Savang’s Redemption was a story I had planned for a little while but didn’t have time to get around to it. When I did, it had changed quite a lot. Initially, it was just going to be Chrístõ visiting her at the prison, becoming convinced of her sanity and protecting her from the gunmen who broke in, and her returning his faith by saving everyone with her own powers. By the time I came to write it, I had put Paracell Hext in charge of the Celestial Intervention Agency and it seemed to fit quite well that he would be with Chrístõ. In fact, in many ways, Chrístõ didn’t need to BE there. But readers would probably be disappointed if he wasn’t in the story.

Hext falling in love with Savang was a late addition to the story. I did wonder if it was possible to mix a whirlwind romance in with gunmen taking over a prison and killing people en masse. I wondered if it was a bit too whirlwind, hence the comment from Julia near the end of the story about it all happening so fast.

Another possible criticism is that the severe charges against Savang seemed to evaporate very quickly when Hext went back to Gallifrey. But since most of them were against the de Lœngbærrow family, and Chrístõ and his father could be counted on to be sympathetic, it probably wouldn’t be difficult.

Razok is a bit of a stock baddie. I didn’t really bother to flesh him out very much. The name is vaguely Eastern European. So is Sorek. In the back of my mind as I was writing them were the bad guys from the film Air Force One, who were called Korshunov and Radek. A bit of them got into the names, and the objective was similar. But they weren’t especially important. They were there just to add the element of danger. The whole point was to show that Savang is not only recovered from the insanity that has ruined her life, but ready to redeem herself.

Savang’s time with the Sisterhood, of course, has given her some powers that Hext and Christo don’t have. She can regenerate at will, possibly indefinitely. She can make herself levitate and repel bullets, though possibly only with a lot of mental effort. She obviously didn’t the first time. All of this may be worth exploring again in a later story where Savang’s powers may be re-used. But not in the foreseeable future.