A Crash of Fate Page 9

  “You could tell me,” Jules said softly, moving a wooden ornament that hung from a canopy so he wouldn’t hit his head. Why couldn’t he snap back at her? Why did she think the answer to everything was yelling?

  She was turned around again. Every pathway in Black Spire Outpost seemed to bleed into the next, and she couldn’t quite get her bearings. Every petrified tree looked like the last. She was thankful that Jules was by her side, or she’d end up in another dead end facing down a trooper. You trust Jules, she tried to reason with herself. But her mother had taught her a terrible thing—how to be stubborn.

  “So, if you got food poisoning from Cookie’s, you would just go back for seconds because you trusted it wouldn’t happen again?”

  He gasped, feigning a wound. “You take that back.”

  “See?” She began turning toward an archway.

  “I see no such thing, Izzy Garsea.” He tugged on her sleeve and sent her in the right direction, down an alley that smelled of dye and soap. “Those two situations have nothing to do with each other. One is food and the other is love, though I would argue that they are one and the same.”

  “You’re just avoiding saying that I’m right.”

  “Wrong,” Jules said, mussing his soft brown curls with frustration. “If I got food poisoning at Cookie’s—may the spires forbid it—I wouldn’t starve myself because I was afraid of getting sick again. Everyone’s got to eat.”

  Izzy wanted to deny that she had ever loved Damar. But wasn’t that why she was so furious at his abandonment? She found that the heaviness in her chest had everything to do with what she wasn’t saying.

  So, she told Jules about the day before and how Damar had left her in the middle of a brawl. She left out the part about it being her birthday because it made her feel childish.

  He was silent, his hands balled into fists. His strong jaw was set hard, the muscles there tense.

  I’ve done it, she thought as she watched his anger spark. I’ve upset Jules Rakab.

  “My original offer still stands,” he finally said.

  “I don’t need anyone to fight my battles for me, Jules. Besides, I’m fine. Tell me about Belen.”

  She reached for his hand, and his fist softened at her touch. His fingers were calloused and warm. He had strong hands that came from a lifetime of hard work. She forced herself to let go, even though she only wanted to hold on tighter.

  He spoke of his sister and brother-in-law and their small shared flat. He seemed so grounded, like he belonged there. Passersby and vendors called out his name. They brightened at the sight of him. If her parents had never taken her from Batuu, how would their friendship have changed? Would they have survived the fire? The virus? Would she and Jules be closer, or would they have grown apart the way some friends were fated to do? She wanted to believe that the need to be among the stars was so embedded in her bones that she would have left eventually. Maybe he would have left with her.

  When they got to the filling station, Salju had finished with his speeder and was back to working on the Meridian. She wiped her hands on a rag, and by the peculiar look on her face, Izzy imagined it was bad news.

  “You won’t believe this, Jules,” Salju said, “but it’s running just fine. I reset the dash, tinkered with the engines, and took a spin around the Outpost. Whatever happened must have been a glitch.”

  “A glitch?” Izzy repeated it as a question. Her arm muscles were starting to feel the entire hour they’d pushed the speeder.

  Worse was Jules laughing as he pulled a tip-yip morsel from his pocket and bent down to offer it to the feral tooka cat that was yowling at her feet.

  “I’ll have my comlink close if you break down again,” Salju said, taking off her goggles. They left an outline of grime on her forehead. “But like I said, it’s in working order. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to our lovely guest’s ship.”

  “I’ll give you a lift back to Dok’s,” Jules said. “It’s on my way.”

  Izzy had walked a lot of the Outpost, and she suspected that he was exaggerating how “on the way” it was. She accepted anyway and threw her backpack into the cockpit. Jules brushed his hand across the dashboard and tuned in to a broadcast. A droid’s voice came through: “This is Deejay Ar-three-ex spinning the galaxy’s latest hits. Here is ‘Black Spire Harvest’ by Mus Kat & Nalpak, playing at Oga’s Cantina tonight only.”

  “Is this where Neelo and Fawn are playing?” she asked, and Jules flashed a smile as he turned up the volume. She wanted to memorize his smile before she left.

  When he dropped her off behind Dok’s, he hopped out to say good-bye.

  “It was good to see you, Jules.” She offered his scarf back, but he shook his head.

  “Borrow it,” he said. “Maybe you’ll have a reason to come back.”

  She didn’t want to make another promise she wouldn’t be able to keep. Instead she hugged him. Everything about him was solid, like an anchor—grounded as the rock formations around them. She closed her eyes and told herself that she was doing the right thing. She’d have to leave sooner or later. Jules belonged there; he just didn’t know it yet. Where would she belong?

  As always, she’d figure it out. But first she had to get out of their embrace.

  “May the spires keep you, Izzy,” he whispered in her ear, then let go.

  She didn’t know what that meant, but she was certain it was some sort of good-bye. She reached into the cockpit and grabbed her rucksack, then watched Jules drive away.

  Jules glanced over his shoulder only once. Izzy wasn’t looking back at him as she entered Dok’s den. When he was far enough down the road, he let the past couple of hours with Izzy sink in, and let out a frustrated scream. She’d asked him to leave with her. Izal Garsea had virtually asked him to run away with her. Come with me. There was a moment when he was going to say yes. When would he get another opportunity like that? But the fear came out of nowhere. What if they hated each other after that day? If there were any doubts, he couldn’t take the risk. So like the ever-loving fool he was, he’d said no.

  He was right to say no. She hadn’t meant it. She was upset after seeing her old crew, her old…He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt so irrationally, ridiculously jealous. Jules had known terrible people in the Outpost—criminals and gang members who might sell their own families for a payday—but he couldn’t fathom the idea of leaving someone behind. Someone you were supposed to care about.

  And yet, wasn’t that what Izzy and Jules had just done—leave each other behind?

  He punched his steering wheel and nearly swerved into a woman herding a horned ikopi. Shouting an apology, Jules focused on the road.

  He was right to say no. Wasn’t he? If he’d left with her, he would have been taking advantage of her while she was lonely. What would he have told Belen? Not to mention everything he would be leaving behind. He hadn’t figured out what he wanted to do yet. Words popped into his mind—investments, family, the future.

  Then, a terrifying thought: After all those years, they’d found each other again. What if Izzy had offered him a future and he’d just turned it down. Not a future with her but a start at the adventure he’d always dreamed of. Say he had taken her up—on an offer he was sure she didn’t mean—then where would he go? He had only ever lived on Batuu. What if he couldn’t cut it off-world? Maybe Haal had been right about Jules never leaving the Outpost.

  One consolation was that his speeder was gliding like new. Though Salju could fix anything in a way he’d never seen from anyone before, Jules marveled at the idea that there had been nothing wrong with it. How could that be a coincidence? He returned to his theory of fate. Had it simply stopped working to get Izzy and Jules into Cookie’s at the exact moment that her old crew would be there? If his mind kept spinning, it would glitch like his speeder.

  Izzy had made a decision to leave, and he couldn’t follow. He decided to take the long way to Hondo’s to clear his head. It was a rare day when the sky was c
lear enough to see all three suns. Without his scarf he enjoyed the heat on his back. Black Spire Outpost looked different when the suns illuminated the spires and wild trees around them. Ruins of days long gone hugged the newer edifices. Jules had always liked that about his homeworld. Unlike people in other places he’d heard of in the galaxy who destroyed all remnants of their past, the people of BSO lived alongside their history, on top of it, within it. It was the best way to know where you came from. His father used to tell him stories about the ancients. Everyone had their own ideas of what they’d looked like, who they were, to the point that they were nothing but bedtime stories anymore.

  As he zoomed past the road, Jules noticed three figures fighting up ahead. He slowed down to see a humanoid with scarlet skin and a young human attacking someone. Jules powered down his speeder. The trio didn’t seem to hear him. If Belen could see him she’d tell him to keep going, that he had work to do and this wasn’t his business. But a hard feeling in his gut told him he had to stop and help. Sometimes if felt as though his father was calling out to him from beyond the veil and guiding him. Hopefully not when Jules was drinking and shooting droid heads in the plains, but definitely now.

  “Hey!” Jules shouted, and leapt from his speeder.

  The scarlet-skinned humanoid froze and whirled around, his single black eye glowering at Jules. His partner, a human girl just younger than himself, but equally muscular, spit at the ground.

  “Walk away, moof-milker,” she said, her pale ruddy cheeks sunburned.

  Jules rested his hands on his waist and shook his head. “Can’t do that.”

  Yes, you can, Belen’s voice said in his mind. It would be so easy to keep going, to pretend that he’d never seen someone getting robbed on the side of a dirty road. He’d survived his life in the Outpost by learning how to fight back only when he needed to. Not everyone could say the same.

  “At least we’ll even the odds,” the young guy behind them said. His eye was bruising like passion plum, and he used a staff to push himself to his feet.

  The attackers glared at each other, then took off.

  “I suppose they decided my trinkets are not worth the risk,” the boy said.

  Jules shook his head, his heart still racing from the anticipation of a brawl. “You all right?”

  “I’ve seen better days.” Covered in dusty scarves and a long brown robe, the boy grabbed his side and winced. Jules offered his forearm to help him climb back up the slope and onto the dirty road littered with round white stones.

  “I’m Nate Grattonius,” he said, extending his hand to Jules. “I’m in your debt—”

  “Jules. And you aren’t. Will you be all right?”

  Nate tugged the hood of his cape up and lowered himself to the ground. Jules realized that there were things scattered on the dirt, not only pebbles. It looked like a bunch of junk, but Jules knew that a bit of junk was treasure to anyone who scavenged. The boy had bright blue eyes and hair that looked recently shorn. The tops of his cheeks and bridge of his nose were shadowed with blooming bruises. When he reached for the metal trinkets on the ground, he hissed.

  “Easy, friend,” Jules said. “They did a number on you, didn’t they?”

  Nate chuckled despite the pain but didn’t stand. “It’s no matter, thanks to you.”

  Jules had been mugged by off-worlders twice when he was nothing but a skinny runt, before he’d gotten so tall and bulky that people thought twice about picking a fight with him. The first time it happened, he was eight and he’d spent all day rummaging in the salvage yard, one of his first jobs working for Savi and Son Salvage. He’d found a fighter pilot’s helmet from the Clone Wars. How it’d ended up in that wreck was something he’d fantasized about while playing with the other boys. He’d been walking down by the docking bays, wearing the helmet, when two bigger kids yanked it off his head. Jules had put up a fight. Being small was no excuse for not being brave. One split lip and a bruised cheek later, he’d run home and told his mother all about it. She warned him to stay away from strangers, not to walk alone on the outskirts of the Outpost. Mother Rakab had never liked venturing into the market or the spaceport. She preferred the solitude of the inner lands, where her family had settled when she was a little girl, and wished Jules felt the same.

  Another time was five years back, when he’d been with some of his friends at Oga’s Cantina. He was careless and had wanted to splurge on one of the extravagant drinks they mixed, though he knew he wasn’t supposed to. The minute he’d stepped outside and started back home, three guys jumped him and took the last of his spira. He’d promised himself then and there, as he threw blind punches, that he’d never be picked on again. He learned every street of the Outpost, who lurked in the alleys, who did jobs for whom. He wouldn’t lose himself in the bitterness of those humiliations, but would use the experiences to drive himself forward. And he knew that when he saw it happen to someone else, he would intervene. Especially now that he was big enough to fight back properly.

  “I seem to be in the right place at the right time today,” Jules said. “Or the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m not exactly sure.”

  “Both things can be true, Jules.” Nate’s face split into a bright smile. “For my assailants it was the wrong time, for me it was the right one.”

  The boy adjusted the cluster of necklaces around his neck. It reminded Jules of the scores of trinkets Dok always wore. Nate wore a peculiar little crystal strung around one of the necklaces. He started collecting small metallic pieces and circuit wire from the ground.

  “Here, let me help,” Jules said, and toed the stray bits of grass with his boot. It was easy to spot metal glinting in the rising suns.

  “You’re very kind,” Nate said. “I hope I’m not keeping you from somewhere you have to be?”

  Jules chuckled lightly, picking up something that looked like a metal finger. Maybe this man knew where Jules was supposed to be, because as the day progressed Jules had no clue, other than his job for Dok. “Believe me, I’ve been where you are. What are you working on? Customizing some sort of droid?”

  “Sort of,” Nate said, wiping his brow. A shuttle raced past above them, and two kids on a speeder bike were a blur on the open road. “Everything can be made new again. Now, I believe that’s all of it, friend. I must get on my way.” With his pouch filled with bits and bolts, Nate steadied himself on his staff and held out a hand to Jules.

  “Are you going anywhere near Hondo’s?” Jules asked. “I can drop you off.”

  Nate squinted against the suns and tugged his hood farther down. He appeared even younger when he smiled at Jules, the dust on his face like a smattering of freckles. It made Jules think of the freckles on Izzy’s cheeks even though they didn’t remotely resemble each other. “I need to be elsewhere, but I thank you. Should our paths cross again, I hope to return the favor. May the Force be with you, Jules.”

  Jules nodded but said nothing. He hadn’t heard that phrase since he was a child, when a group of Force believers had made themselves known on Batuu. He was raised with the idea that there was something out there guiding him, but while his parents had referenced the Force a handful of times throughout his life, only the very old people he knew still believed in that religion. Jules considered that all his talk about fate and the universe might be the same thing.

  Nate turned onto the road and continued his journey in the opposite direction. Jules jumped into the driver’s seat of his speeder. He wasn’t done thinking about Izal Garsea and what it meant that she’d blown back into his life, even if just for a moment.

  Back inside Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities, Izzy settled into the dim, cool shop. Jules’s absence was palpable to her. She unraveled the scarf from around her neck because it smelled like him. It wasn’t that she wanted to forget him. Not again. Being with Jules, even for a few hours, had sped up the healing of something she hadn’t even realized was broken. Why couldn’t she do that on her own?

  With the arrival of
Ana Tolla, she’d officially been pulled in too many directions. All she wanted to do then was crawl into her bed and sleep. She reset the course in her mind to what she’d originally gone there to do, before Jules.

  Tap looked up from an ancient holovid game. His eyes narrowed with skepticism until he recognized her.

  “Hey, kid,” she said.

  “Dok’s not back yet. I’m powering down until he gets back.”

  A feeling that something was wrong needled at her. Why would Dok leave his shop unattended, except for a small child, for so long? Besides, he was expecting her. This was her opportunity to deliver the parcel and then get going. She’d already said good-bye to Jules; she couldn’t do it twice. What if he came back before she left? Would they have to do the same farewell again? One for the day was enough.

  She muttered a curse and stalked over to the metal railing that barred off the mezzanine of the shop. She slumped down to the ground and took off the pack. It was heavier than when she’d put it on that morning, but she blamed the strain of pushing Jules’s speeder.

  “You can wait here if you’d like,” he said, and when she looked at him, she saw just how young he was. What had she been doing at ten? Learning how to clean a blaster in the cargo bay of her mother’s ship, she realized.

  She fished inside the pack for her caf beans and the holocomm Pall Gopal had given her to contact him. Perhaps if the Rodian told her she could give the parcel to Tap, she could be on her way off this world.

  “No,” she muttered as she pulled out a dented silver briefcase. It was roughly the same size as hers, but there was no keypad on it. “Nononono.”

  “No, what?” Tap asked, the beeping of rapid explosions from his game matching the speed of her heart.

  Even as she examined the pack, brown and worn, she knew where she’d gone wrong. If she closed her eyes she could see herself reach into the cockpit, her mind so full of emotion she couldn’t think straight. She’d grabbed Jules’s pack.