Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

Oga spoke again, and Jules thanked the spires that he’d spent so much time in the ports listening to conversations in Huttese. When she was finished, he was stunned.

“You know my name?” he asked the Blutopian.

“I know everything that goes on in my outpost,” she answered in the guttural language. “So when I hear about an off-worlder girl looking to make deals that cut me out, I have concerns.”

Jules translated while Oga snatched a larva, bulbous and white, and bit off one of its three heads.

“You’ve got the wrong girl, then,” Izzy answered in Basic.

Oga made a strange sound and Jules couldn’t be sure if it was a good or bad sign, or if she was choking. She spoke more clearly.

“Who are you?” Jules translated.

“My name is Izal Garsea, and I’m here to deliver a parcel to Dok-Ondar.”

Oga considered this in the time it took her to finish crunching on the larva. When she spoke again, Jules clenched his jaw and turned to Izzy.

“Garsea?” he translated. “Your mother. Green eyes like yours. I remember her. She worked for me once. One of the best. Never missed a bounty.”

Izzy sucked in a short breath. “My mother was a smuggler.”

Oga rattled off a string of words that made Jules flash hot. “I can’t say that to her.”

“Say what?” Izzy asked.

He couldn’t ignore Oga. The same helpless feeling he’d had moments earlier returned. Looking Izzy deep in her eyes, he forced his mouth to form the words.

“Foolish girl. You didn’t know your mother at all.”

“Then tell me,” Izzy said, her voice stronger than his. They waited for Oga to finish speaking. Jules hated being the one to have to deliver these words to her.

“I know she came here to get away like others do,” Jules translated. “It worked for a while, but she grew restless. I gave her work. When she couldn’t complete the last job, I spared her as long as she left that very night.”

Izzy frowned but didn’t reveal anything else. He’d give anything to take her away from that place. He hated that he’d done everything he could to learn to fight, to help others, but he was in front of the one person on the planet he couldn’t touch. Oga had been the reason the Garseas left all those years before.

“Thank you, Oga,” Izzy said slowly, as if choosing her words carefully. “This has been—enlightening. Did you kill her?”

Oga chortled, and the wet slap of her mouth made Jules suppress a shiver as he translated in a rush: “Would it matter? Would you try to hurt me? What could you do to me that I couldn’t do worse?”

Then Oga stared right at Jules as if daring him to defend his friend. There was a helplessness there, like he’d felt earlier, and he hated it.

Izzy nodded in understanding, but he could feel her withdraw from him. That cloud he’d felt around her when he first saw her that day returned with a storm. He had no choice but to listen to Oga once more, each smack of her words making his teeth ache.

“I haven’t seen Dok all day,” he said.

“What have you seen, Jules?” she asked in rough, accented Basic. She continued in Huttese and said that she’d sent a runner to the shop to check up on the Ithorian since his runner was late. They had returned moments before Jules and Izzy arrived with news that Dok still wasn’t there.

Jules decided it was best not to point out that he was not given a time to arrive at Oga’s and that everyone would be late if she was able to choose an arbitrary time.

For Izzy’s benefit, he translated, “Something is happening around here and I’m going to find out what it is. If I find out you two are involved…”

She let the threat hang between them, the orbs above her pulsing. He knew the meeting was over when she turned on DJ R-3X’s broadcast again. He was calling out items from a lost and found.

“Dok’s payment,” Oga said, and pointed to a wrapped bundle on the desk. Then she added. “Take that barrel of rot back to Volt and tell him no deal. I can’t make money if all my patrons keel over from poison. Now go.”

As they left, Oga called Izzy back but told Jules to wait outside. He felt queasier than ever leaving her alone, but he did as he was told and leaned against the opposite wall. He knocked his head against it. A thick human male walked past him shouldering a wooden barrel of brew. He whistled at Jules, with shock in his bushy dark brows. He muttered something that sounded to Jules like, “You’re still alive?”

He was very much alive, but the day was not over.

Izzy was almost grateful when Oga asked her to remain in her office. She couldn’t face Jules after everything they’d had to listen to. She couldn’t decide if it was better or worse coming from him.

“How did you find yourself here after all this time?” Oga asked in nearly perfect Basic.

After an entire conversation of forcing her features into a steely calm, Izzy finally reacted.

“You didn’t need Jules to translate,” she said.

“I find people like to feel useful.”

“What else can I do for you, Oga Garra?”

“Ixel was one of my favorites. Such a waste of talent.”

Izzy realized she never knew her mother at all. How could she have missed it? She was a fool. She couldn’t be upset at Oga for telling her a truth that had died with her parents.

“Is that all?”

“Not quite.” Her voice was reedy, nearly piercing Izzy’s eardrums. “I was once an orphan, too. You must always know your roots if you are to know how sturdy the tree will grow. If you are going to be here, you will have to know the rules.”

Izzy shook her head. Her thoughts about staying on Batuu untethered and began to drift away. “I’ve already stayed longer than I intended to.”

Oga grunted and dismissed her with a wave. “If you want to know who put out the contract on your mother, you know where to find me.”

“What’s the cost?”

“You’ll owe me a job. Consider it—an audition.”

Her insides felt fused together. She could hardly breathe, the too-sweet smoke wafting from the burning hookah irritating her nasal passages, her eyes. She turned to leave. But before she punched the door open, Izzy exhaled. Jules was Jules. He would want to talk to her about her feelings, and she didn’t want to. She wanted to fly. She wanted to fight. She wanted to use her hands. Instead of calm, she found herself worked into tighter knots.

When the door opened, there he was, leaning against the wall with worry in his eyes. He hefted the barrel onto one shoulder and offered a smile. She hated the way she reacted to the sight of him. How could she be certain that what she was feeling was real? What if it was because things with Damar had just ended? What if it was the sheer nostalgia?

None of those considerations stopped her from taking his hand and holding it tight all the way out of Oga’s. She’d been wrong. He didn’t want to talk, didn’t even press her.

“We’re walking,” he announced.

“You’re not worried someone might lift your speeder?”

He let go of her hand to better carry the barrel Oga had made him take. She wanted to reach for him again but shoved her hands in her pockets. “It still wouldn’t be the worst thing that’s happened to us.”

They laughed. It was a startling relief to the longest, worst day of her life. But as she walked onto the market road side by side with Jules, she considered it was also turning into the best day.

“If our stars are lucky, Volt will be there instead of Bina and we can get back to Dok’s.”

“My stars are not lucky, so let’s assume this Volt isn’t there.”

“We’ll see.”

The afternoon crowds were thinning. Though sheets of colorful canvas served as a patchwork ceiling, the intense suns still broke through. Izzy had no need for her jacket and tied it around her waist. When they passed a stall serving salty dried meat called nuna jerky, Izzy bought a bag for them to share. Because his hands were busy, Jules leaned over and she fed him. She shook her head, wishing she could drink in his mirth. Perhaps if she did she could stop thinking about Oga Garra’s words. How had she not known that her mother had been a killer? During the years she’d spent alone, the driving factor that got her through most days was imagining what her mother might do. Now she could truly say that she didn’t know.