Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

“Thank the ancients,” Jules said, and peeled back the tarp he’d used to cover his speeder.

Izzy pointed at him. “Do not say it was luck.”

“I won’t say it, but I’m definitely thinking it.” He powered up the engines and they took off, leaving the Outpost behind for the empty road that bordered the Surabat River Valley. He inhaled the first moment of true quiet and relief they’d had since their collision that morning. He tore his gaze away from her, trying not to think about how much he loved the sight of her in his tunic.

She rested her elbow on the side of the speeder and leaned out, watching the landscape roll by. Her hair was pulled back, but the loose strands whipped around her face. If he wasn’t careful, he would drive straight into the next spire, because Izzy Garsea was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

The more he tried to understand her, the more tenuous his grasp seemed. She was like the singular occasion when the three Batuuan suns shone at the same time a thunderstorm was rolling in. His mother had had a saying about that—something about sun gods fighting with rain gods, from when she was a little girl and her parents spun tales to go with the ruins they zoomed past. Izzy was two impossible things at once: his childhood best friend and a stranger who’d swept him up into her troubles. She was both fiercely independent, wanting to get off-world, and a girl who’d chosen to stay with him. She was laughing one minute and shooting at someone’s foot the next—though that someone had deserved it. She was a wonder, and she might be his ruin.

But he wouldn’t have it another way yet.

The broadcast from DJ R-3X crackled as they got farther from the Outpost. “Here’s Sentient 7 and the Clankers with their smashing hit ‘Droid World.’” When the signal was too scrambled, Jules shut off the radio.

“When today is over I think I might take a holiday,” he said.

“Where to?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I’m sure you’ve earned it, no matter where you end up.”

He wanted to revisit their conversation from breakfast. But each time he began, he cut himself off. Why was he afraid to tell her what he’d done when he met Trix Sternus at Hondo’s?

After he’d told the spice trader his entire life story, she’d asked him one question: “Do you want to see her again?”

Naturally, the answer was yes. But he’d listed his concerns aloud to Trix. He didn’t know where Izzy was going. It seemed crazy to search the galaxy for a girl he hadn’t seen in years. Plus, he didn’t have a ship.

“Well, kid,” Trix had said, “it so happens I’m here to sell my ship and stay awhile. I’ll give you a good price.”

He’d signed so quickly, he didn’t even have time to process what he’d done. Then he’d stepped off the ramp and seen Izzy. Regret was the furthest thing from his mind. Even if they went their separate ways for a time, he’d done something he always wanted to. But he probably should mention it to Belen.…

They arrived at the abandoned settlement where they had once lived as neighbors. The cloudless sky blanketed them and a feeling of infinity came with it, like they were the only ones on the planet. That far out from Black Spire Outpost, the homes were smaller, simpler. The sandstone on the domed roofs was sun-bleached.

They got out and approached the crumbling structures. Smoke stained the outsides of the houses along the edge where the fire had started. Izzy put her hand close to handprints where someone might have used the wall to support their weight.

“You know, Izzy,” Jules said, “you think louder than Neelo’s caterwauling on live music nights at Oga’s.”

“And you drive slower than a ship running on fumes.” Her words teased a smile from him. She rested her hands on her hips and stared at the small houses. “I can’t tell them apart,” she said sadly.

“Your homestead is further down,” he said. “Next to ours.”

She followed him along. It was like stepping through a door into the past. When he was little, Belen told him that the cenotes near the ruins were portals. They were pocked caverns filled with pools of pale blue water. He swam to the bottom but only found pebbles and catfish.

“The things I remember from our time here are like flashes,” she told him.

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t remember meeting you,” he said. “You were always there.”

“Until I wasn’t.” Their boots crunched pebbles. “And now I know why.”

When he’d been waiting for her to return, he’d wondered why she left. Knowing, truly knowing, that it was Oga Garra, he felt even worse.

The small house the Garsea family had called home for five years was nearly overrun with vines and new, bright green trees. The entire settlement had been left behind, and the community had moved farther away from the farms and spread out. What remained looked much like the rest of the Outpost, an ongoing battle between the land and those who would build on it.

Izzy placed her hand on the entryway and peered inside. Faint light broke through holes in the roof. Jules lingered at the threshold. He marveled at her just as he had done since they were children.

There was nothing left after the fire, but still she searched the place that had once been her home.

“This is where my parents had their bed. I had my own, but I used to crawl out of mine and curl up between them. Sometimes I’d wake up and my mother was gone, but my dad was still there. It was like sleeping next to a hearth because he ran so warm.”

“I’m sorry, Izzy,” he said, closing the distance to where she stood.

She found a drawer that had only been half-consumed by the fire and hadn’t been ransacked by scavengers. “For what?”

“My intention wasn’t to make you upset by coming here.”

“I’m not upset, Jules,” she said. There was something in the drawer—a doll that had seen better days, stitched around the sides. He recognized the work because he’d had the same one as a kid. “You know, I never retrace my steps? When I was small, after Batuu, we never stayed in one place longer than six months to a year. The shortest was on Corellia for two weeks, and the longest was here. I never allowed myself to miss anything or to make friends because I didn’t want to ever feel what I felt on the night when I woke up and we were leaving the planet. I wish I had thanked your mother for this.”

Izzy set the doll on the table. He couldn’t stand the way she looked then and there. Lost. Like she had nowhere to go. Jules was not in a position to make promises to her or offer her anything but his presence.

“My mother asked for you before she passed,” Jules said.

“Really?”

“The virus made her forget a lot. She also thought my da was still alive. I think she called you the frilly girl next door.”

“My father called you my shadow.”

He supposed he had been, once. But he said, “I still say you were the one following me.”

Her face bloomed into a smile, her green eyes flecked with gold brighter under the ray of light where she stood. Her hand moved up his forearm and rested over his heart. Could she feel how fast it was beating?

“Izzy, earlier today I did something—”

Then they both heard a noise and turned toward the doorway. It was a shrill wailing sound. The spell of the past was broken as they went back out into the harsh light of day. There were no new footprints on the ground besides theirs.

“Are there animals out here?” she asked.

“Batuuan rats and nightsnakes, but nothing that makes that kind of noise.”

“You were saying before?”

The moment was gone. But now that they were alone, he could ask her the things he’d wanted to know all day. They went back into the shade of the house and sat on the floor. He pulled out the bag of chocolate-covered caf beans and her eyes went wide.