over Ashfall Verge’s rooftops.

Once they cleared the dense lanes, Xavier brought the internal console up and let the hover finish its post-handoff checks. The interface wasn’t stock. Reva’s touch was everywhere. Custom routing layers, stripped-down diagnostics, and a signature handshake buried under the normal telemetry. It wasn’t flashy, but it was clever, the kind of thing that only talked to systems she trusted.

"There," Klatos said, leaning in. "You see that?"

Xavier nodded. "Yeah."

A residual ping surfaced, time-stamped several hours earlier. Not active anymore, but preserved inside the vehicle’s memory like a breadcrumb that hadn’t been wiped properly. The source tag matched Reva’s signature, the same pattern she used when she wanted something found without announcing it.

The destination resolved a second later.

"Glassreach Basin," Klatos said.

Xavier exhaled. "I should’ve expected that."

He changed the route, feeding the new destination into the hover’s nav and overriding the Ashfall search grid. The engines responded immediately, vector shifting as the city fell away behind them.

They made good time until the fuel warning surfaced, quiet but firm, the kind that didn’t argue.

Klatos glanced at the readout. "That’s earlier than expected."

"Atmospheric tuning burned more than planned," Xavier replied. "They optimized lift, not range."

The fuel warning chimed again, softer this time but persistent.

Klatos glanced at the display and then at Xavier. "Pull over here."

Xavier hesitated for half a second, eyes flicking toward the Glassreach route marker. "We’re losing time."

"I know," Klatos said. "But we’re already running on fumes, and not just the hover."

Xavier eased the vehicle down anyway, guiding it toward a low refueling station built into the side of an old freight spur. It wasn’t busy, just a handful of vehicles parked unevenly, pumps running without attendants. The kind of place that survived because people like them kept using it.

The hover settled onto the pad and powered down to idle.

Klatos stayed seated for a moment, then spoke again. "We haven’t slept. We haven’t eaten properly. Whatever’s waiting in Glassreach isn’t going to be polite."

Xavier didn’t argue. He stared at the route map, then shut it off. "Five minutes."

"Ten," Klatos corrected. "We don’t need comfort. We need to be awake."

Xavier sighed, unstrapped, and stepped out once the canopy opened. The air here felt different from Ashfall, thinner, cleaner, but still mixed with industrial residue. He connected the fuel line himself, watched the numbers climb, then headed toward the attached store.

Inside was barebones. Shelves stocked with ration packs, stimulants, protein bars, hydration gels, basic med kits. No branding worth remembering. A clerk behind reinforced glass barely looked up.

Xavier grabbed what made sense without overthinking it. Two high-calorie ration packs. Electrolyte gels. A compact stimulant patch. A sealed water canister. He paused, then added a couple of energy sticks and a basic trauma wrap.

He paid without comment and walked back out.

Klatos had stepped out as well, stretching his shoulders, wings shifting slightly as if testing their range. "Good call," he said when he saw the supplies.

Xavier tossed him one of the ration packs. "Eat."

They leaned against the hover while the tank finished filling, tearing into the food. It wasn’t good, but it did its job. The stimulant patch went on next, subtle warmth spreading as it kicked in, clearing some of the fog without pushing them into jittery territory.

Klatos drank and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I haven’t been to Glassreach, but I know a few spots we should check first. They should be our priority."

Xavier nodded. "I will contact Arlen as well for details. But I doubt they would have reached there yet."

The pump disengaged with a dull click. Xavier sealed the panel and climbed back into the hover, Klatos following a second later.

The canopy closed. Systems came back online. Route recalculated.

Xavier took one last look at the map, then pushed the throttle forward.

"Alright," he said. "Now we hurry."