With the admission that we were all planning on leaving the guard together after the tournament had concluded, we downed our drinks and began to relax. There was still a sombre mood about the four of us, but our spirits had been lifted somewhat by the news that we would all be sticking together no matter what. There was something that I didn't quite understand, though. 

"If we're going to be leaving the Guard, how are we going to get off-world? Don't we need a ship or something?" I asked the group. 

Fal rolled her eyes at me, clearly, I'd forgotten some key piece of information. 

"My Dad used to work on old colony ships, remember?" She said, "We're going to charter our way off-world, and then head straight to my Dad's shipyard. If we explain it to him, he'll let us convert one of his ships into something more appropriate for our use." 

It sounded like a good plan on paper, a nice and easy way to get us off the ground and started on our journey when this was all over and done with. I liked it. 

"Anyway, as nice as sitting around with you three is, I think I need to just… be alone for a while before tomorrow," Fal went on, a hint of her grief filtering back through into her pupils. "Thanks for the drinks, and for agreeing to leave the Guard with me… it means a lot." 

"Of course, I think I speak for all of us when I say we wouldn't abandon you after everything we've been through over the past week," I said in return. She gave us all a watery smile, and left before the tears could break once again. 

As we watched her leave I couldn't help be worried about the Lyrin. She had lost her husband, something that would mean much more to one of her species than a human relationship due to the mental connection between her and her partner, and now she was willing to throw everything she had worked to accomplish in the Guard over the past decade away to go on an interplanetary joy ride with three people she had only just met. 

I wasn't going to say no to the boon of a free spaceship, it just made me wonder if her mental state was entirely all there at the moment. 

"You look troubled, Jacob Lyre," Yr'Arl said as Fal left our line of sight entirely. 

"Just worried about her, that's all," I said, turning my attention to the two aliens that were still sitting around the table with me. "She's lost a lot, perhaps more than I'll ever be able to understand. I'm just hoping she doesn't do anything stupid tonight." 

"From with I know of Fal, from what her husband told me before he was mutilated by the insane Lara, she is a strong woman who will not be so easily broken," Akash reassured me. "If anything, this will just strengthen her resolve to fight back against the one who has wronged her. I doubt Fal will stop until her revenge has been enacted."

That did make me feel a little better, on one hand, on the other it made me worry for an entirely different set of reasons. 

Would the Lyrin be able to keep her cool when we ended up facing off against Lara and her army of hybrids? Especially if she had used the knowledge from harvesting part of Pax's brain to get some strategic edge? I wouldn't have been able to keep my cool if I were in that sort of a situation, that was for sure. 

"You seem to have healed well, Akash of The Eldrani," Yr'Arl said, changing the topic of the conversation. 

Akash flexed his arm, the one that had been regrown, and chuckled to himself. 

"My kind can regenerate their bodies incredibly well if the resources are given to them," He said. "I believe that is what Lara was attempting to take from me during her experiments, she was quite insistent on only giving me just enough wood to regenerate enough biomass for her to harvest more." 

I couldn't keep myself from shuddering at that revelation. I had figured that Akash had been damaged in some sort of a fight with Lara, not that she had been continually hacking off parts of his body to fuel her ongoing experiments. It was sickening, the depths that the woman would stoop to. 

"I take it that means you're resolute on stopping her as well?" I asked. 

Akash fixed the gaze of his bulbous black eyes directly on me, "If you or Fal are unable to end the mad woman's life, then I shall do so myself. She will not be given second chances, damn the consequences from the Director of the Guard. She has done too much to be forgiven, and she must die," he seethed. 

I hadn't seen Akash this worked up since the first time he had met me and realised that I was a human. At least I didn't have to worry about any of my team getting cold feet in the middle of our fight, I was quite sure that all four of us would fight right down to the wire if we had to. 

<That goes for you too, does it?> BB asked, he sounded like he couldn't believe that I would go so far. 

It did go for me too, though. 

When I had first met her I had thought Lara was a good person. I believed in her, and I had thought that helping her fight against the Null Space Invader would have been a good thing. 

Instead, I could have stopped all of this before it had started if I had just realised that I was being played for a fool. 

It may have been a little stupid of me, but I felt a degree of responsibility toward everything that had happened so far. 

"Akash… I'm sorry to do this to you," I said, unsure of how to broach the subject I was about to bring up. "But we need to know everything about your time with Lara. Anything you know, anything that you experienced, might come in handy when we're fighting against Lara and her army. Can you tell us about your time in captivity?" 

Akash's shoulders slumped and he leaned further back in his chair. 

"I had expected you to ask about this," he said, "And as painful as it may be, yes, I shall tell you what I experienced."