Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

“First customer of the day!” a sweet high-pitched voice greeted her from the shadow of the filling station.

Izzy stepped on the hard earth and strode to meet the approaching human woman. She appeared to be in her early twenties, with medium brown skin and black hair tied back in a perfunctory way. As Izzy got closer, she could better see the blue markings on the woman’s smiling face. It was too early for anyone to appear so cheerful, but this woman managed it. She wore a deep-blue tunic belted around the waist, loose brown pants, and heavy boots. On her right hand she wore a fingerless glove.

“Do I win something?” Izzy asked.

“You win the pleasure of my company,” the woman said, and extended her arm to the side. She folded herself in a dramatic bow, and even Izzy couldn’t stop her lips from quirking into a grin. “Bright suns…” The girl hung on the last word.

“Izzy.”

“Bright suns, Izzy. I’m Salju, and I run this here operation. What brings you to our corner of the galaxy?”

Izzy had met people who asked that question expecting to get something out of it, whether information on a shipment or on a possible bounty. Most of the worlds she went to avoided asking at all. But there was something genuine about Salju that made Izzy believe the woman truly wanted to know, not out of malice or greed but out of politeness. Friendliness, even.

Damar had liked weaving elaborate fictions, where it felt more like they were playing than doing a job. Before that she’d kept her lies simple, less to remember and even less of a possibility she’d trip herself up. Her mother liked to say that the best lies flew close to the truth. But now that she’d actually set foot on Batuu, part of her didn’t want to be just another stranger. Not in the one place she’d once called home. It was an irrational, sentimental thing that her mother wouldn’t have understood.

“I used to live here as a girl,” Izzy said, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets. “I remember there was plenty of work to go around.”

Salju glanced at the small ship behind Izzy and made a face that was a cross between curiosity and pity. The ship needed work—more work than Izzy could afford or manage herself until that day.

“Well, clearly you can fly if you made it all the way out here in that thing,” Salju said with a chuckle. “I take it you need repairs on the fuel drive pressure stabilizer and the left laser cannon?”

Among other things, yes. Izzy glanced back at her ship, her indignation catching in her throat. Salju was already walking past her to the Meridian. Izzy followed and said, “You can tell from just looking at it?”

“It’s one of the many languages I’m fluent in,” Salju said, cracking her knuckles. “I’ll take half now and half when you pick up. Should be ready by midday if I get started now.”

Izzy sighed. She didn’t want to be there long, but no matter where she went next she’d need repairs. She began to pull some credits out of the inside of her jacket when Salju put her hand up. “Sorry, my dear. I can only take Batuuan spira, I’m afraid. You can get Dok-Ondar to exchange them for you, I’d wager.”

Izzy could hardly contain her smile when she recognized the name. That was precisely whom she needed to see. She knew Black Spire Outpost was small, but was she so lucky? Her father had never believed in luck. For a man who’d once been a scholar, he spent a lot of time reminding her of the way the universe worked, moved and shaped by the Force itself. For the moment, she’d call it luck and count her riches when the job was done. Perhaps Dok-Ondar would see how quickly she’d brought his parcel and keep her in mind for future work.

“I’ll head on over there, thanks.”

“Oh, and if you’re looking for work,” Salju continued, “Dok’s been short on couriers the last few weeks. Both of his apprentices up and left, too.”

Izzy arched her brow. “Is that normal?”

Salju glanced around, pressing her hand to the side of the ship like she was waiting for the metal beast to literally speak to her. “There’s nothing like normal in BSO, but you’d know that, since you were from here and all. Work has slowed, what with—the new arrivals.”

The last bit she said in a careful, hushed tone. She shook her head, and Izzy knew not to pry.

“Right,” Izzy said. “Do you mind pointing me in Dok’s direction?”

“Course,” Salju said, and pointed down a well-trekked road that led away from the station. “Take this road to the left and it’ll lead you straight to Merchant Row. Once you see the big statue of a Jedi priestess, you’ll know you’re there.”

Salju’s energy was contagious. Izzy gripped the straps of her backpack and set off with a new smile on her face.

“May your deals go well, Izzy!”

Izzy hurried down the path. Fresh footprints marked the way. Already the vendors were setting up stalls, beating dust and errant dried leaves from canvas tarps with large sticks. The whirring and beeping of droids fought for her attention with the howling chirps coming from a tent. Dozens of cages in the tent were covered up tightly, though at least some of the critters inside were clearly awake. For a moment, Izzy considered lifting an edge of the fabric to get a look at what kind of creature might be beneath it, but a crash behind her made her jump. It seemed two vendors had collided. One of them was a heavily robed, white-bearded human who’d been wheeling a cart full of bright green fruit. A hooded Gran, with floppy ears and three eyes, had interrupted by laying out a rug in the very middle of the road to unload some wares. Both were waving their hands animatedly, snapping back and forth in Basic and guttural Huttese.

Not wanting to stick around in case they got violent, Izzy kept walking. The previous night’s fight had been enough for her.

When they’d lived on Batuu, her parents had rarely ventured into the Outpost. They were never recluses, but her mother wasn’t the kind of neighbor who was going to trade ronto stew recipes, either. She could count on one hand the number of times her father had taken her to the market with him—usually to buy spices and repair his beat-up datapad.

Izzy touched the ring beneath her shirt and struggled to find more memories of the cobblestone streets and cylindrical structures built right into the ancient spires and stones. She wondered what it would be like to live inside one of those apartments. Somehow the metal domes and the petrified trees made sense together, marrying the world’s ancient past and present. Izzy drank in the colorful banners that hung overhead to shield market-goers from the suns. As she neared an obelisk in a courtyard, she stopped to listen to the chirping sounds of languages she’d never be well-versed in. Standing in the middle of the market just before it filled with bodies made her feel like the road was open just for her.

Perhaps that was why she took a wrong turn at one of the courtyard archways. She kept an eye out for the big statue Salju had mentioned, but she second-guessed herself and doubled back. She took a right at a dark alley that smelled of puddle water and char. It looked like there had been a fire in one of the bins.

That’s when a figure stepped out of the shadows. Izzy had seen First Order stormtroopers on the holonet feeds after what had happened to the Hosnian system. But she’d never seen one in person. The armor glistened white, with black seams marking joints, like a skeleton made of plastic. There was a high-powered blaster rifle strapped to his back. Why would he need that on a planet where there was no military presence?

“What’s your business here?” he asked in a voice that sounded wrong, like it had come through a faulty holomessage.