Zoraida Cordova - A Crash of Fate

When her dashboard beeped hours later, signaling she’d arrived, Izzy buckled in and braced herself to come out of lightspeed. When the stretch of stars faded out of view and took the shape of a planet, her first thought was that it looked like so many other worlds—an expanse of green cut by patches of brown and some blue, swirling storms gathering at the poles. She was born on the Meridian , while her parents were in the middle of their travels, and Batuu just happened to be the nearest planet. “One rock is as good as the next,” her mom used to say. But as the Meridian broke through the coverage of clouds, Izzy took in the jutting rock spurs of petrified trees and jagged cliffs that made Black Spire Outpost so unique. Home , a part of her thought. Another part contradicted her. Home is where this ship is.

Thirteen years before, her parents had picked up in the middle of the night and left Batuu without so much as a word to their neighbors or coworkers on the vegetable farm where she’d believed both her parents were employed. Soon Izzy discovered her mother had never been a farmer, only her father. Her parents were not the best at explaining things, like why they moved so often or why her mother always needed to scan a room before she entered it, and Izzy had learned quickly not to ask questions her mother would never answer.

She scoured the sprawling land beyond the Outpost and couldn’t even remember where their house had once been. Could it have been in the cluster of settlements to the north? The grasslands? Faced with her return to Batuu, Izzy felt bothered that some of the best memories of her life had grown blurry after so many years. That planet on the edge of Wild Space was where the Garsea family had settled down for the longest uninterrupted stretch of their lives together. Her parents might have found it easy to abandon, but Izzy had left a part of herself on those cliffs on the horizon, and she had the scars to prove it. Her time there belonged to a different girl in a different era.

Izzy made for the Outpost and set the Meridian down at a filling station. Clouds of dust obstructed her view of the landing pad. The ship made a strange sound, like metal warping.

“That can’t be good,” she muttered, and powered down.

As the suns rose, a bronze light illuminated the rock spires surrounding the domed station. She realized she hadn’t been honest with herself moments before. There were some memories from Batuu that were clear. One person. She reached into her blouse and pulled out the smooth black stone ring flecked with bits of gold. It only fit her pinky finger, so she kept it strung on a leather cord. The boy who’d given it to her as a token of friendship had been her only friend on the planet—perhaps her only real friend ever. It was difficult to build lasting relationships when her family wasn’t in any one place for more than a couple of days, and on the off chance that they lived somewhere for as long as six months…Well, Izzy remembered how hard she’d cried when they left Batuu. As the years went by, she figured out that it was easier to leave a place when there was no one there who might miss you.

For a while, she’d had Damar. As she slipped the ring back under her shirt, she wondered if she had put up with him for so long because she truly cared for him or because she had gotten tired of being alone.

Izzy had always been used to noise—her parents laughing; cantinas; markets; her aging, beautiful ship; even Damar running through the list of things that could go wrong with a job, or his constant commentary about the state of the galaxy, which was usually uninformed. Was she really so terrified of silence that she couldn’t be alone for a few hours? She should know better.

“You have to learn to love your own company. That way you’re never alone,” her mother had once told her. Like so much of Ixel Garsea’s advice, it came as part command and part truth, and with zero explanation.

If her mother could see her, Ixel would set those crystalline green eyes on Izzy and drip disappointment with the barest frown.

Izzy shook her head. She needed to focus. The job was easy and paid well. Pall Gopal had been the lucky break she’d been searching for, even if his words had bruised her ego. All she had to do was deliver the mysterious parcel to the legendary Ithorian, Dok-Ondar. She’d caught a glimpse of him once on the rare occasion her father took her to the Outpost. After that she was free to do whatever she pleased. The Meridian needed work and fuel. For the first time in months she wouldn’t have to scrape the credits together. If she remembered correctly, Batuu was known for its copious market stalls, offering all kinds of wonders from around the galaxy. Maybe she’d even shop for her birthday. Her boots were beginning to fray and thin out at the soles. The next day, she’d be somewhere else. It had been a while since she’d been to the other side of the galaxy. Maybe she’d travel to Canto Bight to search for new job prospects or visit one of its spas.

Things were looking up for Izal Garsea, and her mood brightened. She made sure her heavy black boots were tightly laced, double knotting them and tucking in the ends. The package the Rodian had given her was safely in the cargo hold. When he’d brought the medium-size briefcase to the Meridian , it had made her nervous enough that she’d hidden it beneath a panel in the floor. She dug her finger under the divot in the floor and lifted the panel. When she was little, the crawl space had served as a hiding spot. It had been days after they’d left Batuu and she had still been angry with her parents. It was hard to imagine that she was ever small enough to tuck herself in the same space that she used for bottles of stolen wine or the purebred cat of a senator’s wife that Izzy had smuggled out of the couple’s home during a divorce settlement.

Izzy grabbed the briefcase by the handle and hoisted it out. The surface was a smooth silver metal with scuffs and scrapes on it. She traced her thumb over the front, where the square keypad was nestled at the center. Her curiosity piqued, she shook the case, but it did not rattle. Perhaps the contents were locked in place. Perhaps Pall Gopal had simply felt sorry for her because he’d witnessed her humiliation, and was sending her on a personal errand as a former friend of her mother. Though she had to admit that would be extremely elaborate, and in Izzy’s experience, no one anywhere did anyone favors out of sheer kindness.

Damar had left her because she wasn’t cut out for their job. The Rodian had chosen her because no one knew her name. She’d been gone from Batuu long enough that it was probably true. But she’d prove them both wrong.

She snatched a large tattered backpack from the closet and stuffed the briefcase inside. There was no way she could walk around a port city with anything that screamed mug me . This way, she was a tourist buying Batuu’s local and imported offerings.

She shoved in the bag of chocolate-covered caf beans, along with part of the payment Pall Gopal had given her and a nutrient packet. It tasted like watery clay, but she had to be prepared.

She dug in the closet for a leather jacket that didn’t smell like Naboo Cooler. Sometimes wearing her mother’s collection of outerwear made Izzy feel like she was playing dress-up, but she had to admit, the forest green with black stripes down the arms looked good on her. Maybe her mom wouldn’t approve of the sentiment, but sometimes Izzy wanted to feel closer to her. Securing her blaster at her hip, she lowered the boarding ramp.

She could taste the dust in the air still settling from her arrival. The morning chill seeped into her bones despite her jacket.