text: [Themes: sci-fi, serious]
  
  "Lieutenant, calm yourself. That's your fear talking. Fear that was instilled in you by the Empire. Think about it. You of ALL people should want to leave it. You never really wanted to serve anyway did you? You were forced to by your family's tradition. You basically were born into slavery. I'm telling you to break the chains. Be the first one in your family to finally be free."
  
  You words seem to have an effect on LaFleur. He begins to tear up.
  
  "I'm going to do it! You're right! I never wanted to be part of the Empire! Hah! You hear that Dad? I'm not following your footsteps anymore! Hahahahaha! I'm free! I'm fucking free! YEAH!" LaFleur follows up his sudden outburst with a couple of shots to the air.
  
  Unfortunately LaFleur's enthusiasm has attracted some rather interesting predators which immediately reveal themselves by uncamouflaging themselves and savagely biting chunks of flesh out of one of your soldiers!
  
  "Fire!" you shout, and your soldiers obey, the fauna proves to be more difficult than you think though, they resemble snakes with little legs, but are a whole lot quicker and blink in and out of sight. You must be by a nest because they seem endless; you'll lose a lot of people at this rate.
  
  "Back to the river! Destiny awaits!" you shout while you all run back the rafts while firing.
  
  Soon you're on your way again. You shoo away a Slink Slink which is squeaking underfoot. In fact there are a few more of them now. More must've wandered on while you were briefly docked. You can't be concerned about that now. You have other important matters on your mind. You know that the Xont structure must be getting close, and you need to be prepared. You look over at Alyssa who doesn't show it, but you can tell she's still troubled by all this. You walk over to her.
  
  "Alyssa."
  "Sir."
  "You don't need to call me that, you can address me by my name." you say and touch her face. There's that cool feeling again.
  "I...don't know, I don't feel comfortable addressing you as common, you're always going to be the Captain to me."
  "Are you scared of leaving the Empire?"
  "Of course not, my loyalty has always been to you. I'd follow you anywhere. You saved my life, I'm indebted to you but... it's just...never mind."
  
  You make a bold move and put your arms around Alyssa, she doesn't resist, but you see a slight hint of sadness in her face. You wish you could make her see that this will all work out. She will see eventually. You know she will. As you're holding her, you're interrupted again.
  
  "Sir. There's a Lizard village up ahead, should we stop?" Higgins asks
  
  Ah ha! You knew you weren't crazy! The Elojin said there was a Lizard village near the Xont structure, this must be it! You're very close now. Perhaps you should stop though, the Lizards may know something. Besides you're going to eventually unite this planet under your rule, you should start making allies.
  
  > Keep going
  You can't stop now, not when your destination is so close!
  
  "Keep going!" you say. "We'll come back later as gods."
  
  As you pass by the village, a few Lizards see your rafts float by and begin hissing at you, they start throwing spears and shooting arrows! You respond by ordering your team to fire back at them.
  
  More Lizards come pouring out of village to help attack you, to make matters worse they're moving out their own canoe like vessels to reach you! Some are even swimming
  
  "Kill them! Kill them all! Our destiny awaits! Let nothing stop us!" you yell blasting the brains out of some Lizard attempting to board the raft.
  
  You look over to LaFleur's raft, and he's not doing so well. The Lizards have decimated most of them with their well placed arrows and spears and have now completely overwhelmed the few remaining, LaFleur is fighting harder than you've ever since him before. He's like a whole new man.
  
  "You can't kill me you Lizard bastards! Hahahahaha! I'm free!" are LaFleur's last words before falling to the Lizards. You order everyone to fire upon the raft and everything on it, effectively sinking it.
  
  Eventually your own raft drifts far enough away from the village that the attack stops. Your remaining team is in pretty bad shape. Some are dying, and at this point many are completely demoralized. All your Lizard followers are dead. You start looking at your coins again, while more Slink Slinks squeak past you.
  
  "We've survived. This planet is trying to destroy us, but it won't. I will find the Xont ruins, and then we shall smite all those that oppose us. Who's with me?" You say.
  
  Alyssa comes up to you; she's wounded, but still able to walk around. She touches your hand and looks into your eyes.
  
  "Captain?... Let it go." She says.
  
  > let it go
  You look down, fall to your knees and weep. You realize Alyssa is right. This was a fool's quest. There probably isn't a Xont ruin here, and if there is, you aren't anywhere near it. The Elojin might've even given you wrong directions on purpose. You've gotten everyone killed for no good reason. You weren't any better than the Empire.
  "I'm sorry."
  
  Alyssa holds you for awhile, and takes the coins from you and throws them into the river.
  
  "Its okay Captain, it wasn't your fault." She says. As you welcome her cold body next to yours, you collapse from exhaustion.
  
  You drift in an out of consciousness, you know you're moving, but it's like you're being dragged, eventually you fully wake up with all your capabilities. You see Alyssa.
  
  "What's going on? What happened?"
  "You probably shouldn't be up and around yet." Alyssa tells you.
  "But what's happened?"
  "Well after you passed out, me and few of the remaining team members that were still alive, took the raft apart and used some of it to make a stretcher instead, which we put you on. Unfortunately, we got attacked again by some more Lizards. I was the only one who survived, so I had to drag you the rest of the way and abandon the rest of the equipment. I would've gone back for some of it, but I didn't want to leave you alone."
  "Well I'm up now, so we should go back for it, we're going to need what little supplies we have left, because the Empire ships still aren't going to be here for awhile."
  "So we are going back to the Empire?"
  "Well, I can't think of anything else. I mean what's the alternative? Hide and live on this planet?"
  "It's up to you Captain."
  "No, I want to be off this planet as soon as possible. I hate this place and what happened to me. Even facing an Empire tribunal and execution sounds better than spending one more day here."
  "Why would that happen?"
  "Well come on, I was speaking treason before. I shot an Empire Indoctrinator. I'd say I'm in pretty big trouble."
  "Who saw it? Who heard it? I didn't see or hear any of those things. When I told you my loyalty was to you and not the Empire, I meant that Captain."
  
  You realize you nearly lost everything in trying to gain nothing. Alyssa's willingness to say nothing and her loyalty is more than payment for whatever she thinks her debt is to you for saving her life. If anything, you're indebted to her. And even though Alyssa thinks you were under some sort of mind control, you still vow that you'll never act that reckless ever again.
  
  When the Empire ships come, you both back each other up about a story of Elojin ambushes, and hostile Lizard natives everywhere. You suggest there's nothing of any worth on the planet except death. Your superiors nod and decide to bombard the place with mass drivers so nobody else can use it as a secret base of some sort, and you're sent on your next mission where you'll find your new replacements.
  
  You and Alyssa always keep what happened on Paradise a secret, and not just the Xont incident, but the OTHER thing that occurred a few days after the incident.
  
  Well okay maybe the other thing occurred more than a few times, and still occurs from time to time...