Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

“Izzy,” Jules said, pulling her back to the present.

The stall where they’d stopped was wide open and crowded with customers. They stepped inside, and Jules set the barrel down. The smell of hay and a distinct murky whiff of animal excrement made her nose itch. Incense smoldered in metal burners on either side of the tent entrance. Izzy wasn’t sure why it was so much darker in there than in other stalls until she noticed the blinking red eyes in some of the cages. There were dozens of them stacked on top of each other and strung from metal rafters. Birds flapped inside some.

A short, broad-shouldered man dressed in a scarlet tunic with metal accents was taking payment from a mother with three children. One of the boys was poking a stick into a cage. The top was covered by a tarp, and bits of hay and what looked like a rat’s tail were sticking out between the bars.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” the clerk shouted as he noticed the kid. As if on cue, the creature lunged forward as far as the cage would allow. Its yellow eyes glowed, and two sharp fangs that jutted from its bottom jaw lowered as it let out a yowl. “Fyrnocks have a bit of a temper, but this one is friendlier than others I’ve encountered. Still, you don’t want to poke him.”

The boy showed no fear of the creature, only opened his eyes wider and turned to his mother. “Cool. Can we get him, too? Can we please, please, please?”

He was the oldest of the three, no more than five standard years by the size of him. The other two, twins, wrapped themselves around each of their mother’s legs and whimpered, “Mama, no! He will eat our new friendo!”

“He will not!” the older kid snapped, ready to wrap his tiny hands around the cage bars.

Izzy thought she saw fear in the clerk’s narrow black eyes. He held credits in one hand and a small cage in the other, so he was too occupied to yank the kid back, and so was the mother.

It was Jules who swooped in and grabbed the boy as the fyrnock bit at the space where the kid’s hand had been. “Easy there, bud.”

The mother was slender, with brown hair braided around her head and adorned with gold thread. Her clothes were rippling silk, and delicate pearls dotted her ears and circled her wrists. Everything about her seemed soft, and as she took her child back from Jules, Izzy saw a wealth of patience in her wide brown eyes.

“Oh, thank you,” the mother said, pulling her son to her.

“But I want a fry rock,” the boy whined, and Izzy was ready to run and hide as his trembling lip showed signs of impending waterworks.

Jules threw up his hands as if to say, Fry rocks are no big deal . “I’m sure Volt wouldn’t steer you wrong, kid. What do you have in there?”

The clerk brightened at the interruption. His thick, square eyebrows rose. “Puffer pig, only four months old and sweet as your own children.”

Jules got down on one knee to be eye level with the kids. They turned to him like he was some great keeper of knowledge.

“Did you know that puffer pigs have an incredibly powerful sense of smell for metals?” Jules tapped the youngest kids on their noses. “I bet you and your brothers can let them loose in your yard and dig up all kinds of treasures.”

“Like pirates?” the older boy asked.

Jules glances up at Izzy, and try hard as she could, she could not repress the laugh that bubbled from her lips.

“Pirates that bathe their skins and brush their teeth and drink their milk,” their mother said.

The smaller kids made a face and chimed, “I hate milk.”

“Thank you, Volt. Rising moons to you,” their mother said.

She carried the cage as the older boy wrangled his twin brothers. Volt hurried over to embrace Jules. They clapped each other on the back like they hadn’t seen each other in months.

“Wasn’t expecting to see your ugly mug around here today,” Volt said, letting go of Jules to look at Izzy. He rubbed a hand across the shiny skin of his bald scalp.

“Good run today?” Jules asked his friend.

Volt growled. “Until those blasted bantha brains nearly started a riot. Every time I see one—”

Jules squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “Easy, now.”

Volt took a second to focus, the veins on his neck throbbing as he did some kind of meditation. Izzy looked away to give him a bit of privacy. As she took careful steps between the cages and crates of chittering creatures, Izzy noticed the scarring on the left side of Volt’s face, the marks pink against his otherwise light-brown skin.

“And you brought me a new client. How kind of you, Jules.” Volt, recuperated from his spurt of rage, approached Izzy the way one might approach a curious bird one was trying to lure into a cage. With the smirk of a very charming feline, Volt looked like the kind of vendor who always made a sale—though Izzy was positive he’d be disappointed to learn the reason they were there.

“Izzy, and sadly I’m not a client,” she said, and held out her hand in greeting. He took up her hand in both of his, and the surprise of cold metal joints against her skin made her jump. When she looked down she saw that the pinky and ring ringer of his right hand had been replaced by two mechanical digits. That kind of surgery was common, but Izzy imagined the procedure for replacements with synthskin would be harder to come by in the Outer Rim. Although, what did she know? Perhaps he preferred his hand that way.

“You’re breaking my heart already,” Volt said, his deep voice welcoming. “Are you sure I can’t interest you in a critter? Everyone needs a pet. Perhaps a tooka cat. You’re a pilot, aren’t you? I’m sure my lovely Kishka here would make sure you never have another rodent problem no matter what corner of the galaxy you find yourself in, though I do hope you come back and visit.”

Volt pulled back the canvas on a crate of slumbering tooka cats, their tan fur striped with black. Jules was clearly trying not to laugh. She’d had enough of tooka cats for a lifetime after the one at Salju’s.

“How do you know I’m a pilot?” she asked.

Volt gave a shrug and sauntered over to a glowing tank of worrts. Their bumpy skin glowed in the fluorescent blue light. “I’ve met my share of flyboys—and, er, girls. I know the look. You walk like you’d rather be soaring through the atmosphere.”

Izzy didn’t care to be analyzed, but she didn’t buy his act for one minute.

“Don’t listen to him, Izzy. The first time we met, he tried to unload a barrel of scale fish because he took me as part of a group of divers that had just arrived from Mon Cala.”

Volt pressed his hands to his chest, his metal fingers tapping out a quick rhythm. His black eyes turned to Izzy, then to Jules. “Do you or do you not spend an obscene number of hours in the sinkholes swimming with the catfish.”

“Doesn’t mean I want a tank full of them,” Jules said.

“It’s a yes-or-no question, my friend.” The sleeves of his red tunic had what appeared to be lizards stitched on them in black thread. Izzy noticed the rough scars peeking from his collar. She’d wager he was former military, and wondered how he ended up on Batuu unloading critters on tourists. Volt gestured to Izzy. “And, my dear, are you or are you not a pilot?”

She crossed her arms and smirked. “I am. But I don’t have a rodent problem.”

“All of you have rodent problems.”

“If you count mynocks getting spark drunk off my wiring,” she said. “Anyway, we have to be going. We have something that belongs to you.”

Volt cleared his throat, amused with her. He raised a brow and said, “Is it my heart?”

“You’re embarrassing me, friend,” Jules said, carrying the barrel over to the clerk stand. He set it on the counter.