Chapter 474: Questionnaires

As they were discussing their plan and sharing thoughts, a sudden knock came on the door.

Before Requiem could reach the door, it slid open from the outside, revealing a crew member standing just beyond the threshold. He didn’t step in or scan the room. He just delivered the message like it was routine.

“Dinner’s ready,” he said. “Lyra’s waiting.”

The door closed again without asking for an answer.

They exchanged looks.

They had eaten earlier, enough to keep moving, but not enough to settle hunger. Still, a meal offered by people they didn’t trust carried weight that had nothing to do with appetite.

Requiem spoke first. “We go. All of us.”

Reva frowned. “And the food?”

“I’ll handle it,” Requiem said. “You eat. I’ll play along.”

No one argued. The decision settled fast.

They followed the corridor back toward the inner section of the ship, where the noise softened and the air smelled like cooked food rather than metal and oil. The dining area wasn’t formal. Long tables, reinforced surfaces, benches worn smooth by use. People sat in loose clusters, talking, eating, moving freely. This wasn’t a display. It was a habit.

Lyra spotted them immediately and waved, already seated beside Jareth. She didn’t wait for anyone to pull a chair for her or gesture politely. She dug in as soon as plates were set down, eating with the kind of focus that came from real hunger and relief combined.

Reva and Viola sat opposite Jareth. Requiem took a position slightly off to the side, close enough to listen, far enough to watch hands and movement. Iria sat near Lyra.

Jareth ate at an unhurried pace, eyes moving between them without pressing. A few others sat nearby, people whose presence carried authority without needing to announce it. Core crew, experienced, relaxed in their space.

After a while, Jareth spoke.

“Where are you headed?” he asked, tone casual, like he was asking about weather.

Viola answered without hesitation. “Helior Prime. It’s the one place Kylus can’t lean on.”

Jareth paused, then set his utensil down.

“That belief gets people killed,” he said. “Helior Prime isn’t neutral ground. It’s a controlled ground.”

Lyra slowed slightly but kept eating.

Jareth continued. “Kylus doesn’t run that city, but that doesn’t make it safe. It means someone else does. Helior prime is run by 12 powerhouses, and out of them, AIL is the most dangerous. AIL has deep roots there. Not just street muscle. Infrastructure. Influence that doesn’t need uniforms.”

Reva’s eyes stayed on him. “I have heard AIL already wanted Bull. They put a bounty on him, right?”

Jareth nodded. “They wanted everything Bull touched. They put bounties on his crew, on his ship, on anyone who carried his routes. That includes me. That includes Lyra.”

Lyra glanced up then. “You never told me that.”

Jareth met her eyes. “You didn’t need to carry it.”

He looked back at the table. “If you walk into Helior Prime thinking Kylus is your biggest problem, you’ll miss the ones who don’t announce themselves. AIL doesn’t chase. They wait. They buy time until you step into a place you can’t burn your way out of.”

The table stayed quiet for a moment, food cooling, the ship continuing its steady path through the air.

Lyra kept eating anyway.

Requiem watched Jareth’s hands as he picked his utensils back up, noting the lack of tension there, the absence of performance. Whatever else this was, it wasn’t a sales pitch built on panic.

Jareth glanced at them again. “I’m not saying don’t go,” he said. “I’m saying know what’s waiting when you do.”

The conversation loosened as the food disappeared.

Plates shifted. Someone refilled the cups. Voices overlapped in a way that felt lived-in rather than staged. The people sitting with them weren’t performing interest. They were curious in the way crews got curious when someone who had once been part of their orbit suddenly reappeared.

Questions started circling Lyra.

Where she’d been staying? What kind of work she’d done? How Earth had treated her? What it was like being planetside for that long?

Someone asked if she still hated enclosed lifts. Another asked whether she still slept with the lights on.

Lyra answered without hesitation.

She talked about how she was staying in an apartment in a city like Helior Prime. She talked about Earth like it was loud and suffocating, and about space like it was something she missed even when it tried to kill her. When Bull came up, she spoke about him the way she always had, half fond, half exasperated, like he was an inevitable force rather than a person.

Follow-up questions came naturally.

What happened after she went to Earth? Why she didn’t come back sooner? Who she was with now. Lyra answered what she wanted to answer and redirected what she didn’t, smiling when it suited her, shrugging when it didn’t.

Reva watched closely. And so did Viola and Requiem.

They noticed the timing of Lyra’s replies, the way she chose details carefully without making it obvious, the way she never let answers stack into a shape someone else could use.

Then Jareth asked the one question that made the table shift.

“Where’s Bull?”

The air changed.

Reva felt it immediately. Viola’s posture tightened. Requiem’s hand paused halfway to his cup. They all knew the truth, and they all knew how badly that truth could detonate in the wrong place. And what could happen if she told them that she was staying with the same man who had killed Bull.

Someone started to speak, then stopped.

Reva leaned forward slightly, ready to redirect. Viola opened her mouth to ask a different question, anything that would pull the focus away before Lyra could answer.

But Lyra answered anyway.

“He left Earth,” she said easily. “Said he had something to take care of.”

“He didn’t tell anyone what it was,” Lyra added. “You know that’s how he always is. He did things when he felt like it and explained later, if he explained at all.”

Jareth nodded, unsurprised. “That sounds like him.”

He picked up his drink and took a slow swallow. “Always moving. Always chasing something he didn’t want to name.”

The conversation drifted on.

No one pressed. No one questioned it further. The moment passed as cleanly as it had arrived.

Reva sat back slowly, tension easing out of her shoulders in a way she hadn’t expected. Viola glanced at Lyra, then away, something like relief crossing her face. Requiem exhaled through his nose and finally took his drink.

They had been bracing for damage that never came.

Lyra kept eating, laughing at something one of the crew said, completely unbothered. Watching her now, it was obvious what they had missed earlier.

She wasn’t naive.

She knew when to tell the truth. She knew when to shape it. She knew when silence mattered more than honesty.

And she knew exactly which parts of the world needed to be fed lies to keep the rest of it standing.

The realization settled quietly among them, heavier than any warning Jareth had given.

They hadn’t been protecting Lyra from this world.

She had already learned how to survive it.

And that’s when Lyra turned the tables on them and asked a question of her own.

“So, who is Kylus and what does he have to do with Bull, or me?”

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