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Fahdah awakened, and knew she had to be dead because there was no more pain. There was nothing. Just darkness, and the thin whisper of cool air touching her cheek. Not the afterlife she'd expected. Not the gardens of Jannah, not the fires of Jahannam, but... nothing.

I am Nothing, she thought. She had been judged, and found wanting, not even deserving further torment. Just... nothing.

"Fahdah, are you awake?" she heard a voice ask softly. And that was wrong, because it was Ali-Kat's voice, and of all the souls she'd known in her life, Ali's was the one who surely deserved to be granted entry into Heaven, to finally be given rest after a life of torment.

"Ali-kat?" With a tremendous effort Fahdah opened her eyes, to find that Hell was a sterile hospital room, and that her naked, near skeletal body was floating in midair, pierced by what seemed to be a half-dozen tubes in her arms and chest. A very distant part of her thought, shouldn't that hurt? "Ali-kat, are you dead?" she asked woozily.

"No, Fahdah," Ali-Kat said patiently. "Like I said before, I'm alive and so are you. It's been three days since we rescued you. Do you remember?" The young foxen girl was dressed in a skirt and blue blouse, and a black waistcoat embroidered in silver, so different from the dirty, sweat stained fatigues she'd worn during her time aboard the Relentless. Also very different was the look on her face. It was quiet, concerned, alive in a way that had been stomped out by her addiction and growing madness when Ali-Kat had been under Bloody Margo's command.

Margo!

"Margo! Where is Lady Margo?" Fahdah demanded, her eyes darting around the room in panic. She had to get up, she had to run before it was too late, but her traitorous body refused to move. Fahdah searched for the controlling tentacle of the ardalian, but she couldn't see it. If she was free of the ardalian's control, if she could finally speak, why couldn't she move?

"Margo isn't here, Fahdah," Ali-Kat said. Her paw rested on Fahdah's hand, but the wazagan couldn't feel it. "She's about twelve light years away, in solitary confinement in a Stellar Patrol detention center." A smile rose on Ali-Kat's lips, exposing her fangs briefly. "Right now, there's an argument going on between at least six planetary governments over who gets ultimate custody of her, and whether she's going to be imprisoned for life or executed."

"Lady Margo is in prison?" Fahdah asked, feeling lightheaded. "And... how... You're alive, how can you be alive? You were on the Pain Frame." She remembered that part. Ali-kat, gut shot, fur shaved bare, dragged over to the Pain Frame mounted in the center of Bloody Margo's base. Fahdah could still feel the horrible sensation of dread as she saw the wounded foxen girl, dying in the cold rain. Then Margo had gestured sharply to the wazagan, a cruel smile on her face, her unspoken order clear. Hang your old friend on the frame. Show you're still loyal to me. And slowly Fahdah had shuffled forward, to pick up little Ali-Kat's broken body in her arms. She had known Bloody Margo was watching her every move, but the urge to wrap her large hand around the little foxen girl's neck and twist it, to finally put an end to Ali-Kat's suffering, had been overwhelming. She'd thought the worst that could happen was that she'd die.

Fahdah had been so wrong.

"Lady Sallivera, the noble Margo had been hired to kidnap, whom I was protecting, rescued me off the frame," Ali-Kat explained. "We managed to escape long enough for the Red Vixen to find us."

"The Red Vixen?" Fahdah asked, still confused. "The foxen pirate who uses stunners, who killed First Officer Compton?"

"Yeah," Ali-Kat confirmed. "Remember that raid on the refueling post from twelve years back, the one that wiped out all of B Squad? That was her base. I was wounded but survived, and the Red Vixen took me in as a... well, slave, until I could put my head together."

She wasn't tracking this properly. 'You were alive this whole time. You lived through the Pain Frame," Fahdah said.

"Yes," Ali-Kat confirmed. She lowered her head, ears turned back in distress. "Fahdah, I'm so sorry. I didn't know about the ardalian. I thought... I thought you were probably dead already. If I had known you were alive, if I'd known what Margo had done to you, I swear I would have rescued you. I didn't know."

"Alhamdu Lillah, it is all right," Fahdah croaked, her throat suddenly feeling dry. "It is what I deserved."

"Deserved?" Ali-Kat incredulously. "Nobody deserves what happened to you, Fahdah." She paused, then corrected herself. "Okay, maybe Margo and Compton." Another pause. "And Sgt. Jack."

"And me," Fahdah said. "I have not lived a righteous life, Ali-Kat. Many have suffered and died at my hands. This was my punishment. Part of my punishment." She gathered in another breath. "How are they going to do it?"

"Do what?" Ali-Kat asked.

"Execute me."

"What? No one is going to execute you, Fahdah!" Ali-Kat declared.

Fahdah was confused again, and so very tired. "It's a just punishment. It's the only punishment." She paused. "I'm paralyzed, am I not?"

"Yeah," Ali-Kat confirmed. She gnawed her lip between her fangs briefly. "The ardalian's nerve thorns were in your spine for two years, Fahdah. Everything there between the base of your neck and your tail is pretty much destroyed." She gestured helplessly to the machines along the wall, their tubes running through Fahdah's body. Breathing for her, pumping her blood, consuming her wastes. Keeping her alive until it was time for her final judgment before her Creator.

"They aren't going to waste money placing me in a prison cell with these machines, Ali-Kat," Fahdah said gently.

"No," Ali-Kat said. "Listen, Fahdah. You won't be executed. Lady Salli and I are engaged. Her family laid claim on this world, and Salli is its governor general. She's negotiating with Stellar Law to have you be sentenced to a life of indenture." She laid a paw on Fadah's bare shoulder. "We're going to have your spine repaired. Put in artificial nerves and a bypass processor so you'll be able to move on your own, without pain. You won't be free, but you'll be under Salli and I's protection on Greenholme. No one is ever going to hurt you again, and you won't have to hurt anyone just to survive."

It was too much, it was all too much. Fahdah could feel nothing below her neck, but she felt the hot tears running down her cheeks, as she desperately asked, "Why?"

"Because you were, are, always will be, my friend, Fahdah," Ali-Kat said gently. "You were my protector, when we were both trapped in Margo's world, a world without mercy. You didn't have to do that, but you did anyway. I never forgot that. Even in my darkest days, even when I cursed you for keeping me alive while we served Margo, I didn't forget that."

"But, but..." I don't deserve this.

"Fahdah," Ali-Kat continued, in that same gentle tone. "Your God is not my Goddess. Their ways are very different, and sometimes I don't know if I believe in either of them anyway. But one thing they do have in common is the value of Mercy, freely given and without expectation of reward. Would you refuse the mercy that I and Lady Salli offer you?"

"But I don't deserve it," Fahdah finally said aloud.

Ali-kat's paw reached out to brush the tears from Fahdah's cheek. "That isn't your call to make. And I think the ones who believe they deserve it the least, need it the most."

Fahdah just closed her eyes. "Bismillah, Alrahma'an, Alraheem," she finally said.

"In the name of Allah, The most Gracious, The most Merciful, my sister."

The End