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I can see Allie replay the painful memories in her head.

“One guy got killed trying to hijack a nobleman’s ship to buy back his brother,” she sighs. “Me? What the fuck was a young woman supposed to do? I knew my only chance was to use the last of my money to book a voyage to Sarathon 5.”

Sarathon 5. I knew it from her criminal file. That was where that trio of Aurelian Elites had met their shameful fate.

“I joined a harem,” Allie begins to tell me the story I already know parts of. “I made them trust me. I earned the trust of those Aurelians until I had access to their systems…”

She laughs bitterly.

“…and then I took their funds. Every penny I could.”

She looks up.

“I wired those bastard space-pirates everything they asked for – a fuckingfortune. They must have been laughing at me. All they’d to do was drop Lilac back on the planet. All they had to do was put her in a fucking escape pod, and set the auto-pilot!”

She sobs.

“Instead, I never heard from them again."

Allie sighs, her eyes dropping down to her hands. “I guess I should have known. They cast a wide net with that ransom. Those bastards justhopedsomeone would luck out on some big cash haul and send it all. They probably weren’t even in the same fucking star system by that point. Gods. I wassostupid.”

I shake my head.

“We all do foolish things for the ones we care about. It’s in our blood – Aurelian or human.”

I look up, and bark: “AI, reactivate the subject’s implants.”

The AI hums to life. The Artificial Intelligence unit is the brain of our ship – an interconnected smart computer that runs everything from the oxygen supplies to the rations. From the chair Allie is sitting in, metal tendrils emerge. They’re the same ones that deactivated her electro-shock weapon in the first place.

Disabling weapons is a quick, almost painless procedure – all it takes it a controlled shock, administered to overcharge key circuits in the device implanted beneath Allie’s skin.

Re-enabling weapons, though – that’s much worse. The AI will have to probe into the flesh of Allie’s arm, surgically repairing the de-activated nodes that are linked directly with her flesh and nerve endings.

The worst part is that I can feel Allie’s grief through the Bond. She’s in enough pain already. When she thinks about what happened to her little sister, she descends into a dark place.

I hate to bring her more pain – even if she’s asked for it.

Allie senses my disquiet though our Bond. She looks up.

“This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

I nod, and the tendrils extending from the chair clamp her in place – curling rigidly around her wrists and ankles to stop her from moving during the operation.

“I recommend you take sedation,” I murmur.

Allie shakes her head. “No. Ineedthe pain.”

I don’t ever want Allie to suffer – but I understand what she means.

The first time my triad had to descend into a Scorp nest, I nearly puked as we looked at the dark opening yawning in front of us. We Aurelians are raised to never show our emotions – especially the ones seen as weakness, like fear.

Ironically, my shame overwhelmed my fear. At that point, as I stood facing my first taste of death and battle, I’d have rather died than show my fear in front of the other warriors.

Sometimes, you need one painful thing to help you control another.

As the AI calculates how best to proceed, I allow my mind to wander – sinking into memories long forgotten.

I remember that first battle. During it, I watched a fellow warrior I’d trained alongside in military academy get cut down by a Scorp. He’d feinted left, but he should have gone right. The warrior took a pincer claw to the gut – a claw that pierced right through the armor that should have saved him.