Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

He grinned. “Is it working?”

“Not one bit.”

“Jules!” The Togruta ran over to him. “Good to see you, mate.”

“Izzy, this is Neelo and Fawn. They’re playing at Oga’s tonight.”

The Togruta, Neelo, wore a black tunic and had modified markings on his arms. He grabbed Jules by his shoulders and squeezed. “You’re coming, right? We need you to be there and bring people. Have to show Oga we’ve got the goods.”

“We go on after Rex,” the human boy named Fawn said, his voice deep and naturally monotone. “Bring your friend.”

“Me?” Izzy said, pointing at herself. “I can’t.”

Jules felt a hard pang of disappointment. Of course, he knew she wasn’t going to be there for long. She was going to deliver whatever Dok had ordered, and then she’d be gone. He wondered if he’d miss her more or less the second time around.

“Bummer,” Neelo said, but held out his fist to Jules.

Voices soared like a gathering of bees moving through the crowd as a new crowd entered the hangar from the courtyard. Dishes were doled out faster and faster, and Cookie slid two glasses of cold moof juice in front of them on the house on top of their order. Jules never got free things.

“I’ll be right back,” Izzy said, standing so abruptly she almost tripped. He caught her by the arm, and she turned around.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, her voice climbing in pitch. He detected the lie, but who was he to press? An old friend? She didn’t owe him anything, not even an explanation. Still, he worried. “I have to call my boss. I should have done it before but—I’ll be right back.”

She gave him a strained smile, and Neelo and Fawn stepped aside to let her pass. Keeping her head down, she folded into the crowd. Could she be on the run from someone? There were no stormtroopers, and she hadn’t reacted that way to seeing the First Order officers at the door. The dice players were gone, but there were new arrivals—a crew Jules had never seen before. One was a tall human boy with blue hair combed back with glossy product. He whispered something to his companion, a young woman around the same age as Jules, perhaps older, with a bright red braid that hung over her shoulder like rope.

“I smell trouble,” Neelo said, taking Izzy’s empty seat. He snatched Jules’s moof juice and drank.

“Trouble can be fun,” Fawn said, shrugging in that easy way of his.

Jules realized his friends were talking about him. And Izzy. “It’s not what you think.”

“I don’t think you know what we think,” Neelo said, wiping his lips with the back of his sleeve. “Are you going to eat these?”

“Yes,” Jules said, but knew Neelo was going to help himself to his friend’s tip-yip anyway. The only reason he didn’t complain was because he knew they’d had a hard time booking gigs after the Outpost crowds had dwindled. And because he was, in part, watching and waiting for Izzy to return.

“Spit it out,” Jules said. Before Neelo took him literally, he explained, “Say what you’re thinking.”

“I can already see your heartbreak coming from ten klicks away,” Fawn said, nodding his head to a beat only he seemed to be able to hear.

Neelo washed the tip-yip down with the rest of Jules’s drink. “You always do this, mate. You trip over off-worlders who leave you in the dust.”

Jules didn’t have to listen to that, but he sat there anyway. “Name one ex—”

“Fawn’s cousin visiting from Coruscant three years ago,” Neelo said, starting to count on his fingers.

“I genuinely liked her music,” Jules shrugged.

“The smuggler from Onderon,” Fawn said, cocking an eyebrow. “Jali—”

Jules rubbed his hands across his face, then winced when he pressed too hard on his nose. “Anjali. And I was just giving her directions.”

“Yeah, to your safe,” Neelo snorted.

“That’s enough,” Jules said. It was difficult to relive his own bad decisions, but his friends were mirrors he could not escape.

“Don’t forget that senator’s daughter from Naboo.”

How could he forget? If he recalled correctly, they’d run out of fuel and stopped on Batuu for what amounted to hours. Jules had been working the stall for Kat, and the senator’s daughter wanted to buy the colorful popped grains. He’d been so taken by her beauty, the glamour of her bronze dress and the way her ropes of dark hair were braided. He had been sure that it was love at first sight—so sure, in fact, that he’d forgotten to charge her. He’d needed to work extra hours to repay Kat for the sale. He never got her name.

“You’re all making me sound like a lovesick idiot,” Jules said.

Neelo and Fawn traded looks that said it was exactly what they thought of him.

“It’s not like that,” he explained. Putting the words together meant admitting things he wasn’t ready to. Instead, he said, “Izzy was my first friend. She used to live next door to me. Yeah, it was a long time ago, but you don’t forget someone you used to spend every day with.”

“I don’t remember her,” Fawn said.

“Her family left before you two came here. It doesn’t matter. I haven’t seen her since and I’m showing her around the Outpost. That’s it.”

Neelo nodded along to his words. “You say that, but you haven’t stopped looking at the entrance since she left.”

“You didn’t take her to the wishing tree, did you?” Fawn winced.

Jules wanted to ask Cookie to beat him senseless with that tip-yip-covered spatula. “I won’t say that I did.”

“He totally did!” Neelo laughed.

“Look, you’re going to do the Jules thing,” Fawn said.

“What does that even mean?” he asked incredulously.

“You know. The gestures and honesty. That’s who you are. Just look after yourself once in a while.”

Jules knew, deep down, that they were right. As they prepared to leave, he met their extended hands for a quick good-bye.

“Good runs, mate. And don’t forget about the show,” Neelo reminded him.

“I’ll be there,” Jules shouted to them across the hangar.

He picked up a piece of fried tip-yip and dipped it into the fiery sauce that came with it. He glanced at Izzy’s empty seat, then the entrance once again. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something had scared her. She’d taken her pack. What if she needed help?

He got up, ready to go look for her, but then thought about what his friends had said and forced himself back into his seat. He had to trust that the Force itself had brought them together that day. And he had to trust that if she wanted to return on her own, she would.

But then minutes had crawled by and he’d finished his entire plate, and there was still no sign of Izzy Garsea.

She muttered a string of curses as she walked away from Jules and his friends. Her entire body flashed hot with rage, then sadness, then back to anger. Out of all the planets in the galaxy, Ana Tolla and her crew had to be on Batuu. Izzy wanted to find a plot to bury her own body in. She couldn’t see them again. She crept along the greasy walls of the hangar, keeping her head down. She’d always wanted a cloak, and in that moment it would have been useful for hiding herself as she stepped out into the courtyard.

She wasn’t going to leave Jules, but she needed to breathe. What were they doing there? She thought of the job they’d left to do the night before. Had they been on Batuu all along, or stopped somewhere else on the way?

“It doesn’t matter,” she muttered to herself. “They’re here and they can’t know you’re here.”

The last thing she wanted was for Damar to think she had been following him. She felt queasy at the thought of him, the way she’d let him whisper stupid promises in her ear. She hated what her morning with Jules was turning into because she was a coward and decided to hide.