Gaping, he turned to the bot, who stood motionless, eyes still red as it shrieked at him. Jaiyra hadn’t even touched his weapon. How dramatic.

Enoch Gris is laughing. It’s a sound as pretty as her crying is and somehow is worse for his headache than the screeching is. Jaiyra set a baleful look on her that she returned with a pointed grin.

“Cerutieth Rai,” she said, sounding far more pleasant than before.

Jaiyra doesn’t have enough time to think up something to spit back out at her about her pitiful height and missing left arm before the thunder began. Wonderful. The stupid bot had alerted the entirety of the Pleiad army that he’d done nothing more than stand there and vaguely reach in the direction of his weapon. The army that had people dead for far less than that.

Shooting the bot in the head three more times than necessary, the Rai took off down the hall, straight into the storm. Wheeling around on his heels, he started the other way, only to find the exact view greeting him. Two cohorts of Pleiad bots were racing towards him on both sides, their lightning staffs sparking excitably, sensing fresh meat for them to dig into. Jaiyra scowled and kicked at the bot who led him there.

Enoch Gris laughed again. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” she mused, crossing her stout legs and staring up with wonder in her eyes.

“Can it,” Jaiyra growled, and then the first bot made contact with his bare fist.

Only half of the crunching sound came from his fist.

“You’re relying too much on your size,” Rai Hela said, clicking her tongue the way she did when Jaiyra did something she didn’t like. “You aren’t going to be small forever, Jaiyra Rai.”

Jaiyra, flat against the ground where his mentor had pinned him with the tip of her staff, glowered up at her. It was the seventeenth time she’d knocked him out in the past hour. He had a short fuse as it was, he couldn’t be blamed for blowing up after being beat up so quickly, again. “You take advantage of your size,” he pointed out with a flash of his tongue.

“Mind your manners,” Rai Hela said, snatching his tongue right before it could go back to the safety of his mouth and pulling it cruelly. Jaiyra choked and his mentor paid him no mind, stepping back from him and waiting impatiently for him to get up. “I’m fully grown. I get to take advantage of my size because there is no more growing for me.

“You on the other hand are not yet a Rai, little kit. There will come a time you could use your strength and broadness, if your bony ass can even become less scrawny–” Jaiyra squawked in complaint, Rai Hela continued. “But until then you will practice our way and try to defeat me like a proper member of the covenant would. Not a street rat from Wruunk.”

Jaiyra wanted to argue that he was still just a street rat from Wruunk, no matter what sort of names they decorated him with when he agreed to board their ship and join their crew. But there was no arguing with Rai Hela.

He lost three thousand and seventy-nine more times before Rai was added to the front of his name rather than the end.

Jaiyra woke up in a cell across from Enoch Gris with not even a billion credits in his pocket.

It takes her five whole minutes of cackling to shut up, when their cellmates shout about shutting up and getting shuteye. Jaiyra crossed his legs and rested his head on his palm, wondering what Rai Hela would say to him now. Seated across from his bounty in a cell of his own, at the mercy of the Pleiad army. She’d probably laugh even harder than Gris.

“Serves you right, Rai!” she sneered at him, practically bursting in her amusement. “Your kind locks so many of us up, it was only a matter of time before–”

Jaiyra shut her out then, collapsing onto his back and closing his eyes. If he waited long enough, and the Pleiad didn’t kill him within the next few days, some Rais’ would come to barter him out. All he would have to do was sit tight and wait.

But how embarrassing would it be to not only have lost six billion in credits, but have to be bailed out of jail at the same time? Rai Hela’s crew would never let him hear the end of it. Especially after all that talk he’d given about being so lucky in claiming Enoch Gris’ bounty before anyone else got their hands on it. Most Rai kept tabs on the Pleiad business these days, wanting to know the best time to book it for Aracia. Most Rai would know about his stupid mistake an how he’d been caught by a handful of bots on a bounty run for a Braus Straus.

There wasn’t an option, he had to break out.

The question that left him with was: how. From what he was aware of, not a soul had ever escaped the Pleiad prison, and those who tried–there were bloody stains of all different species on the floor for a reason. Even more embarrassing than getting bailed off on a failed bounty mission, was being pounded to a pulp the way those creatures were in the cell next to the Daea prince.

Eyes popping open, Jaiyra shot up.

“Have an idea, dumb Rai?” Enoch Gris asked. And though she tried to mask up her hope with disdain, Jaiyra could still hear it and he rolled his eyes in response. If she thought them being celled together suddenly formed a camaraderie between them, she was even more dead wrong than she already was. She was the whole reason he was caged up in the first place. If she hadn’t lost her stupid arm, he would’ve been on his ship heading for a paint job by now.

But she was dead on, he did have an idea. Just not for escaping.

Imagine how much the Pleiad had paid to get the prince in their hands. Now triple it. That’s how much the Daea would pay to get his fairest grace back. Maybe even more with the way the nation fawned over him. That’s how much damage he’d do to the Pleiad’s business. And it was worth far more than a stupid six-billion credit girl.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

There was also the glory of saving the galaxy by emancipating one of the keys, but Rai’s didn’t care for glory. Maybe he could use it as leverage to get more money out of the Daea, though.

But he was jumping ahead of himself. He still didn’t know how he was supposed to escape.

“You have to take responsibility, you know,” Enoch Gris interrupted him again. Jaiyra gawked up at her to find her fat, ugly tears welling up in her eyes again. She jutted one of her two remaining fingers at him accusatory. “I know you have a plan already, you scheming Rai! You’re the reason I’m stuck here! And you didn’t even get paid for it. You have to get me out!”

Why Enoch Gris wanted help from the person who lobbed off her arm not even a few days ago, he couldn’t understand. Just moments ago, she was cheering on Pleiad soldiers as they slammed their electric rods at him. Now she expected him to break her out, after he put her in?

“I don’t have to do anything,” Jaiyra growled back in spite of himself. In the Rai covenants' opinion, he shouldn’t have even deigned her with a response. Rai were supposed to be elusive and mysterious like that, choosy about what they said and when. A silly argument like this was nothing for a Rai to partake in, a silent refusal would’ve been enough. Jaiyra had always struggled with that part of the code though, as hot headed and fiery as he was. Always having to get the last word, even when they weren’t words worth claiming.

Enoch Gris’ lower lip trembled before hardening into a determined frown. “You really think you can escape on your own? You barely made it through half the bots before–”

“I don’t need help from you,” Jaiyra reiterated, a cruel smirk stretching across his face then. “Your five missing teeth would get in my way.”

The blotchiness was back to the Braus Straus’ face, even more so than before. For a moment, Jaiyra thinks that’s the end of it, and returns to thinking about how he was to escape, but then she speaks again just as he’s considering the likelihood of being able to squeeze himself between the bars (not very). Her voice is quieter, but more insistent than before.

“You Rai have to help someone in need if they’re willing to pay,” Enoch Gris said. “I used to know a Rai who told me that it's part of your covenant. It’s why you bounty hunt and monster hunt instead of smuggle and traffic.”

True. Horribly, annoyingly true. Too many times Jaiyra had completed a mission and started back to his ship for some poor, scrawny child to run up to him teary-eyed and hold up a single bronze coin to him, blubbering about needing help as though he was a walking charity case. Which, again, according to the covenant, he was in a sense. As long as someone had a means of payment, he would fight monsters ravenging towns, find bounties and bring them in, kill and maim. Even if that someone was just a child who only had a few measly cents in her hand. He would be under her service until the task was done and the payment was made.

Jaiyra tended to avoid unnecessary contact with all beings for this very reason, dodging annoying favors for way too small payment. And the second he handed a bounty over and received the allotted credits, he would leave, not wanting the bounty to call for help the way Enoch was now. Glaring at the Braus Straus, he said, “So-”

“So, I will pay you everything if you get me out of here Rai,” Enoch Gris interrupted. Tacking on an annoying and unnecessary, “Even though you should be doing it for free since you brought me here.”

Jaiyra wanted to dig his eyes out. Technically, he could get away with plugging his ears and pretending he hadn’t heard her offer of payment. But Rai Hela had gotten after him enough times for doing so that it wouldn’t feel right. He’d sworn on the covenant to follow the rules, and so he would follow the rules. Rai were “reverend” and “honorable” after all (depending on who you asked at least).

Refraining from pulling them from his sockets, Jaiyra rolled his eyes instead. Pushing up on his hands and elbows, he raised an eyebrow at her. Since he was stuck with her for the next however long it took to break out, he might as well sate his curiosity. “Why are you here?”

“Because you—“

“What did you do to put the bounty that high on your back?” Jaiyra changed the question, staring expectantly at the girl. “You were wanted alive. They cared about your missing teeth. You know so much about the Rai, you must know that’s practically unheard of for a bounty.”

Only two other times had Jaiyra had a bounty in which the person was required alive, and neither had minded when Jaiyra dropped them off with missing teeth or limbs. Both had understandably been Daea, prices for them were always slightly higher and handled with more care. One had murdered an entire town’s population for whatever sick reasoning, and the second had stolen from the Daeadem first moon. Enoch Gris wasn’t Daea, so she must’ve done something equally as horrible.

Enoch Gris turned her head to the side with a huff. “That’s not your business, nasty—“

“Tell me what you did and I’ll get you out of here.” It wasn’t as though he had a choice in the matter, but she wasn’t entirely sure of that still, going wide-eyed and turning back immediately to face him. Jaiyra offered her a hard look in response.

After a few moments of tense silence, the Braus Straus conceded. Nodding slowly, she leaned forward to glance down the hallway before dropping her voice into a whisper. Her words were barely a breath of air, but unmistakable nonetheless. “The safety of the galaxy relies on me getting out.”

Jaiyra snorted.

Enoch Gris looked offended.

“Okay, now what is it really?” Jaiyra said, rolling his eyes again at the antics of the small being. The safety of the galaxy relying on a Braus Straus? He could laugh. If all their hope rested in something so tiny, they might as well say their prayers now.

Enoch Gris glowered. “I’m serious.”

“And I’m Rai Jaiyra; cut the bullshit–”

“I have the coordinates to the second key of Dies Irae.”

Jairya choked.

The Daea prince being in Pleiad hands was bad enough, but the second key being located so quickly? Jaiyra assumed he had time before the whole galaxy was blown to bits. Braus Straus were nothing much, but they could be crafty when they wanted to. Their key should’ve been unreachable, with no one aware of where he was hiding out. No Rai hunting for a million-dollar bounty should’ve been able to find him, no Pleiad soldier looking for the destruction of life as they knew it should’ve either.

Then again, somehow, they’d gotten their hands on an untouchable prince.

“Fuck,” Jaiyra said, emphatically. He’d turned in the coordinates to the last destination the Pleiad needed to hit before they blew up the galaxy. The Rai had known business was shutting down in Prioxis, but he doubted anyone expected it to be within the next few days.

He would shoot Enoch Gris if he still had his weapons on him.

“Regret turning me in now?” the Braus Straus said expectantly, crossing her arms. Curling her lip, she continued. “I know you Rai make it a point not to care for anyone in this galaxy but yourself and your wallets, but we’re all going to die because you turned me in.”

That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t like the Pleiads ever put a reason for why they needed to take someone hostage, and it wasn’t like Enoch Gris didn’t have any responsibility in all of this. She should’ve just let Jaiyra kill her earlier, saving her the intensive torture session where she’d be forced to hold her tongue until she was slowly carved, peeled, burned–whatever the Pleiad did these days–to death. Plus, another Rai had turned in the Daea prince, and everyone knew what turning the Daea prince in meant. At least he wasn’t that guy.

“Just don’t tell them,” Jaiyra reasoned, crossing his arms and deflecting responsibility as easily as he always did. “I’m not really seeing how it’s my fault that you’d let such valuable information be tortured out of you.”

Jaiyra was becoming really tired of Enoch Gris’ glower.

“I know his coordinates for a reason, you imbecile! I have an important message that only I must give him, which means I must get out of here to give it to him without being tortured to death and potentially giving up the coordinates to the galaxy’s final hope!” she exploded. But Jaiyra still was struggling to understand how any of that fell on to him.

“Sounds like a serious problem. But not my serious problem,” he said, sympathetically.

Enoch Gris screamed into the palms of her hand. Jaiyra stared blankly.

After a few seconds of ragged breathing, in which the Rai went back to considering the best way to escape an impenetrable prison, she was finally calmed down enough to use her big girl words again. “Will you help me or not!”

Rai Jaiyra let the silence hang in the air, building tension for a few heart-hammering moments. Despite her indignation, Enoch Gris looked genuinely fearful of his answer, anticipating the worst in the clench of her fist and tight shut of her eyes.

“You offered payment. I have to help you,” he said. And then, just to be an asshole, “No matter what.”

Enoch Gris cursed a storm.