First Intergalactic Emperor: Starting With The Ancient Goddess

The room was quiet in the way only control rooms ever were, filled with screens, and data streams. Director Hale stood at the center table, hands braced on its edge, eyes fixed on the footage looping in front of them.

”It’s been more than a week,” Hale said. ”And we still don’t know anything related to Xavier.”

No one answered right away.

”We don’t have a finalized chargesheet,” Hale continued. ”We don’t have a jurisdictional claim strong enough to hold him long-term. And we cannot keep someone in this facility for more than two weeks without formal cause, no matter how uncomfortable they make us.”

One of the analysts shifted in their chair. ”Blackwood filed an initial damage report, but they haven’t pushed for extradition or prosecution.”

”That’s because Lucian Blackwood hasn’t made any statements regarding the matter,” Hale said. ”And without it, none of their branches will make the first move. They will have to answer the board members and the investors, after all.”

The main screen changed angles. Footage from the destroyed facility played again, slowed down frame by frame. Xavier tearing through infrastructure. Energy surges. Structural collapse. Then the final sequence, the missile striking him mid-air, the impact washing the image in fire and debris.

Hale watched it without blinking. ”That missile should have removed his head,” he said. ”There is no margin for survival at that range.”

The supervisor stepped closer, arms folded. ”We can’t see his face clearly,” she said. ”Blood, dust, thermal distortion. The feed degrades right at the point of impact.”

She tapped a control and froze the frame just before the strike. ”Whatever he did, it put him close enough to the blast to be completely obscured afterward. That doesn’t explain survival, but it explains why we’re missing details.”

Hale glanced at her. ”You think there’s something we’re not seeing.”

”I think we’ve been looking at the wrong part,” she replied. ”Everyone’s focused on the explosion. I want to know what he looked like before it.”

One of the techs frowned. ”The data’s contaminated.”

”Clean it,” the supervisor said. ”Run reconstruction. Strip out blood, debris, heat artifacts. Rebuild the frame as accurately as possible.”

The tech hesitated. ”That’ll take time.”

”Do it anyway,” Hale said. ”If we’re holding someone we don’t understand, the least we can do is see his face clearly.”

Screens shifted as processes started running. Models overlaid the footage. Data crawled across the display as the system began reconstructing the moment before impact.

The reconstruction finished loading with a soft tone, and the main screen refreshed.

The supervisor stared at it for a second too long.

Then she stood up so fast her chair slid back and bumped into the console behind her.

”No...” she said. ”No way!”

”What happened?” Hale asked with a confused and concerned look on his face.

She pointed at the screen like it might disappear if she didn’t keep her finger on it. ”That’s him. That’s Xavier.”

Hale closed his eyes.

For a moment, he didn’t say anything. He just stood there, breathing, like a man deciding whether it was worth explaining gravity to people who kept throwing themselves off cliffs.

Then he opened his eyes and looked at the supervisor.

For a few seconds, his face went completely blank, like his brain had stepped out of the room to scream into the void. In his head, the questions stacked up one after another.

’Is she stupid?

Or is everyone stupid?

Did I say his name too quietly?

Did no one listen?

Do I need to start sending memos with pictures and arrows?

Do I look like someone who uses random names for fun?

Have I been speaking a different language this entire week?

Was I talking to walls?

Do walls retain information better than my staff?

Am I the problem?

No. I am not the problem.’

He blinked once, slowly, like a man rebooting.

Then he opened his mouth.

”Is this a joke,” he said flatly.

She blinked. ”Sir—”

”Because I have been calling him Xavier,” Hale continued. ”Out loud. Repeatedly. For over a week. In meetings. In reports. In front of all of you.”

No one spoke.

”I didn’t pick the name out of a hat,” Hale went on. ”I didn’t say it for fun. I wasn’t being poetic. I wasn’t using a codename.”

He gestured at the screen. ”That Xavier. The one with the streams. The games. The following is so large it crashes servers when he sneezes.”

He gestured sharply at the screen. ”That Xavier.”

The supervisor frowned. ”Sir, there are hundreds of thousands of people named Xavier across the universe. It could’ve been anyone.”

Hale stared at her again.

Then he sighed, long and tired, the kind of sigh that came from a man realizing he was surrounded by professionals who somehow missed the obvious.

Then he rubbed his face and laughed once, sharp and humorless. ”Right. Of course. My mistake. I should’ve specified theXavier. The one whose fans have doxxed military contractors for changing a patch note they didn’t like.”

Hale started pacing. ”Do you have any idea what happens if this gets out,” he said, ”that we arrested him for suspected terrorism without a finalized chargesheet.”

One of the analysts shifted. ”Sir, this facility is classified—”

”They will not care,” Hale snapped. ”They will care that he stopped streaming. They will care that his account went dark. They will care that someone clipped footage of him bleeding on Jupiter.”

He stopped pacing and turned back to the room. ”And when they care, they dig.”

”If word spreads,” Hale continued, ”we don’t get protests. We get raids. Digital, legal, financial. We get lawyers crawling through our systems like ants. We get public pressure from planets that don’t even have jurisdiction here.”

He exhaled hard. ”And that’s before you factor in the part where he survived a missile to the face.”

The supervisor swallowed. ”So... what do we do?”

Hale looked back at the screen, at Xavier’s reconstructed face frozen a second before impact.

”We stop pretending he’s just another inmate,” he said. ”And we start figuring out how to let him walk out of here without turning this place into a headline.”

He paused, then added, dryly, ”Preferably before his fans decide to liberate him themselves.”

”But sir... he is indeed a terrorist...” a member commented. ”He is a criminal. We can’t let him walk free just because he is famous.”

The supervisor turned to the member and glared at him.

”He is not a criminal. I am sure he has his reasons. And maybe he was there at the facility and someone got mixed in the attack. I am sure he is innocent. And didn’t we also find the Space Corps emblem with him? Criminals don’t have that, you know?!”

The room stayed quiet as the implication settled in.

Hale, however, thought to himself. ’Holy shit! We have a fangirl here. I should probably redact the name of the officer who shot a missile at Xavier’s face. Who knows what she might do to him.’

Somewhere in the prison, Xavier went about his day, completely unaware that the most dangerous thing he’d brought with him wasn’t his strength, his plans, or the treasure he was hunting.

It was his name.