Jurai paced about the cell furiously. His wings floated around his form gracefully, so much so it was hypnotizing to watch. The Mite was trapped. Backed up against the wall, with his fur on end. There was only one way out. A enticing light that pierced the black abyss that was this prison amidst the desert of Ando. It danced about you, taunting. Convincing you, in it’s own twisted way, to cling to it. If you clung tight enough, it might guide you out.

But Jurai was pondering whether to risk clinging to the light. The light might guide him to an abyss yet darker than the one in which he and his crew resided.

For Jurai, His light was Rav. The strange shape shifter that landed them here in the first place. She insisted, in all of their conversations that she had no choice but to follow the orders of one, “Carson”. From whatever he could milk from her, unless he died, she would have to follow his every whim. Or pain ensued. Pain so incredible only one without a solid form can imagine it.

She claimed that she needed Jurai and his crew here, to help her. If they did, she’d get them out. Out to their ship, and out of The Rulerist base.

The three voices in him raged. One, loudly insisted that Rav was a traitor. And traitors were to be eliminated. But another, louder voice, told him to trust her. Cling to the light. For the Light has to be better than the darkness. And a third voice just sat there. Apathetic, cold, bored. It rarely bothered to lift its message above the melee of noise. Jurai strained to hear it’s take on things, for it tended to be the calmer of the storm.

Jurai let his form fall to the bunk on which he slept. His landing made the bunk sway slightly, and sent rumples into the flat form of his blanket. His bodyguard Reptiloid was deep asleep on the top bunk, his chest, laced erratically with tan and black scales, rose and fell methodically, giving one the feeling that upon the next heave of the lungs, he would pop up and do something.

The Brown and gold Mite buried his head in his hands and waved his left foot back and forth over the thin layer of sand that covered the floor of his ground level cell. His mind was made up. He was going to cling to the light. And he’d start clinging soon. Very soon.
---------------------------

The sand whipped around the small group of aliens as they dispersed in various directions, going about whatever sport they could think of to occupy themselves. Jurai pressed a handkerchief over his nose and mouth in a near futile effort to keep the burning sand out. The Bounty Hunter staggered through the high walled courtyard that the Rulerists set aside for “Convict Recreation”.
With some effort, he made it to the covered bench where Rav sat.

The experiment stared down at her feet, pale face shrouded by her mess of black hair. Jurai’s bones tingled just looking at her. She was one in infinity. She’d told Jurai that her consciousness had been transferred to a new “body” in a lab on earth. It was some sort of silvery liquid alloy, held up by a thin robotic skeleton that used electric pulses to hold her together. Supposedly, she changed her outer appearance by inserting a small diskette into the spine of the skeleton. She’d recounted how Carson held the disks; She became whatever he wished her to be. He usually chose to keep her in her “inhuman” form. Rav had heard him mention that that particular form was molded after a past successful experiment a few years prior to her.

How she found all this out, Jurai didn’t really want to know. Rav had earlier recounted how much she hated Carson. Being his little pet, his assassin, and often, his sex toy.

There are few people in the universe who understand how she feels”, thought Jurai as he sat down on the wooden bench next to her. “Rav.”, started the Mite, staring at his own feet much like she did, “I’ll accept your offer.”

Rav lifted her head slowly, her eyes were red and her cheeks wet. She’d been crying. “5 tomorrow morning. Have your men ready to go.” The experiment stared at her feet again. And at that moment, Jurai understood a little bit of her psyche. Just a little.

Jurai rose to his feet and patted her lightly on her shoulder. “See you then, rav.”

The Mite’s head ached, and he needed a good rest and a good smoke. So Jurai treaded off towards the prison, his right hand swaying back and forth in the air, dancing to some music heard long ago. He was ready to cling to the light now.