Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

“No, she shouldn’t have. But she did, and I agreed.”

“Then—don’t leave.”

“What do you mean?”

“You asked me to leave with you, and I said no because I thought the only reason you were asking was because you were afraid.”

She had been. A part of her still was.

“But I’m not afraid,” Jules said. “I’m not asking you to stay forever. Stay for a couple of days. I bet it’s been hours since you last slept.”

She turned his offer over in her mind. What would she do in the Outpost? She felt like she’d seen it half a dozen times over that day.

Be with Jules . The answer came instantly.

“For a professional liar, you take your promises seriously,” he teased her.

“Do you want me to stay?”

The Jules she’d been with all day was back. His laughter was contagious as he fell against her. Jules pressed a soft kiss on her jaw.

“I do want you to stay,” he said. “I’m not done getting to know you.

Izzy had been so consumed with him that she hadn’t realized the sky was beginning to show the first signs of color, so bare it was like a drop of ink in a glass of clear water. She sat up and handed him his jacket back.

“What’s wrong?”

“Suns are setting,” she said.

They raced back to the speeder.

Jules Rakab had kissed girls across Black Spire Outpost, but he had never felt a fraction as elated as he did the moment Izal Garsea pushed up on her toes and reached for him. The wind around them was cold and the ground even colder, but their lips weren’t. The moment felt like it went on forever and was cut too short.

Whatever they had begun that day, it could continue. She was staying. He was already thinking about how they should celebrate after getting rid of the blasted parcel that had rained chaos on their day.

“How far are the coordinates?” she asked.

“We’ll make it,” Jules assured her.

The worry mark on her forehead was back. “Are you sure?”

He put everything he had into his speeder engines, and the force of the velocity kept them from being able to speak. He wished he could tell her that he was unsure of so many things—what he wanted to do with his life and where he might be in the next year. He was unsure if he’d ever turn into the man his father wanted him to be. He should have been unsure about his feelings for Izzy, too, because they were irrational. At first it was brought on by her beauty and nostalgia for their youth, but throughout the day he had wanted more of her. Her anger, her fears. He was certain about her.

When they reached the drop-off location, Jules thought about the day he’d fallen into a cave. He’d been out with his friends searching for the cenotes and came upon a cave covered in roots and crumbling ruins. He’d slipped on the wet rocks and gone through a hole in the ground he hadn’t noticed. Naturally, his friends ran because they were afraid of getting in trouble. Belen had found him on her own. He loathed being so small. But he hadn’t been as terrified as he should have been, because he knew Belen would come for him. She’d been trying to look out for him when she asked Izzy to stay away from him. But he was his own person. He hoped to make her see that.

“If anything could get me to believe in magic,” Izzy said. “It would be this place.”

He squeezed her hand. That part of the land was covered in pale gray rock formations and rich green grass fed by the water in the cenotes. Trees grew low, their wispy leaves brushing the ground as if they were bending forward in prayer. There was a stillness there. It was a place of secrets from the time of the ancient ones who once roamed those lands. There was nothing new on Batuu, and nothing about it ever went wasted by new settlers, no matter how long they stayed.

The suns were bleeding toward the horizon, giving way to two silver moons. He could have stood there watching her until the light went out, but then they heard a clicking noise behind them.

They whirled around, staying close to each other.

“Bright suns, travelers,” Jules said.

The two strangers who approached were dressed in plain trousers and long-sleeved shirts that had seen better days, and they carried blasters at their hips. One was a young Mon Calamari man, and the other was a woman a little older than Jules. She had dark brown skin and tight curly hair kept short. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“And rising moons,” the Mon Calamari said. “I’m Lejo.”

“Dok-Ondar sends his regards,” Jules said.

“May the spires keep him,” Lejo said. His voice carried a heavy weight.

“Thank you for coming all this way,” the woman said. She didn’t introduce herself, and neither did Izzy and Jules.

Izzy shook off her pack and knelt to take out the parcel. After everything they had been through that day, she somehow managed to say, “Just doing my job.”

The other woman flashed a knowing smile. She turned to Jules and watched him carefully. “In that case, thank you both for doing your jobs.”

It hit him all at once. No one lived in the ruins, not even new settlers. But he realized, if the First Order was a loud display parade in the Outpost, then wouldn’t the side that opposed it be hidden whispers waiting for the right time? Something within him shifted for a second time that day. The first was when Izzy had kissed him. That was possibility. This shift—he couldn’t name yet. But it was bright.

“I’d heard rumors that the Resistance was on planet, but I didn’t think it was true,” he said.

Lejo quirked his head to the left. “Why’s that?”

Jules smiled and lifted a shoulder. “You never know what’s true around these parts.”

“Dok wouldn’t have sent just anyone out here,” the woman said.

“How do you know Dok?” Izzy asked.

“My mother was a botanist on Raysho. She used to procure bulbs for Dok’s gardens.”

Dok’s gardens? was Jules’s first thought, followed by the realization that Raysho was in the Hosnian system. Before he could say anything, she spoke again.

“I’ve heard that everyone on Batuu is always either looking for a new life or running from one. Which one are you?”

Jules thought about that for a moment. Why did she want to know? He had nothing to run from. People always seemed to want more—more credits, more things, more space. But that didn’t mean a new life. And he had never wanted to run from his. When he looked at Izzy, the emotions she kept behind her steel walls, he reconsidered what it would mean for her to have a fresh start. What it would mean for him, if she would have him.

“Neither,” he said. “I know who I am.”

The woman smiled. She turned to Izzy and asked the same question. He was expecting her not to answer, but then she said, “Both.”

Before the strangers turned to go, Izzy hesitated.

“Wait,” she blurted out. There was something bright in her eyes. “I know I wasn’t supposed to ask. But can you tell us what we’ve been carrying all day?”

The two strangers looked at each other. Lejo nodded at the woman, who squared her shoulders and said, “You didn’t care before. What’s changed?”

Izzy glanced at Jules, then back at the strangers. “Maybe my curiosity is getting the best of me.”

“Imagine being pushed so far to the brink of something that you think you might fall,” Lejo said. “You’re alone in the galaxy. You’re cut off from the most basic necessities and medicine. But sometimes there is hope and allies surprise you. Does that clear your conscience?”

Izzy gave the barest nod. “Good luck.”

“If you want to keep doing some good,” the woman said, “you know where to find us.”