Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

There was a round of cheers and people chanted her name.

No one in the galaxy knows your name.

Except that had never been true. Jules had always known her name. He’d remembered her before she remembered him. He’d trusted her before she trusted him. Oga Garra, knew her name, too. Now Ana Tolla and her crew would never forget it.

She took in the congratulations and thank-yous. She did not feel deserving of them—not when the galaxy felt so much greater.

“I saw your ship fly away,” Jules said. “Not moments ago.”

She relaxed a bit. Both of them leaned on the bar. “I told Salju she could take it for a spin. She added some new thrusters. Plus, don’t tell Volt, but I had a terrible vermin problem and Lucky ate six of them.”

Jules nearly spit out his drink. They laughed and reached for each other at the same time.

“I thought you left again,” he said.

“I was about to.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“A couple of things.” She held the ring between them. “Starting with this. I told you I was going to give this back to you.”

That had been the moment when everything went wrong. Part of her was holding her breath in case something else crashed in and interrupted their happiness again. But the music flowed, and the noise of conversations grew louder still.

He leaned closer to her ear. “I never caught you. I guess you’ll have to keep it a little longer.”

She restrung the necklace. It felt like it was where it belonged. She was where she belonged as long as Jules was with her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean those things—”

Jules shook his head. He reached for her hand, and their fingers intertwined. “I told you. I know when you’re lying. But you don’t have to protect me.”

“I want to.” She stared at his face. Had someone broken his nose again? “I even stole a ship for you.”

He laughed and kissed the inside of her wrist. “That was my ship. Izzy, you stole my ship.”

She clapped her free hand over her mouth but could not stifle the scream. “No. Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. I’d just bought it when we saw each other again. That’s what I’d been trying to tell you.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

He shrugged. “First I have to wait until it’s fixed. Then, see the galaxy with you if you’ll have me.”

She ran her fingers through his hair. “Meet me on Eroudac.”

“Isn’t that where you dropped out of the academy?”

“It’s also the last place I lived with my parents. It had ancient ruins and a pink moon.”

“It’s a date,” he said, and drank from his glass.

“You have a little something on your lips.”

He touched his chin. “Here?”

The gold lichen that stained his fingers spread. She chuckled and tapped the corner of her mouth. “You missed it.”

“Here?” he said, like he enjoyed making a mess of himself. He was covered in gold dust, like a child who’d devoured a bar of melted gold chocolate. “You have to help me, Garsea, because there aren’t any mirrors in this place.”

She pressed her thumb to the corner of his mouth and then moved in for a kiss. Gold lichen tasted like burnt honey. She leaned into him, the anchor, the tether, the balance she needed. This time it was Jules who broke the kiss. He stared into her eyes, and she had a strange sensation. It was the opposite of vertigo—a steady, unshakable certainty that she couldn’t properly name.

Another set of drinks slid in front of them. This time they were round fish bowls with a real fish garnish. Volt returned from wherever he’d been, his cheeks and scalp covered in scratches.

Neelo and Fawn got onstage and kicked off the lineup of bands with the Frozen Wampas. Jules twirled Izzy in place. She felt limber and free of some of the regret she carried with her. Sometimes heading in the right direction required taking a few steps backward.

The music played long into the night. Her exhaustion evaporated, replaced by the electric sensation of kissing Jules Rakab until the suns rose again and stalls that had been closed for the night began to reopen. Life in Black Spire Outpost went on as if nothing had changed. It was a place that was rebuilt day in and day out. New strangers, forgotten faces—they all intermingled.

They said everyone on Batuu was always either looking for a new life or running from one. For that moment, Izal Garsea found a third option. She could come home.

The girl flew higher and higher out of the spaceport and leveled out over the Surabat River Valley. Swells of green land opened up beneath her ship. For a moment, she took in the rows of jutting spires ahead and the river that cut a path through ancient rock. In the cockpit of the Meridian , she turned to the empty copilot seat. When the boy’s voice crackled over the open comm channel, she flashed a grin he could not see.

“You’re not stalling again, are you, Izzy?” Jules asked. He flew beside her in his own ship, and she imagined the playful look in his eyes, always daring her.

She adjusted the comm around her ear and asked, “Why would I be stalling?”

“Because you don’t want to admit I beat you last time.”

“Did you ever consider I was being a good teacher?”

Jules barked a laugh. Sometimes she thought she could listen to him laugh for hours. With the exception of when he won their races. During the weeks it took for his ship to get repaired, Izzy had let him aboard the Meridian and taught him to fly. He’d grown up on simulators and single-pilot vessels, so he needed to get used to piloting a freighter for their pending adventure. The Batuu landscape provided the perfect obstacle course of rock columns and wide plains.

“On your go, Garsea,” he said. “ If you can keep up.”

She couldn’t keep herself from rising up to meet any dare or challenge he put in her way, even one that kept her in a place she’d never thought she would see again. She hadn’t regretted a moment of it.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m trying to pick out my celebratory drink.”

They took off in a blur, weaving through the gaps between giant black spires and diving along the jagged rock that flanked the river gorge. Her heart leapt as a hunk of stone cracked off and dinged the left wing of his ship.

“Blast!” he shouted, sounding hurt.

“Jules?”

“I will never not be repairing this ship!”

“Bad luck, Rakab,” she said, and punched up the speed, imagining the Meridian as one of the needles Belen used so precisely in her sewing. She slid between two narrow columns and held her breath, hoping he’d follow.

He always did.

When she reached the end of their course, Izzy let out a whoop. Jules was a breath behind her.

“We tied,” he said. “That was most definitely a tie!”

“Tell yourself that. I’ll meet you at Oga’s for my celebratory Bespin Fizz.”

When they docked in the spaceport, Jules found Izzy waiting in the moving crowd. Families huddled together onto transport vessels. They carried large bundles, and Jules knew that they were leaving Batuu. A feeling he couldn’t place wedged between his ribs and made him wince. He wanted to make things better in the Outpost, but he was only one person and he didn’t know where to start. He promised himself that after he and Izzy went on their journey, he’d come back.

Izzy tugged on the sleeve of his tunic. “Base to Jules.”

Looking at her made him feel better somehow. It was one of the many things about being around her that he couldn’t explain—like the way his breath caught when he spotted her in the clusters of people that descended on Cookie’s during lunch, or the way he found any excuse to hold her, or how he could love someone as much as he loved her.