Polaris by Mindee Arnett

wasn’t over yet. Not while a pulse still beat inside him.
    â€œSo,” he said, willing the breathlessness out of his voice. “You’re working for Dax now. How did that happen?”
    Aileen shrugged. “He’s the new Hammer, yeah? I guess you could say me and my crew are the new Malleus Shades.”
    Jeth narrowed his gaze at her. “You took our place?”
    â€œDon’t look so surprised. Dax knows how useful you were to Hammer. I’m even more useful.”
    â€œSure you are.” Jeth pursed his lips. “You’re taking us back to Peltraz then?” The spaceport had been his home for almost ten years, but the idea of returning to it filled him with dread. Hammer was gone now, but he doubted much had changed. Daxton might’ve been a good man once, but he’d been under Hammer’s control for a long stretch of years,and now he had Hammer’s power. Jeth didn’t think there was any coming back from that.
    â€œYes,” Aileen said, matter-of-factly. “Should take less than a day from here.” Her eyes twinkled with mirth. “Might I suggest you make yourselves comfortable for the trip? And I do mean really comfortable.”
    Jeth’s eyebrows inched up his face. “Why?”
    â€œOh, no reason.” Aileen waved at the screen. “Just want to make sure you arrive rested and in good shape.”
    â€œWhy wouldn’t we be?” Sierra said, stepping up beside Jeth.
    This time Aileen completely ignored her. “We’ll be talking again soon. Bye-bye.”
    The screen went blank.
    â€œWho was that girl?” demanded Sierra.
    â€œTrouble,” Jeth said, his unease building. “We ran afoul of her on a job we worked for Hammer about two years back. She’s a liar and a leech.”
    â€œSo I gathered. You say she used to work for Soleil Marcel?”
    â€œYeah,” Jeth said, unable to keep the worry from his voice. Aileen was one of the best thieves he’d ever encountered, and she’d very nearly bested him back on Grakkus. Not that he would ever admit it.
    â€œThen how is she working for Dax?”
    â€œNo idea. But I’d rather not find out.” Jeth spun around and motioned at Lizzie who still stood by the nav station, not far from the new dent left by his fist. “See if you can get us some control back.”
    Lizzie nodded and returned to the comm station. Withinseconds her fingers began to do their dance across the screen. Jeth took a deep breath, expecting the best from his little sister. There was nothing she couldn’t do with a computer.
    But mere seconds later she began to curse.
    â€œWhat is it?” Jeth crossed the bridge to her and stared down at the screen over her shoulder.
    â€œI can’t even get a connection.”
    â€œWhat does that mean ?” he said, his temper inches from breaking the surface of his control.
    Lizzie didn’t raise her eyes from the screen. “It means that this is going to take a lot of time, if I can get through at all.”
    Jeth wrapped his fingers around the back of her chair, squeezing. “How much time?”
    â€œI don’t know.” She didn’t snap, but Jeth could tell she wanted to. He let go of the chair and ran his hands over his head, his fingers brushing against the hole of the implant architecture in the back of his skull. He barely felt it.
    â€œIt’ll be okay, Jeth,” Celeste said.
    He wrenched his head around to look at her. She stood with her back to the comm station. Her expression was as strange as her tone had been, weirdly pacifying. Such behavior in Celeste was as out of place as Flynn sharing his secret chocolate stash or Shady committing such a betrayal. Shady. Loyal, steady, Shady. How could he have done it?
    Celeste shifted her weight, uneasy beneath his glare. “Dax has helped us before. He might do it again.”
    Jeth turned away from her, unable to get the memory of