He drove straight for the shadows of Smuggler’s Alley.
Izzy had never been to that part of the Outpost when she lived on Batuu. There were no welcoming shops or stoop conversations over tea. It was the sort of place where people knew where they were going and whom they were looking for, with none of the curious browsing of the Outpost market stalls.
Jules powered down the speeder in front of a shop that advertised body modifications. He still gripped the wheel. Never before had she seen him so visibly upset. She bit the inside of her lip trying to find the right things to ask. She’d seen his face when the young boy shouted those things about their planet. Though she’d been away for so long, it had been her home once. She rested her hand on his, and a static surge shot up her finger. He glanced up, conflict warring in his dark brown eyes. He accepted her touch and threaded her fingers with his.
“I should have stayed with them,” he said, leaning back in his seat.
“Has this happened before?”
He shook his head. “Things have been strange all around. Not just people taking off but something else. I don’t even think Oga knows why the First Order is here. Because if she did, she would have handed over whatever it was they wanted and sent them packing.”
Izzy scoffed. “One time my mother said that revolution and war was good for business.”
She hated that she’d said it, but Jules didn’t let go of her hand.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” he asked.
She could guess. She felt his tension beside her. The night before, when she’d been at that cantina in Actlyon, hadn’t she wanted to stay and help but forced herself to go? She’d seen the same look in Jules’s eyes moments before. Only he was already so much braver than she was because he always wanted to do good, not just when things got violent.
“The helplessness?” she offered.
“He wasn’t even wrong,” Jules said. “Batuu is run by criminals. Everything I’ve ever done is touched by that. Everyone on this planet.”
“You’re a farmer, Jules.” She squeezed his hand in both of hers. “You’re a friend, a brother. No matter where you go in the galaxy there’s always good and bad. There are imbalances of power. Batuu is no better or worse. They destroyed an entire system. Nothing can make that right.”
He kissed the knuckles of her hand, like it was something he had done before that moment. Natural, sweet. She wanted to blame the kiss on the events of the day again. Being with Jules felt like jumping to lightspeed without having charted a course. She wasn’t sure if she’d come out of it close to a planet or collide headfirst with an asteroid. But she wanted to see what would happen.
“When I was a boy,” Jules said, “my father said that Batuu was once full of those running from evil as much as it was full of those running because they’d done evil.”
“What about the people caught in between?”
He chuckled then. “Oh, they’re here, too. I think it burned me up when he called Batuu a wasteland because it isn’t. For those who choose to stay, it’s a second chance.”
In all the time she’d spent trying to reinvent herself, to find where exactly she belonged, why hadn’t she considered that she could get a second chance, too? What would that look like? Staying on Batuu?
The words never made it to her lips, because she saw someone familiar. It was Ana Tolla. Her head was covered by a scarf, and she’d tucked her recognizable red hair away. But she wore the blue jacket Izzy had given to Damar. She considered that perhaps the crew leader had sold it for fuel, but when the woman raised her hand to knock on a door, Izzy caught a glimpse of her face. It was definitely her.
Jules squeezed Izzy’s hand hard enough to jolt her. He whispered, “Don’t move. Let me talk.”
Izzy was confused. Jules hadn’t seen Ana Tolla. When she looked around, she saw that it wasn’t her old crew leader he’d been referring to. They were surrounded by scruffy-looking pirates.
A human male in his mid-twenties with a twisted brown beard and greasy hair stepped forward. “Oga Garra wants to see you.”
Jules hesitated for the briefest moment before he turned on the engines. He grabbed the wheel with one hand but didn’t let go of hers as he said, “Tell her we’re coming.”
Jules could count with two fingers the number of times he’d seen Oga Garra.
The first was by sheer accident. He’d had no idea what she looked like, only heard what the farmers, some who rarely even ventured to the Outpost, whispered on their breaks. Then one day he’d been at the spaceport watching off-worlders file out of emissary vessels in glittering robes, accompanied by dozens of handmaidens. He’d followed them right to the cantina to get a better look. At first, he hadn’t known what he was looking at. He saw a gathering of pink tentacles sticking out of the hood of a cloak. She blended so well into the shadows that if there hadn’t been light from the moons, he wouldn’t have noticed her. There were two drunk farmers near her, rowdy and shouting. They made gestures with their hands that Jules didn’t understand at first, pressing their fingers together in a point and speaking in Huttese. The next day those farmers didn’t show up for work. Jules never saw them again.
The second time had been when he walked into Dok’s den and Dok and Oga were in the back room arguing. Dok had shut the doors in his face and he’d had to return to work later.
He told Izzy as much. He powered down the engines and threw a tarp over the speeder. Their escorts waited at the back door. Jules ran through the number of things that could have made Oga summon them.
“Do you think she knows about Delta?” Izzy asked.
“She has a way of knowing everything. But we’re about to find out,” he said, keeping his arms firm at his sides. “I should mention right now that Blutopians don’t like to be stared at.”
“No one likes to be stared at,” Izzy countered.
“You haven’t met my friend Volt.” He managed to wink at her. Who was he, winking and driving a getaway speeder? He’d spent so much of his life trying to stay just adjacent to trouble so it didn’t touch him. He hadn’t always been successful. But he was alive. Though the day wasn’t over. Neelo and Fawn’s lazy, knowing grins flickered in his mind as he and Izzy were escorted down a narrow hall. Trouble, they’d said. Trouble had indeed come in the form of Izal Garsea, and as they stepped into the cool dark of Oga’s office, he knew he’d choose her again and again. After all, that had been his wish so many years before, as a little boy asking the wishing tree to bring his best friend back.
He tried to give her a reassuring look, but her attention had been drawn elsewhere. Though she kept her features steady, he could feel her unease.
Jules marveled at the wall hangings, square pieces of sandstone with carved designs eroded by time. They looked like they were cut from the ruins themselves. He remembered the legends his father had told him, about a queen who built that city from stone before it fell to invaders. Jules wondered if that was why Oga kept those pieces, as if she were the queen of the Outpost, like the nameless ancients from legend.
Oga Garra sat on an elaborate high-backed chair carved from Batuuan spires. Silk pillows cushioned her back, and a small stand beside her held a bowl of three-headed larvae and a glowing hookah that perfumed the air with the scent of river valley blossoms. Orbs of light hovered above her, giving her thick brown epidermis and pink face tentacles a slick sheen.
There was a carved desk in the corner, but unlike Dok’s it held parcels and datapads instead of paper. Jules couldn’t imagine Oga taking her own orders and filling out shipment requests, because she didn’t have to request anything.
The doors slid closed, but R-3X’s music session was streaming from a comm Jules couldn’t see. Oga pressed a button and the sound cut out. The stiff tentacles of her mouth moved, and she spoke Huttese in a screeching voice.
Jules folded himself into a bow, and Izzy followed suit. He had no clue if people bowed to Oga, but he wanted to cover his bases and he thought it was best t
o let her speak first.
“Sit,” Jules translated for Izzy.
They did as they were told. The stone benches seemed like they were designed to make the person opposite Oga uncomfortable. But when Jules turned to see how Izzy was doing, she looked mesmerized. Her eyes were wide, and a smile played on her lips. Jules realized that she was more used to meeting with beings like Oga than he was. He wondered—could Izzy be in love with Oga’s power? Was that what she wanted? Where would that leave him? Not that it mattered at the moment. First he needed to get through the meeting without incurring Oga’s wrath.
Oga spoke again, and Jules thanked the spires that he’d spent so much time in the ports listening to conversations in Huttese. When she was finished, he was stunned.
“You know my name?” he asked the Blutopian.
“I know everything that goes on in my outpost,” she answered in the guttural language. “So when I hear about an off-worlder girl looking to make deals that cut me out, I have concerns.”
Jules translated while Oga snatched a larva, bulbous and white, and bit off one of its three heads.
“You’ve got the wrong girl, then,” Izzy answered in Basic.
Oga made a strange sound and Jules couldn’t be sure if it was a good or bad sign, or if she was choking. She spoke more clearly.
“Who are you?” Jules translated.
“My name is Izal Garsea, and I’m here to deliver a parcel to Dok-Ondar.”
Oga considered this in the time it took her to finish crunching on the larva. When she spoke again, Jules clenched his jaw and turned to Izzy.
“Garsea?” he translated. “Your mother. Green eyes like yours. I remember her. She worked for me once. One of the best. Never missed a bounty.”
Izzy sucked in a short breath. “My mother was a smuggler.”
Oga rattled off a string of words that made Jules flash hot. “I can’t say that to her.”
“Say what?” Izzy asked.
He couldn’t ignore Oga. The same helpless feeling he’d had moments earlier returned. Looking Izzy deep in her eyes, he forced his mouth to form the words.
“Foolish girl. You didn’t know your mother at all.”
“Then tell me,” Izzy said, her voice stronger than his. They waited for Oga to finish speaking. Jules hated being the one to have to deliver these words to her.
“I know she came here to get away like others do,” Jules translated. “It worked for a while, but she grew restless. I gave her work. When she couldn’t complete the last job, I spared her as long as she left that very night.”
Izzy frowned but didn’t reveal anything else. He’d give anything to take her away from that place. He hated that he’d done everything he could to learn to fight, to help others, but he was in front of the one person on the planet he couldn’t touch. Oga had been the reason the Garseas left all those years before.
“Thank you, Oga,” Izzy said slowly, as if choosing her words carefully. “This has been—enlightening. Did you kill her?”
Oga chortled, and the wet slap of her mouth made Jules suppress a shiver as he translated in a rush: “Would it matter? Would you try to hurt me? What could you do to me that I couldn’t do worse?”
Then Oga stared right at Jules as if daring him to defend his friend. There was a helplessness there, like he’d felt earlier, and he hated it.
Izzy nodded in understanding, but he could feel her withdraw from him. That cloud he’d felt around her when he first saw her that day returned with a storm. He had no choice but to listen to Oga once more, each smack of her words making his teeth ache.
“I haven’t seen Dok all day,” he said.
“What have you seen, Jules?” she asked in rough, accented Basic. She continued in Huttese and said that she’d sent a runner to the shop to check up on the Ithorian since his runner was late. They had returned moments before Jules and Izzy arrived with news that Dok still wasn’t there.
Jules decided it was best not to point out that he was not given a time to arrive at Oga’s and that everyone would be late if she was able to choose an arbitrary time.
For Izzy’s benefit, he translated, “Something is happening around here and I’m going to find out what it is. If I find out you two are involved…”
She let the threat hang between them, the orbs above her pulsing. He knew the meeting was over when she turned on DJ R-3X’s broadcast again. He was calling out items from a lost and found.
“Dok’s payment,” Oga said, and pointed to a wrapped bundle on the desk. Then she added. “Take that barrel of rot back to Volt and tell him no deal. I can’t make money if all my patrons keel over from poison. Now go.”
As they left, Oga called Izzy back but told Jules to wait outside. He felt queasier than ever leaving her alone, but he did as he was told and leaned against the opposite wall. He knocked his head against it. A thick human male walked past him shouldering a wooden barrel of brew. He whistled at Jules, with shock in his bushy dark brows. He muttered something that sounded to Jules like, “You’re still alive?”
He was very much alive, but the day was not over.
Izzy was almost grateful when Oga asked her to remain in her office. She couldn’t face Jules after everything they’d had to listen to. She couldn’t decide if it was better or worse coming from him.
“How did you find yourself here after all this time?” Oga asked in nearly perfect Basic.
After an entire conversation of forcing her features into a steely calm, Izzy finally reacted.
“You didn’t need Jules to translate,” she said.
“I find people like to feel useful.”
“What else can I do for you, Oga Garra?”
“Ixel was one of my favorites. Such a waste of talent.”
Izzy realized she never knew her mother at all. How could she have missed it? She was a fool. She couldn’t be upset at Oga for telling her a truth that had died with her parents.
“Is that all?”
“Not quite.” Her voice was reedy, nearly piercing Izzy’s eardrums. “I was once an orphan, too. You must always know your roots if you are to know how sturdy the tree will grow. If you are going to be here, you will have to know the rules.”
Izzy shook her head. Her thoughts about staying on Batuu untethered and began to drift away. “I’ve already stayed longer than I intended to.”
Oga grunted and dismissed her with a wave. “If you want to know who put out the contract on your mother, you know where to find me.”
“What’s the cost?”
“You’ll owe me a job. Consider it—an audition.”
Her insides felt fused together. She could hardly breathe, the too-sweet smoke wafting from the burning hookah irritating her nasal passages, her eyes. She turned to leave. But before she punched the door open, Izzy exhaled. Jules was Jules. He would want to talk to her about her feelings, and she didn’t want to. She wanted to fly. She wanted to fight. She wanted to use her hands. Instead of calm, she found herself worked into tighter knots.
When the door opened, there he was, leaning against the wall with worry in his eyes. He hefted the barrel onto one shoulder and offered a smile. She hated the way she reacted to the sight of him. How could she be certain that what she was feeling was real? What if it was because things with Damar had just ended? What if it was the sheer nostalgia?
None of those considerations stopped her from taking his hand and holding it tight all the way out of Oga’s. She’d been wrong. He didn’t want to talk, didn’t even press her.
“We’re walking,” he announced.
“You’re not worried someone might lift your speeder?”
He let go of her hand to better carry the barrel Oga had made him take. She wanted to reach for him again but shoved her hands in her pockets. “It still wouldn’t be the worst thing that’s happened to us.”
They laughed. It was a startling relief to the longest, worst day of her life. But as she walked onto the market road side by side with Jules, she considered
it was also turning into the best day.
“If our stars are lucky, Volt will be there instead of Bina and we can get back to Dok’s.”
“My stars are not lucky, so let’s assume this Volt isn’t there.”
“We’ll see.”
The afternoon crowds were thinning. Though sheets of colorful canvas served as a patchwork ceiling, the intense suns still broke through. Izzy had no need for her jacket and tied it around her waist. When they passed a stall serving salty dried meat called nuna jerky, Izzy bought a bag for them to share. Because his hands were busy, Jules leaned over and she fed him. She shook her head, wishing she could drink in his mirth. Perhaps if she did she could stop thinking about Oga Garra’s words. How had she not known that her mother had been a killer? During the years she’d spent alone, the driving factor that got her through most days was imagining what her mother might do. Now she could truly say that she didn’t know.
“Izzy,” Jules said, pulling her back to the present.
The stall where they’d stopped was wide open and crowded with customers. They stepped inside, and Jules set the barrel down. The smell of hay and a distinct murky whiff of animal excrement made her nose itch. Incense smoldered in metal burners on either side of the tent entrance. Izzy wasn’t sure why it was so much darker in there than in other stalls until she noticed the blinking red eyes in some of the cages. There were dozens of them stacked on top of each other and strung from metal rafters. Birds flapped inside some.
A short, broad-shouldered man dressed in a scarlet tunic with metal accents was taking payment from a mother with three children. One of the boys was poking a stick into a cage. The top was covered by a tarp, and bits of hay and what looked like a rat’s tail were sticking out between the bars.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” the clerk shouted as he noticed the kid. As if on cue, the creature lunged forward as far as the cage would allow. Its yellow eyes glowed, and two sharp fangs that jutted from its bottom jaw lowered as it let out a yowl. “Fyrnocks have a bit of a temper, but this one is friendlier than others I’ve encountered. Still, you don’t want to poke him.”
A Crash of Fate Page 12
