Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

Lee grinned, the sight of her jagged sharp teeth even made Jules and the protocol droid step back. “Glad we could settle that. Follow Gee-One-Emdee. She’ll find you an astromech.”

“But, madam,” the droid began to say.

“Come back to me later,” Lee told G1-MD in a voice that could almost be mistaken for patient—as patient as Lee got.

“Rough day?” Jules asked, reminding Lee that he was still there.

Lee ran a webbed hand down her face. Her eye slips blinked rapidly as she released more vapor to wet them. “Rakab! What are you still doing here? Don’t tell me your deal’s gone wrong, because we have nothing to do with third-party transactions.”

Jules glanced over his shoulder. Izzy was pacing, biting her thumb.

“That’s not it. I’ve got another problem.”

Lee threw her hands in the air. “Everyone’s got a problem! My girlfriend’s got a problem with the hours I’m putting in! My mother’s got a problem with me dating a Twi’lek! But I love her, you know? The droids have a problem! Kat Saka’s got a problem with Hondo importing grain for her competition! Don’t get me started on Hondo. He never learned how to read a flight chart and just throws deliveries on my tablet and expects me to make sense of it! So tell me, Rakab, what is your problem?”

“Wow, okay, that was a lot,” Jules said.

Lee shook her head. “I apologize, my friend. You’re a good kid. I’ve never had a problem with you before. In fact, if you ever want to make some real money and a change of scenery, say the word. I tell you, I could use a hand here. Especially now that you can—”

“Thank you, Lee,” Jules cut her off. The only downside to having Lee’s attention was that she unloaded. On any other day, he might have listened. But Izzy was waiting for him, and he did not want to explain the mix-up to Dok. “I know you’ve had a long day.”

The Karkarodon sighed, the shape of her jaw giving her a permanent frown. “I have.”

“You understand what it’s like. Everyone needs something from you, and sometimes you slip up.”

Lee arched her brow. “Slip up how?”

“The parcel I gave you.”

“Yeah?”

“That was never meant to go to you. It was meant to go to Dok. And don’t ask me what’s in it because I have no idea, and I really need to get it back or—”

Lee clapped her palm on Jules’s back. It would have been a great thing had Jules been choking, but it was startling. When she laughed he could see the inside rows of her teeth. Jules couldn’t figure out what part of what he’d said was funny. But he laughed along with her.

“Look here, Rakab, my first week on the job I sent a crate of worms to the wrong planet and I couldn’t get them back. Not like a little box. I mean a crate . Now the jungles of Urajab have been reduced to weeds because of an invasive species.”

Jules was stunned by Lee’s understanding. He’d had other plans. Though he wasn’t as good as other kids he’d come up with in the Outpost, his sleight of hand was decent. Just when he thought she might let him into the office and he’d be able to avoid stealing from her, she slung her arm around him, and that much closer she didn’t smell pleasantly of salt water. She smelled like the daily catch at the fish stalls. She was walking him away from the center of the landing pad and toward the shut door where he knew the main office was.

“Do you see that door, Rakab?” she asked, her voice low in his ear. She was two meters tall and had to lower her head to level her black-stone eyes with his.

“I do,” he said, surprised at how even his voice sounded.

“Nothing leaves that office once it’s in there unless Hondo’s counting his credits or a delivery is being made.” She squeezed her muscular arm tighter around his neck.

“But I have the payment right here,” he tried to explain.

“I like you, Rakab,” she told him. “Which is why I’m only going to tell you one more time. That, and human blood gets everywhere. Fragile things you are. Nothing leaves that office once it’s in there. But I can take the other parcel off your hands if you like. Understood?”

He forced himself to meet her eye, not to blink as she left her jaws open and breathed in his face. He slapped her arm and flashed a smile.

“Understood.”

Just then someone bumped into them, muttering a gruff apology. The figure in gray hurried past.

“Great,” Lee said, massaging her temples, the datapad wedged under her armpit. “If anyone asks, I’m in the office.”

Lee turned to go in the opposite direction.

“But the office is that way,” Jules said.

The Karkarodon pressed the vapor dispenser on her bodysuit and walked away. He couldn’t relax yet, and turned to the row of speeders and bikes. Izzy wasn’t there. Worry filled his senses at the thought that something might have happened to her.

“Well?” The gray-clad figure appeared beside him, and he jolted straight.

It took him a moment to recognize Izzy under the cloak. She had bumped into him.

“What were you thinking ?” he asked, walking her around a stack of metal crates. He could hear Neelo and Fawn’s song “Desert Skiff Sunset” playing from somewhere. “I had things under control.”

She lowered her hood. “Not from where I was standing. I thought she was going to bite your head off.”

He pressed his palm to his chest. “It was a close one.”

“I thought I could snatch her access card from her pocket, but it was empty.”

The green-and-white protocol droid, G1-MD, tried to catch up to the angry redheaded pilot, who’d just quit. Though Jules knew his face around the spaceport wouldn’t raise any questions, he wanted to protect Izzy. He leaned one arm against the metal crates behind her, shielding her from view. For a brief moment, her green eyes flicked to his mouth before she turned her face away.

“How are we going to get into that room now?” She touched that necklace under her shirt again.

“I told you. I had it under control.” From his pocket, he pulled the access card he’d nicked. Staring into the jaws of the Karkarodon was worth it for the way her eyes lit up and her full lips parted in surprise. “We’re really going to have to work on your trust skills, Izzy.”

Izzy followed Jules onto the boarding ramp of the hexagonal Avent100 light freighter she’d seen him exiting before.

“Are you sure we’re allowed to be here?” she asked, following him into the lounge area.

“I, uh, know the owner,” he told her, making sure they weren’t followed.

“Lie,” she said.

“Fine, former owner,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. Right now, we have to get in that office and out of here before anyone notices. There’s a shift switch during the first lunch hour.”

“How many lunch hours are there?”

He shrugged and sat beside her. “We like food and the days are long this time of year.”

She was too tense to sit still, drumming her hands on the tops of her thighs. Perspiration ran down her back, and her cheeks were warm. His hair was delightfully rumpled after he got put in that headlock. She thought about how unruly his hair had always been when they were children, while her father did his best to keep hers in tight and even braids. As sweaty and disheveled as he was, she found herself edging closer to him. He did slightly smell like the Karkarodon’s saltwater vapor, but she didn’t mind.

“What happened at Dok’s?” he asked, pressing buttons on the table that he definitely should not be pressing. One of them opened a tray and revealed bottled drinks. Her mouth was dry, so she took a bottle when he offered. It tasted like bubbly flower petals, and she drank half of it before answering.