Read Novel Full Chapter 695: What If?
Chapter 695: What If?
The Titanium Eagle touched down inside the towering, rust-red chasm of Valles Marineris with a soft, frictionless landing. As the landing gear locked into the Martian dust, the group erupted into cheers, clapping Matt on the back before making their way down to the suit bay.
They quickly pulled on their streamlined vacuum suits, adjusting the lightweight, carbon-nanotube frames over their clothes. Everyone dressed except Yanxia—at her current tier of cultivation, the freezing Martian atmosphere and thin air held nothing that could touch her, so she saw no need for a suit.
Moments later, the boarding platform extended down onto the ancient red soil.
They descended together onto the surface of Mars, taking in the sweeping ochre ridges stretching out toward the horizon. Smiles were hidden behind polarized viewports as their boots sank slightly into the fine dust. Even though this was their second time stepping onto the red planet, the sheer reality of it still felt completely surreal.
Without warning, Yanxia shot forward like a golden streak, skimming low over the ground and raising a thin, graceful plume of crimson dust behind her as she effortlessly flew across the canyon floor.
The rest of the group chuckled, taking light, low-gravity bounds across the terrain, chatting over their shared comms frequency.
"Guys... am I the only one who’s still completely stuck on seeing Liam sitting cross-legged in open space on our way here?" Alex asked, his voice echoing through their helmets. "In nothing but his casual clothes, just drifting in the dark?"
"You’re definitely not," Matt said with a light laugh. "If the FTL flight hadn’t been so fast, I would’ve spent the entire trip sitting in total silence just processing that visual."
"Right? That isn’t something your brain just gets used to," Stacy admitted, looking up at the dusty pink sky. "Every time we think we understand what he’s capable of, he finds a new way to shock us. I don’t think we’ll ever truly get used to it."
"Okay... I’ve got an absurd idea," Harper chimed in, pausing his low-gravity bounds. "And I honestly don’t know how you guys are going to take it."
"Spill it already, Harper," Matt and Alex said in near-unison.
Harper turned toward them, his helmet reflecting the Martian ridge. "What if one of us—or all of us—started a livestream right now on LucidNet? And casually parked Matt’s shuttle right in the background?"
"Are you completely out of your mind, Harper?" Stacy asked, her voice sharp with instant shock through the comms. "Do you hear what you’re saying?"
"I do, I do. Hear me out before you throw me down a canyon," Harper said, holding up his gloved hands. "Think about it for a second. The world already knows who we are. Every single detail about us has been analyzed to even the smallest hair, which was the whole reason he hosted that fifty-one-minute livestream in the first place, warning global powers and the public to think before they act against his friends."
He took a step forward in the red dust. "Every one of us has hundreds of millions of followers on LucidNet without ever having posted a single video. We’re not hurting for reach or clout. We don’t need to do it for attention."
"Then what is the point, Harper?" Stacy pressed, her tone softening slightly with genuine curiosity. "If it isn’t about clout, and it isn’t about showing our faces, why do it?"
"That’s exactly why," Harper answered passionately. "We don’t show our faces. We keep our viewports polarized. We don’t talk to the chat, and we don’t give away sensitive telemetry. But imagine the psychological impact on Earth when six billion people tune in and see Liam’s core group live on Mars, casually hanging out next to a non-governmental, civilian-class starship that no nation on Earth could build in a hundred years."
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle across the comms. "It isn’t about popularity. It’s about what Liam said we meant to him on that stream. He stood up in front of the entire planet and declared us off-limits to every intelligence agency and government on Earth. He’s out there carrying the entire burden alone—building space cities, fighting shadow organizations, and handling universal decay—while we just stand behind him and watch. I think it’s time we used our platform to stand beside him."
The comms went completely silent for a long moment. Only the faint, steady rhythm of their breathing filled the headsets as the group looked at one another against the Martian backdrop.
"And if the world reads it as us picking a side?" Stacy asked quietly, her gaze fixed on Harper’s visor. "If they see it as Liam’s inner circle making an official statement... have you thought about what kind of pressure that places on us? On him?"
A heavy silence stretched across the red canyon floor before Matt finally spoke, his voice grounded and thoughtful.
"She’s right to ask." He looked at Harper, not to challenge him, but with the quiet understanding of a brother. "I’ve been wrestling with it too. But the truth is, the pressure landed the second Liam was exposed as the second richest person in the world.
We aren’t choosing whether or not we’re exposed—that ship sailed on the livestream. The only choice left is whether we stay hidden behind him like protected assets, or stand where everyone can see we chose to be here."
"That’s the core of it," Kristopher chimed in, leaning against the hull of the Titanium Eagle as he looked out across the sweeping ridges of Valles Marineris. "Silence isn’t neutral for us anymore.
Every day we say nothing, it projects a very specific image—that we’re sheltered, kept, hidden behind his power like fragile cargo he has to guard. Broadcasting doesn’t mean we’re seeking clout. It shows the world we aren’t being hidden away. We’re standing here by choice, completely unbothered."
"You’re both dodging what I actually asked," Stacy said gently, her tone measured rather than sharp. "I know we’re exposed. I’m asking what this move does to Liam.
There’s a massive psychological difference between Earth knowing his inner circle exists and Earth watching that same inner circle execute a coordinated, live broadcast from the surface of Mars.
The first is a static fact. The second looks like an organized strategy. And the second intelligence directors think it’s a strategy, every government sitting on its hands is going to start hunting for the motive."
"Let them hunt," Alex countered cleanly. "What are they going to find? Eight friends standing on a red planet next to a starship, saying nothing, giving away zero telemetry, and doing nothing aggressive. There’s no strategic puzzle to decode. Keeping our viewports polarized and keeping our mouths shut gives them nothing to analyze. How do you construct a threat out of eight people just standing in the quiet?"
"They’ll invent one," Stacy replied quietly. "They invent one every time he breathes."
"Then they were always going to," Harper said softly, stepping closer. "That’s the reality we have to accept. Their paranoia doesn’t wait for a valid reason; it feeds on its own fear. The question isn’t whether we hand them an excuse, because they’ll manufacture one regardless. The real question is whether Liam has to shoulder every ounce of this global weight alone, or if we show the world he doesn’t have to."
Kristy spoke up, her voice slow and analytical as she unraveled the thought. "There’s a version of this that supports him, and a version that damages him, and the line between them is paper-thin. If Earth reads this as a show of force—Liam’s inner circle flexing off-world muscle from Mars—it frames him as a political faction. A warlord with an army. That’s dangerous. That’s the exact narrative his enemies are desperate to push."
She turned, meeting the eyes of the group. "But if it reads as what it actually is—a group of close friends who refuse to hide in the shadows while he carries the cosmos—it does the exact opposite. It humanizes him. It humanizes us. It is infinitely harder for state propaganda to demonize a man supported by friends standing in the open than it is to vilify an isolated, untouchable entity in the dark. Framing is everything."
"So the framing has to be minimal," Matt caught on immediately, a sharp nod following the realization. "No grand speeches. No political defiance. No drama. Just us, being completely ordinary in an extraordinary place."
"Which is the only genuine version of this anyway," Harper admitted, a faint smile breaking through his serious expression. "I never wanted a manifesto. I just wanted the world to see us wave."
Stacy remained still for a long moment before asking the heaviest question of all. "And Liam? Does he know? Because there’s a world of difference between standing beside someone and speaking on their behalf without asking. If we go live from Mars and he would have preferred us silent, we’ve made a choice that wasn’t ours to make."
The words landed with heavy weight across the comms. Even Yanxia, who had been hovering quietly a short distance away, turned her golden gaze back toward the group.
"...That’s entirely fair," Harper conceded, his tone softening with genuine humility. "I was so focused on taking the weight off his shoulders that I didn’t stop to think if taking it off was ours to decide."
"It might be the exact opposite of what he wants," Stacy added. "He drew a line around us to keep the world’s games away from our lives. If we step straight into the spotlight on purpose, we’re stepping outside the shield he built for us. From where he’s sitting, that might not look like loyalty—it might look like us throwing away the protection he fought to give us."
"Or," Kristopher offered quietly, looking out over the red Martian expanse, "it shows that we’d rather stand in the storm with him than hide behind his back. That isn’t throwing his protection away. That’s choosing where we stand."
Silence reclaimed the canyon below. The thin Martian wind drifted lazily over the ancient dust, silent and undisturbed, leaving the choice hanging in the quiet void between them.