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Once Fahdah had dreamed of gold and jewels. Of walking on strange, alien worlds, her body draped in robes of silken finery. Of having power.

Waqur rabbighfir warham wa'anta khayrur rahimeen.

(So say, "Our Lord! Grant us forgiveness and mercy! For You are the Best of those who show mercy.")

The late afternoon sun beat down on her back, as she lifted the crate of tools back onto the ground truck's cargo bed. Any other of the Six Races would have required a small antigrav unit to lift it up. For Fahdah, with her wazagan strength, born on a planet with gravity twice that of this light world, it was unnecessary. Any of the other Six Races would have been sweating in the late summer's heat and humidity, but Fahdah's had evolved in the deserts of their world. If anything it was too cold and damp, making her zip up the patched plastic jacket she always wore outside her quarters.

"Your shift is over. Good work today, Fahdah," the foreman said. He was a Foxen, like the majority of Greenholme's colonists, with a pelt of greyish black fur, in comparison to Fadah's own blue hide, composed of tens of thousands of tiny scales. She'd once spent over a thousand credits on special and arguably illegal oils to make them glisten and shine. These days she was just grateful they hadn't all flaked away, during her two years in Hell.

"Thanks, Boss," she mumbled, ducking her head. She towered over him, a vaguely draconic humanoid two and a half meters tall, while the foreman's muzzle was level with her stomach. Once, she would have laughed and shoved him aside, as she walked proudly down the corridors of the space stations the Relentless docked at, to offload its ill-gotten treasures. Now she ducked her head in gratitude, as the foreman touched a button on his palm comp, letting the monitoring anklet locked around Fahdah's ankle know that she was free to leave the work site.

And she honestly was grateful. Because she was alive, when so many of her comrades were not. Because she was free of the ardalian demon's control, after two years of Hell. Because she was allowed the mercy of penance, when she knew she deserved none.

Ya rabbi lakal hamdu kama yanbaghi lijalali wajhika wa'azeem sultanik.

(Oh my Lord! All grace is due to You, which is befitting to Your glorious presence and Your great sovereignty.)

Fahdah trudged down the road, heading towards her quarters. In theory her time was free from now until mid-evening, when she must return to her home, until she was required to report back to the work site in the morning. In practice she found it better to walk straight back to the cramped little apartment, built for a race smaller than her own, than go out. She hadn't been in the crew that attacked the colony in Lady Margo's final raid three years ago, but everyone here knew she had been a pirate in that evil band once. The good natured and mostly honest foxen had a God that encouraged forgiveness, but there were limits, and Fahdah had moved long past them.

Her palm comp buzzed in her jacket, and Fahdah pulled it. On the screen was displayed the personal seal of Lady Sallivera Darktail, Greenholme's planetary governor. Below it was the simple message, Report to the Governor's Mansion immediately.

She stared at it for a moment, not understanding. She was required to periodically report to the colony's security office as part of her indenture, to make sure she had not attempted to remove her monitoring anklet, and to occasionally answer questions about her career as one of Lady Margo's pirates. She had never once been asked to go to the Governor's Palace. Why would she ever need to go there? Why would she be wanted there?

It took her nearly an hour to reach the mansion, a three story brick building at the center of the capitol, surrounded by an inviting public garden with a mixture of native plants and ones imported from the Foxen homeworld. A foxen family was having a dinner picnic in one corner, the parents looking up in apprehension at Fahdah's approach. She ignored them. She was used to the stares. Used the to the muttered comments behind her back. Why is she here? Why was she granted such mercy?

The guard at the door looked up at her in suspicion as Fahdah approached the front door, noting the monitoring anklet. "What's your business here?" he demanded.

"I don't know," Fahdah admitted. She held up her comp with the message displayed. "I was told to come."

"I'll have to check that," he muttered gruffly, only to snap to attention when the door opened, admitting a small vixen with black and white fur and golden eyes.

"I've got this, Termin," the vixen, Alinadar, told the guard. Alinadar Blacksailor-Darktail, wife and consort to the Governor Vicountess Sallivera Darktail, absolute ruler of this world. Who once, a long time ago, had been just Ali-Kat, a small, frightened, half-crazed foxen child, enslaved to one of the most evil pirates that stalked Allied Worlds space. She had escaped that fate, eventually

Fahdah had never even tried to follow her.

"Ma'am," the guard acknowledged, touching two fingers to his forehead in salute and stepping back.

"Good evening, Fahdah," Alinadar greeted in the wazagan tongue, ushering her inside. The floors were made of native white marble, and clicked under Fahdah's toe claws, making the wazagan painfully aware of how dirty her naked feet were. "Good day today? Your foreman says you've been working hard."

"Yes," Fahdah replied. "I try to work as hard as I can." For a time it had been questionable whether she would even be able to walk again, after two years of having her spinal cord punctured by the ardalian's nerve thorns, before being freed by Lady Melanie, sister-in-law to Governor Darktail. Six months of delicate surgery and artificial nerve replacements had given Fahdah full control of her body again. Medical miracles she knew she did not deserve, but were necessary, so she could properly serve out her punishment; A life sentence of hard labor, in pale recompense for her crimes.

There was one advantage at least. Hard, backbreaking work gave her little time to think. Another undeserved blessing. Balil-laha fa'bod wakum minash-shakireen.

Alinadar began walking down the hallway, and Fadah followed, still wondering why she was here. "Have you eaten yet?" the little vixen asked.

Fahdah shook her head, her grey streaked blue hair flying back and forth in its ponytail. "I was going to eat something when I got home." Cheap reconstituted protein blocks, bought with the food allowance she was given, along with a very small and dearly priced supply of tea from the Blue Desert region of Wazaga Prime. It was the only reminder of home she permitted herself.

"We'll feed you then," Alinadar told her.

"Here?" Fahdah asked, blinking in surprise. "I... suppose I could get something leftover from the kitchens." Real food, from the Governor's kitchens. Truly a blessing!

"Not leftovers," Alinadar corrected gently. She led them to a pair of glazed double doors at the end of the hallway. Fahdah stopped short, seeing that the doors opened out into the mansion's memorial gardens. Trees rose over a circular, brick paved courtyard. At the center was a wrought iron, white washed table, loaded down with a veritable feast of vegetables and succulent meats. And sitting there waiting for them was a thin, spare vixen with a scarred face, wearing an elegant blue dress, whom Fahdah recognized immediately.

The tall wazagan froze, not daring to step closer. "Ali-kat," she asked, shocked enough to forget her manners, and use Alinadar's old nickname from their time aboard the Relentless, "what is going on?"

"The Governor wishes to speak to you," Alinadar answered simply. "Will you refuse her?"

"N-no, but..." Fahdah shook her head again, feeling grubby and dirty and unworthy of this quiet, calm, garden oasis. "Why?" she begged.

"She'll explain. Come along." Alinadar led her out into the garden. Governor Darktail rose smoothly from her seat, smiling, to greet them. She had a pelt of dark brown fur and amber eyes, the right one crossed by three diagonal scars, which had resulted in her old eye being replaced by a cybernetic one, or so Fahdah had heard. Despite that she seemed to exude an air of calm authority, making one not notice the disfigurement.

"Greetings, Fahdah of Clan Sandstone, of the Valley of Soft Grass. Won't you please sit down and eat with us?" Governor Darktail said to Fahdah. The wazagan blinked again in surprise. The last time she'd heard her full name had been at her trial two years ago, and before that, when she had left her homeworld for the last time.

Fahdah sat cross-legged on a wazagan sized cushion in front of the wrought iron table, putting her at eye level with Alinadar and her wife as they sat as well. She felt her nostrils open and saliva form in her mouth, as the delicious smells of a half-dozen native wazagan dishes wafted up from the serving plates. This was made especially for me, she realized. Why?

At the governor's urging, Fahdah washed her palms in a bowl set aside especially for the purpose, and served herself with her hands, both in the wazagan fashion, with the two foxen following suit. She ate slowly, feeling her eyes tear up at the familiar tastes from home. This isn't a foxen meal, and it isn't served in the foxen manner. Governor Darktail's chef had to have studied carefully, to make the dishes so right. Why am I being honored in this way? She dared not ask.

"I've been speaking to Ali," Governor Darktail began, "asking about you, and the time you both spent in Bloody Margo's service."

"Yes?" Fahdah asked cautiously. She wondered if Governor Darktail was seeking information to be used in a trial of one of her old crewmates. Surely that would just require an order for her to speak to a Civil Protection officer, not this elaborate dinner.

"Ali doesn't talk much about that time of her life, for understandable reasons," the governor continued. "But when she does, when she speaks of the brief moments she felt happy and safe, she usually is speaking about you."

"That's... very generous of her," Fahdah said. Too generous.

"I gather, from reading the transcript of your trial, that you were not a very pleasant person, Fahdah of Clan Sandstone," the Governor said. "Perhaps you were not as cruel as some of your fellow pirates, but you were at least willing to turn a blind eye to their actions."

"Cruelty permitted is cruelty perpetuated," Fahdah said softly, feeling her ears and cheeks burn in old shame.

"That sounds like an aphorism."

"I don't know. It might have been. It was something my iman said more than once, at least," she said, then shook her head. "My eyes were more than blind. Better that I had plucked them out, than turn them away." Too late, she should have realized the insult that last statement might have seemed like, to one who had been wounded like the governor. But Lady Darktail made no change in her expression, though Alinadar winced.

"Your acceptance of cruelty did not extend to Ali," the governor noted, ignoring the gaffe.

"She protected me, from the worst of the crew," Alinadar confirmed.

"I did what I could, which wasn't much," Fahdah said.

Governor Darktail cocked her head. "Why do anything at all?"

"Because...," Fahdah began to say, then stopped, not sure how to make Governor Darktail understand. Because she was a small, scared child. Because if I didn't, she would die. And, more selfishly, Because if I did this one good thing, helping Alinadar, it helped me forget all the evil that I had done. Because in helping her, I could lie to myself, and think I was still worthy of God's mercy. She bowed her head down, in silence, but not in prayer. She would not insult God so, with her worthless pleading.

"Why did Bloody Margo hand you over to the ardalian, to become one of its puppets?" Governor Darktail asked, when she failed to answer the other question.

"As I told the judges at my trial, I attempted to disobey Lady Ma'argo's orders."

"Which orders, specifically?" she pressed.

Fahdah paused, glancing guiltily at Alinadar, and then answered, "After Alinadar was captured, Margo tortured her. She was already wounded, dying, but Margo shaved her bare, and hung her on the Pain Frame. It's a torture device Lady Margo had built."

"She knows," Alinadar interjected. "I was still hanging off it when Salli rescued me."

"Oh," Fahdah said. She worried her lip between her teeth briefly. "Margo was very angry at Alinadar. The girl had killed four of her crew, in the service of another pirate. We all thought that she had died in that botched raid on a refueling base we'd found, ten years before. Margo was not happy finding her alive. She... she does not let anyone leave her service. Some get away, sometimes. But they are the ones that learned to hide very well, because the ones she found..." Fahdah shrugged. "Well, you saw Alinadar, as she said."

"So what did you do?" Governor Darktail prodded.

"Margo knew that I had been fond of Alinadar," Fahdah began slowly. "So she ordered me to hold Alinadar still, while the others bound her to the frame. I held her broken body in my hands, and thought, 'If I snap her neck, then it will be over. She will feel no more pain, no more suffering. Margo will have no hold over her.'" She looked over at Governor Darktail, who looked back, her expression closed. "I know you must hate me, for thinking that, about someone you love so dearly."

The governor's paw reached over to grip Alinadar's. "Would it surprise you to know I had a similar thought, when all seemed lost, just before we were rescued by the Red Vixen? Sometimes death, though utterly final, is a mercy. Go on."

"I knew I had to act quickly. So I reached up and put my hand around Alinadar's neck, while the others were securing her. But before I could kill her, Margo shot me with a stunner. She had been watching and waiting you see, knowing that I had been fond of little Ali-Kat." Fahdah felt a shudder run through her, as poisonous memories began to well up in her mind. "When I awakened, I was naked and bound to the altar on the Demon's Island. Margo told me she knew I would do something to help Alinadar. That's why she stunned me, to feed me to the demon, so that any others in her crew that had known Ali-Kat, and might be tempted as well, would think better of it."

"I was in so much pain around then, I never even saw you," Alinadar said, looking upset. "I'm sorry."

"Bismallah," Fahdah said with a shrug. "Better you did not, else you would have wondered had happened to me, afterward."

"True," Alinadar agreed. "What happened, when the ardalian took you?"

Fahdah drew in a deep breath. "I felt the demon's tentacle run up my naked back, and then I felt the most terrible pain in my life. Except I could not scream. My heart and lungs stopped, while it connected itself to my nervous system. Then they started again, and Ma'argo released me from the altar.

"I was the demon's puppet now. I could still think, I could still feel sensations, such as hunger, thirst and pain, but I was no longer in control of my body. I could not move a finger, without the demon pulling its strings. Margo had never fed it a body as strong as mine, so it tested it. The first thing it had me do was kill the weakest puppet that it had. I was made to break their body, tear it into a hundred pieces, and then feed... most of it... into the bay for it to consume. After that..." She took in another shuddering breath, and fell silent again.

As the silence stretched, Governor Darktail said with surprising mildness, "My late husband, Lord Kevinaugh Highglider, raped me on our marriage bed. I had never felt so helpless, so violated, in my entire life. When my brother Rolas was taken as a puppet by your demon, he described it in terms I could well recognize."

"Yes," Fahdah agreed. "Though I could no longer speak, in my mind I begged God to kill me, to grant me release from that Hell. Then I went mad, thinking this was finally the punishment God had intended for me, for my sins. Two years, my mind trapped in a prison built with my own body. Made to do... things... for the demon's amusement. For the punishment I had earned.

"Then the two foxen arrived at the Demon's Island, your brother and his wife. The demon had us push their boat out into the water, trapping them as we were made to hunt them down. I wept at the idea of someone else entering this Hell, but I could not stop it.

"We captured Lord Rolas for the demon, who made him into another puppet. But before we could release him from the altar, one of the other puppets, a kinis who had tried to escape Margo, screamed in agony and fell dead. Then I felt pain, pain as awful as when the demon took me, and collapsed. I began to weep in agony, then in wonder and relief, because I could weep now. The demon no longer controlled me! I was still mad, because soon I saw Alinadar speak to me, and knew she was surely dead, but I was free." Fahdah shut her eyes tight and sobbed, remembering her joy and terror and pain.

"One more question," the governor said, after she'd regained control. "You knew you were going to be punished, if you tried to kill Ali. Killed, or tortured, as you found out. Why take the risk?"

"Because I would have preferred to die, than see Alinadar suffer so," Fadah replied, and wondered why this dark truth felt so light in her chest.

Governor Darktail seemed to consider this for a moment, and then spoke again, "It seems quite unfair to me. To be tortured for two years, to recover and heal, only to face a lifetime of indenture."

"'Unfair'?" Fahdah wiped her eyes and spat on the ground. "Do not speak to me of 'unfair.' Tell that to my victims, the ones whom I hurt or killed, or just turned my face away from when my comrades did the same. Try to tell them how 'unfair' my treatment is now, if you are able to speak to the dead!"

"I was forgiven," Alinadar said, crossing her arms to look at her.

"Oh, Ali-Kat! You were a child!" Fahdah cried. "Enslaved! You had no choice! I was an arrogant youth who thought I knew better than my elders! I turned my back upon my clan and chose the path of sin instead of righteousness! Thirty years of sin did I commit, and no small kindnesses I may have done for you could make up for that! God themself would not forgive me, even if the ardalian demon had kept me as a puppet for a thousand years!"

A new voice spoke up, deep and so familiar that for a moment Fahdah thought she was surely going mad again, saying into the air, "Oh, dear Fahdah. How arrogant you must be, to imagine you can tell God they are not permitted to forgive you."

She froze, as a tall figure appeared at the table, drawing back the folds of the spoofer cloak they had been wearing. A wazagan dressed in the embroidered white robes of a Neuter Priest, their scales the deep purple of the very aged, hair white, smiled down at her. Fahdah felt her heart race, her breathing growing shallow, as her anger fled her, leaving her shaking. "Iman Nidal?" she asked tentatively.

"'Nidal' is fine, dear Fahdah," the priest answered. He sat down on a cushion set opposite her, that she hadn't noticed previously in her confusion when she'd arrived. "It's been a very long time, hasn't it?"

"Y-yes, Nid--," she stumbled. "I'm sorry, I can't talk to you like... like..."

"Like an equal?" Iman Nidal asked gently. "We are both adults now, Fahdah. You are no longer the angry child I remember."

"No, I am no child. Though I fear I have gained no wisdom in my age," she replied. Fahdah breathed in, trying to control her shaking. "Why are you here? Why were you listening?"

"I apologize for being rude as to eavesdrop," Iman Nidal said. "When Governor Darktail invited me to this lovely world to discuss your situation, I was quite surprised to find that you were alive. Your clan had long since given you up for dead."

"As well they should have," she replied bitterly.

"I understand why you might not wish to contact them, during your career in piracy. Why did you not when you began to serve your sentence here?"

She chuffed out a brief laugh. "Why would they want to hear from the shamed daughter of a righteous clan? Why would I wish to sicken them with the stink of my sins?"

"Why would you deny them the chance to celebrate your survival, when they had so deeply mourned your probable death?" he replied. "Why would you assume you are beyond redemption?"

"Were you even listening?" she shot back. "If you are here, you must know of my trial. You must know what I was convicted of, what I have done."

"If your heart was as black as you claim, I do not think your remorse would be as sincere as I heard at Governor Darktail's table," Nidal said.

She sighed, feeling her shoulders slump down again in weariness, all the aches of the day's labor making themselves known in her muscles and bones. "If you wish to grant me a blessing and prayer to God, holy is their name, I will not insult you and refuse it. Then you may take your leave, and I will continue my penance here."

"Perhaps," they replied.

"What do you mean?" Fahdah asked him, shaking her head as she tried to clear weary cobwebs from her mind. "My sentence is clear, a lifetime of hard labor on this world."

"So it is, and I fear there is little I can do to mitigate it," Governor Darktail noted. "As you said yourself, your crimes were committed as an adult. You had agency and choice in your actions, while Ali did not."

"However, as you committed no crimes on this world," Nidal added, "where you live out your sentence is open to modification."

"What?" Fahdah said, her voice hollow, disbelieving.

Nidal reached across the table to lay a palm on her shoulder. "Governor Darktail has spoken to the Allied Worlds Ministry of Justice, in conjunction with the elders of our clan. In recognition of your torment at the hands of the ardalian, and your sincere behavior in the last two years of your indenture, they agree to permit your transfer to Wazaga Prime, to continue your indenture in the Valley of Soft Grass." When she failed to respond, he added, "You will not be free, but you can at least be home."

A great, wracking sob burst up from her chest, as Fahdah felt the cold iron band she'd wrapped around her heart finally snap. Alinadar and Iman Nidal knelt to either side of her, holding her tight as she sobbed in relief. "Merciful God!" she cried. "Blessings of our merciful God! I am cold, and dirty, and weary, and I want to come home!"

Wahowallaho lailahaillahu. Lahol hamdo fil oola walakhirah. Walahol hukmu wa'ilayhi turja'oon.

(And He is Allah, there is no god but He. To Him be praise, at the first and at the last. For Him is the command, and to Him shall you be brought back.)