Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

Only just.

She could hear Lee inhale deeply. “Urusida skin reminds me of home. It’s all the fish they eat.”

“You can smell that?” the other woman asked incredulously.

“Delicate humans,” Lee muttered.

“Where am I going, again?”

“Shipments to Corellia on the right, Clak’dor on the left,” Lee said.

“But I’m supposed to—”

“I know, you’re supposed to have the week off. Orin quitting was…unexpected,” Lee said. “I’ll talk to Hondo about giving you a bonus, how’s that?”

There was a moment’s pause. Izzy would have jumped at the chance, but she understood not wanting to seem too eager. Then the woman replied, “Clak’dor, you said?”

“Thank you for being a team player, Delta Jeet,” the Karkarodon said, like she was reciting from a script. “Ohnaka Transport Solutions is fortunate to have you.”

The slap of feet departed. Izzy breathed slowly, desperately wanting to sneeze. She wiggled her arm toward her face and rubbed her nose. All she had to do was wait for this Delta woman to leave and she’d be free. She hoped Jules would stay put. She wouldn’t put it past him to come and find her. But they had a plan.

Delta loaded the crates and parcels for her delivery. Izzy slowly pushed up the barest edge of the pelt. Her parcel was still there on the ground.

Then a set of brown hands grabbed it and added it to the stack going off-world. Corellia and Clak’dor . Izzy wished she could scream the number of obscenities she’d learned across the galaxy. She had only one shot at the element of surprise. Summoning every bit of courage, every bit of strength she could, she wrapped her hand around her blaster pistol and sat up. The furs tumbled to the ground.

Izzy took aim, and as Delta spun around, Izzy pulled the trigger.

Jules knew something had gone wrong when Izzy stepped out of the office with her blaster in hand. He’d been keeping the protocol droid from going into the room to look for Lee.

“Master Jules,” G1-MD said, “I have repeated that everything is in order. I must be going to find Madam Lee at once. The cargo freighter to Corellia has not been loaded yet.”

“There she is,” Jules pointed to the other end of the landing pad, where Lee was surrounded by angry pilots. Was there something in the water making everyone irate?

His eyes widened at Izzy as she holstered her weapon and climbed into the speeder.

“What happened?” He jumped into the cockpit behind the wheel, and she cradled the rucksack against her chest. He powered up the speeder. It jostled and shook for an agonizing moment. He smoothed his fingers along the dash and whispered, “No, no, no, baby, don’t do this to me, please.”

“Do you know a Delta Jeet?” Izzy asked.

“I’ve seen her pop arms out of their sockets when she finds someone’s cheated at the sabacc tables.”

Great. Good, she thought. “I shot her.”

“You what ?”

“She’s alive. It was set to stun.”

He wondered if that had been a happy accident or if Izzy always kept her blaster on that setting.

“If I don’t get us out of here, we’re dead,” he said.

“Not yet we aren’t,” Izzy said, and slammed her fist on the dash.

“Easy, will you?” But whether it was his gentle words or Izzy’s punch, his speeder charged out of the hangar, leaving a trail of dust in its wake.

They didn’t speak for a few moments. He gripped the wheel and let his heart rate come down to a pace that allowed him to breathe. She had her arms around the bag but was staring at him. There were bits of shimmering hair on her face. What exactly had happened in there?

He took a sharp turn down a pedestrian road. He never would have done it if they weren’t in a hurry. “We have to get to Dok’s. Something—”

They were engulfed by a swell of people spilling from the market. Many were shouting at each other. He caught curses in Huttese and Twi’leki.

“What’s happening?” Izzy said. She shoved the pack under her seat and out of sight.

He pushed himself up on the top of his speeder, leaning on the glass. He’d heard about riots in the Outpost before, when rival gangs and crews would spill from the Galma vicinity into the ports. The crowd was divided into groups. One was the stream of traffic trying to get out of the way, carrying baskets of fruit and the day’s supplies in netted bags over their shoulders. The eopie he’d seen earlier in the day was even more skittish, and the mother had chosen to hold the child instead of risk having her thrown from the saddle.

Then there were two groups shouting at each other. He wasn’t sure why until he heard the words clearly. “Give yourself to the First Order! Restore the rule of law across the galaxy!”

The group shouting that was small—men and some women dressed in simple farmer garb. Jules was shocked to recognize two of them: Dok’s assistant and runner who had vanished. The reason Jules had been called in that morning. He’d never truly known them. Both were orphans who’d wound up on the streets of the Outpost searching for work where they could find it. He watched their lips pull back in snarls, their eyes narrowed with certainty. It was like they’d been searching for a purpose and someone had given it to them.

“Jules, don’t,” Izzy said, tugging on his sleeve.

He could sense the anger thick in the air. Those who were trying to mill through the crowd kept their heads down. Many of the vendors gathered around though. Some threw pebbles—nothing large enough that it would hurt anyone, but so many that it was like being surrounded by summer spire flies.

“Get off the street, you!” a slender blue-skinned Twi’lek shouted.

“You’re chasing away our customers!” a round baker woman screamed, making herself hoarse.

“Batuu is a wasteland of criminals and misrule! Gangsters rob your streets and—” one of the young boys shouted, but the back and forth increased, morphing into a dense buzz that drowned him out.

It was the sound of marching that silenced everyone. They came from the shadows of the spires, moving in perfect rows, white armor gleaming under shining suns and long shadows cutting stripes across them as they moved. They said nothing. There weren’t even any officers with them. But they stood their ground, forming a protective barrier around the small group of fanatics.

Slowly, the opposing crowds dispersed and all Jules could hear was “Batuu is a wasteland—” But he recognized some of the few who didn’t leave, who stared back into the dark eyes of those terrifying helmets.

He didn’t even notice at first when Izzy hopped out of the speeder to stand in front of him. “Jules,” she said, and repeated it until he focused on her eyes, flecked with lichen gold.

They couldn’t stay there, but the way forward was blocked by the stormtroopers. He quickly backed up, but that way was barred by the overflow of traffic. There was only one way out.

He drove straight for the shadows of Smuggler’s Alley.

Izzy had never been to that part of the Outpost when she lived on Batuu. There were no welcoming shops or stoop conversations over tea. It was the sort of place where people knew where they were going and whom they were looking for, with none of the curious browsing of the Outpost market stalls.

Jules powered down the speeder in front of a shop that advertised body modifications. He still gripped the wheel. Never before had she seen him so visibly upset. She bit the inside of her lip trying to find the right things to ask. She’d seen his face when the young boy shouted those things about their planet. Though she’d been away for so long, it had been her home once. She rested her hand on his, and a static surge shot up her finger. He glanced up, conflict warring in his dark brown eyes. He accepted her touch and threaded her fingers with his.