Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

Izzy’s body betrayed her and froze. Why would the First Order be there of all places? There were busier ports that moved valuable exports elsewhere. Why Batuu? Her mouth dried up at the thought of the parcel in her pack—a parcel the contents of which she wasn’t supposed to ask about. Could there be something inside that might get her in trouble? When she took too long to answer, the trooper leaned forward.

“Well?” His voice was hard and impatient.

“It’s my first day at Dok-Ondar’s and I got a bit lost,” Izzy said, softening the edges of her voice.

“What’s in the pack?”

She was stupid for thinking that a display of innocence would have any effect on this kind of soldier. Staring at her own warped reflection in his helmet made her queasy and she felt even worse when she realized she might get sick on his boots. She hadn’t hesitated to pull the trigger on the gang member in the cantina the night before, but there was something purposely faceless about these particular helmets that unnerved her enough that it made her want to prove she’d done nothing wrong.

Then the stormtrooper straightened, raising his hand to both silence her and let her know not to move.

“On my way. Copy,” the trooper answered, then lowered his helmet toward Izzy. “Isn’t it your lucky day?”

Then he turned and left her alone in the alley with a pounding heart. She ran back out onto the main road. There were more people crowding around stalls, and the sound of shuttles zooming overhead gave her small comfort. As if the stars had aligned for her, there was the statue Salju had mentioned. The Jedi looked severe, reverent in ways Izzy had never learned to be. Cargo crates were stacked against the cylindrical structure. She darted around the perimeter until she reached the domed entrance of Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities. She pressed the doorbell a couple of times, but nothing happened. She tugged on the straps of her backpack, shoulder blades aching, and tried to calm her frantic pulse. Why had that trooper bothered her so much?

Perhaps it was a deep-seated memory; perhaps it was that she hadn’t recovered from the night before.

She realized the doorbell was either broken or simply decorative. She raised her fist and banged. Behind her a silver-and-black protocol droid ambled along, herding what looked to be mud-covered piglets. At least she wouldn’t be bored on Batuu, she thought, then raised her fist to bang again.

Only instead of hitting the door, her fist collided with a person.

“Ow!” Jules exclaimed as his head snapped back. He cradled his nose with his hand, blood flowing down his lips and filling his mouth with a metallic tang. Despite the sharp pain blooming across his eyes, he reached blindly for a rag. His hand closed around the nearest piece of cloth on a counter and used it to stop the gushing. He was vaguely aware of Tap laughing in the background and a voice repeating an apology.

Jules was positive he’d used the same rag to clean the baby sarlacc terrarium a couple of nights before, but there was nothing else within reach.

“I am so, so sorry,” said the girl who’d sucker punched him. She followed him inside the parlor.

At once, Jules registered something: he knew this girl. His mind raced through memories, trying to place her high cheekbones and pointed chin. The delicate arch of her full upper lip. Her dark brows knit together over green eyes that stared at him as if he’d grown three heads. Looking at her made the pain around his tender, most likely broken septum hurt just a bit less. The door slid shut behind her, and the morning breeze rustled her black hair, which reminded Jules of the silk ribbons Dok imported from the tropical moon of Linasals.

Where had she come from with her hit-first-apologize-later attitude? Jules was convinced he knew her. Not from Kat Saka’s farm, that was certain. The dark-green leather jacket, black leggings, and scuffed boots marked her as an off-worlder. There were hundreds, thousands of people who came and went in the Outpost—refueling, hawking wares from the back of clunky freighters, hiding from deals gone wrong, or going on sabacc benders at Oga’s Cantina. Those faces blurred together after a time, but the sight of this girl slammed into him with the strangest familiarity.

“Are you okay?”

Jules realized that she was asking him a question and had been attempting to talk to him the entire time he’d been trying to place her in his memory.

“He’ll be fine,” Tap said in his high-pitched, know-it-all voice. “He gets hit on the head a lot.”

The kid wasn’t wrong. Jules had taken quite a few hits over his lifetime, mostly from roughhousing with local friends, rock climbing in the Surabat River Valley, or tangling with off-worlders looking for an easy mark. But he thought he’d grown out of the latter.

“Neither of you look okay,” Tap said, standing between them, bewildered eyes darting back and forth.

The girl tilted her head to the side and narrowed her stare. He was sure she was trying to remember him, too—or assessing the damage. When she brushed her hair back, her jacket sleeve slid up and he noted the scars above her wrist. They stood out quartz white on her golden skin.

Jules could see her then, a faded memory from so long before, he’d nearly buried it: a girl with fearless eyes, in a dirty dress at the top of a cliff. He vacillated between convincing himself that it couldn’t be her and being certain that it was. As a little boy, he’d stared at the sky in hopes of seeing the arc of her family’s ship, but it had never come back.

He worked his lips and mind into forming words, and settled for a single one. “Izzy?”

She gasped and took a step back. Her hand flew to the collar of her simple black shirt. He could practically hear the gears in her mind turning.

Fortunately, blood had stopped spewing out of his face, so he lowered the rag. He bunched it in his hands because a part of him wanted to throw his arms around her and—say what? He’d been a farmer for so long, he almost reflexively wanted to ask how her crop yield was doing. What exactly did one say in that situation? How’s the weather in whatever world you came from? So, why are you back? Are you thirsty? Because I’m thirsty. He was practically short-circuiting. There was once a time when his days began and ended with the company of his best friend. Until they didn’t. Now she was standing there dressed in leather that looked like armor, with a blaster strapped to her thigh.

She went rigid, straightening her shoulders against the heavy weight she carried, and the silence wound between them. Perhaps he’d imagined it. He could blame it on Volt’s Gut Rot—his mind playing tricks on him, dredging up memories from the past. It had been twelve years. No, thirteen. The Garseas had left before the fires.

He had begun to talk himself out of the certainty that the girl before him was Izal Garsea when she said his name in a swift exhale. “Julen Rakab.”

Then she lunged at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He was too aware of his clumsy limbs as he embraced her, of his heart struggling to beat at a normal rate. The bridge of his nose throbbed, but when they stepped back and stared at each other, he didn’t care anymore.

“I can’t—” they started to say at the same time.

“You go first,” they said, once more in sync.

Jules motioned for her to speak.

“You’re—taller—than I remember,” she said, and he warmed at the surprise in her voice.

Jules held out his arms and presented himself to her the way he’d seen some of Dok’s assistants greet wealthy potential buyers. Not that he was selling himself. Not that he was trying to sell her anything. He was overcome with a knot of frayed nerves like never before and was nearly thankful when Tap inserted himself directly between them.