The inside of Daye Bendal's small shop was hot and dark at all hours of the day. With only a front entrance, no windows and poor interior lighting, it took a few moments at the very least to adjust one's sight after coming in from B'wynn's bright daylight. Lara felt a sense of dread enveloping her this time during the moments that her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dim. The seconds felt much longer than ever before and as her vision corrected, the gruesome scene she saw made her almost wish it hadn't.

The burning smell of recent blaster fire and acrid smoke permeated the inside of the shop. Worse, the wretched odor of cauterized flesh hung heavy in the air making Lara have to put forth a mighty effort not to heave up her recent drink. She made a quick survey of the entire room noticing tables and chairs overturned, multiple scorch marks randomly scattered on the floor and the walls, and worst of all she counted seven dead patrons strewn about the room.

Before she could further process the carnage, Lara glanced towards the main counter. What she saw caused a lump of ice to form in her gut.

"DAYE-!", she screamed out in anguish.

Lara's friend, the owner and the only current survivor of the chaos was being propped up from behind by the Weequay in Xirane's gang and had seemingly been struck in the head and face multiple times. The skin on one cheek was distorted and already turning purple. Above one of his eye sockets was a large gash and the eye had swollen shut. His dark hair messed and matted with blood, he looked like he would be fading out of consciousness very soon. As beaten as he was, though, Daye still had an air of defiance with his head raised and his chin up.

Every member of Xirane's group quickly turned in Lara's direction at the sound of her voice and the Battledroid reflexively aimed the massive cannon in its left arm directly at her head. Xirane focused his attention on her, began to walk towards her and then spoke.

"You really don't know when to quit and move on, do you human?", he sneered through a grin that was widening the more he stared at Lara.

"What have you done to him?", she shouted in anguish. "Why are you doing this?"

"These people here have done nothing to you.", she continued.

The Falleen continued to smile at Lara as he holstered his weapon while continuing to walk towards her with a slow, smug gait. He looked like a slithering predator, his yellow lizard-like eyes glowing like hot coals as he got closer. By now, the other goons had trained their blasters on Lara like their Droid companion had done a few seconds ago.

"Since one of the deadbeats taking care of the bets in this place decided that the odds had changed since we were here earlier, I decided that we would relieve him of his further responsibilities and collect what we were owed along with a little more for all our trouble." Xirane explained as he pointed to the slumped body of an employee on the far side of the room.

"We can't have anyone think that they can just cheat us and get away with it, can we?", he continued.

This drew hearty laughs from around the shop interior, but the Falleen raised a hand motioning for his crew to stop as he drew to within about three paces of the girl.

Lara could feel anger brewing from deep inside but she knew that if she let it control her emotions, she would be just another corpse laying on the floor within no time. She was not about to let these animals get away with what they had done, but she was outnumbered and outgunned so she had to be sharp and focused if she stood any chance of ending this standoff and surviving it.

"If you value your life, don't take a single step closer to me", Lara demanded with a coldness of emotion that made Xirane's creepy grin vanish.

"You have tried my patience long en-", he started to reply, but before he could finish the sentence, she barked out a second request.

"You are ALSO going to tell your mummified friend to take his hands off that man over there.", she said calmly pointing to Daye. "AND you are all going to leave here and not come back. Is that understood?"

"Lara, don't waste your time trying to reason with them.", came a tired sounding voice from across the room. It was Daye.

"Get out of here while you are still able.", he murmured as best as he could with a beaten and broken face. "I'll be ok."

When Daye finished speaking, the alien raider behind him violently hammered the butt of his blaster into the back of his skull causing him to rock forward and nearly tumble. A fresh gash opened in his head and sprayed blood all over the counter behind which they were standing. Daye, however, refused to buckle, remarkably remaining upright and spitting a gob of blood in the direction of Xirane with the same defiance he had shown before. Lara unconsciously reacted by taking a hard stride towards her friend, but before she could make a second step Xirane shouted loudly.

"ENOUGH OF THIS-!", he bellowed, causing everyone in the room, including Lara, to freeze.

"Do as she requests….let the man go.", Xirane continued. "He is of no use to us anymore. We have all that we need now. Grab any last things you want and move out."

Lara immediately heard low grumblings from the group of thugs, but they lowered their blasters and began scooping up their ill-begotten loot just as their leader had ordered. Even the stoic Battledroid lowered the weapon built into its massive metal arm and seemed at ease, although she knew it was no more capable of relaxing then a planet was able to reverse its orbital course around a star.

When Lara saw that Daye was finally free of the Weequay's grasp, she hurried in her friend's direction so that she could steady him. Hopefully she could quickly surmise the extent of his injuries and maybe even treat some of them before they became a danger to his life.

I should get BB-8 in here to help me, she thought as she reached the main shop counter behind which Daye was currently leaning and supporting himself.

Before she could formulate another thought, however, her world exploded. Lara heard the metallic twang of blaster fire from behind her and a bolt blew by her shoulder so close it almost singed her clothes. Ahead of her, Daye immediately slumped forward and fell face first onto the counter with a sickening thud.

Lara quickly whipped around to glance back toward Xirane noticing that the predatory grin was back on his face. His weapon was again drawn and pointed in the direction of the shop proprietor with wisps of smoke emanating from the barrel. Fearing the absolute worst, Lara rushed over to her friend hoping against hope that it was not too late. As she arrived, though, it was all too clear that her fears had been realized. She saw that the blaster bolt had left a gigantic grotesque gash on Daye's entire right midsection. It looked like some small animal with a bite that could burn flesh and bone on contact decided to chomp down brutally on the man.

"Daye…hang in there.", Lara pleaded, very close to tears. "I'm gonna take care of you. You're going to be all right, I promise."

Daye slowly turned his battered head towards her, meeting her worried gaze. It was readily apparent that he was in extraordinary agony and was not going to last much longer, but he somehow managed to smile at her as he had done so many times since they had met years ago. He tried to speak, but a fit of coughing wracked his body and left him gagging and spitting up blood all over the front of his shirt.

"Don't speak, Daye…..don't.", she pleaded, resting one warm hand on his shoulder and the other on his head to brush his blood soaked hair away from his eyes.

"Lara….go back.", he whispered. "Go back to Him. You are meant for so much more than this."

A tear ran down Lara's cheek as she listened to those words. Years of conflicted emotions were bubbling just below the surface, threatening to rush forward now at the worst possible time. She had to contain them, for her sake and Daye's.

"Put your hand in my shirt pocket and take it.", Daye murmured to her. "Please."

Lara reached into the pocket and felt a small piece of metal. She knew by touch immediately what it was….the Jedi Starfighter token that he had tried to give her before the race. She fished it from his pocket, stared at it in her hand and then folded her fingers tightly around it. Now more hot tears began to flow down her cheeks. She felt him slipping away, but she still had so much to say to him. Before she could compose herself to speak again, however, he tried to say something else to her.

"The Force…"

After an interminably long moment, Lara realized those were the last words Daye Bendal would ever say.

"No…No…NO.", she cried softly through choked back sobs…but it was over. He was gone.

When she finally accepted that Daye was no more, the sorrow that had overtaken Lara's emotional state abruptly ceased and turned to a white-hot rage like someone had flipped the switch on a plasma circuit. She was distantly aware of Xirane loudly shouting something, most likely at her or maybe at his crew, but she couldn't hear the words. She felt things were slowing down around her as she coiled like a krayt dragon, ready to strike at everyone around her with deadly force. She could see the whole room at once, looking at every possible resource and angle that could help her take down these outlanders and make them pay for what they had done here. She spotted a tall metal walking cane on the floor that no doubt belonged to one of the deceased patrons and noticed that one of Xirane's goons was holding his small blaster a little too nonchalantly. Both of these things would do….they would do very nicely.