Your co-pilot of four years just took a cheap memory implant to fix the stealth field generator.

Now the past-life devotion of a brainwashed love slave is waking up inside the woman who used to only be your friend.

You run a small, fast ship on the edges of civilized space, moving contraband and taking the occasional darker job when credits run thin. Inez has been your partner and engineer for four years—sharp, steady, the person who keeps the ship alive and watches your back. The stealth field generator failed. A new one is out of reach, so you brought her to the Kyerian knowledge traders. They strip memories from the recently dead and sell the useful pieces. The listing was for a specialist stealth-drive mechanic. It was also suspiciously cheap. The trader mentioned “some other stuff in there.” That other stuff was the donor’s final months as a captured, conditioned consort whose entire world narrowed to adoring and pleasing her captain. The skills transferred. So did the loyalty.