The headlights illuminated the path she and Jules had traveled—their cliff and the farm. The entire planet was peppered with her history.
Go home, Izzy.
That hurt even worse coming from him because he knew she didn’t have one. He wasn’t wrong to be angry with her. But all she had was a pilot who wanted to kill her and a creatures vendor who probably also wanted to kill her. At least she wasn’t alone?
She concentrated on the patch of light where Black Spire Outpost was nestled in dark lands. Her mind cycled back and forth from the elation of kissing Jules to the moment Damar had held her up with her own blaster.
Things would have been different if she had listened to Belen—Belen, who didn’t like her and believed she would only bring Jules trouble. Belen’s maternal intuition had been right, hadn’t it?
No, she couldn’t think that way. If she’d left, Ana Tolla might have taken Jules regardless, and then where would he be? Dead.
“That was cold before,” Delta said after a stretch of uncomfortable silence. “With your boyfriend.”
“I know.” Izzy glanced at her. They both simmered with impotent rage. “I thought I was helping him. The worst part is not knowing if he bought it or not.”
Delta made a choking sound. Was that a laugh? “I’d say getting kidnapped is worse than your feelings.”
She was right. She had to remain focused.
“That’s why I took the deal,” Delta said, shouting over the wind and the hum of the speeder. “To help my family. I should have known it was too good to be true. But I only came to Batuu a month ago.”
“Where were you before?”
“Chibbier. A forest planet. Everyone was laid off two months ago.”
“Why?”
“No trees left means nothing to cut down. I was lucky to get out. My cousins wanted to get work in the Core, but I’d heard of Hondo needing pilots and I thought, I can fly well enough.”
Izzy thought of the two seeming Resistance fighters she’d met before they were captured. What had the woman said? Everyone on Batuu is always either looking for a new life or running from one. She’d had no idea that Delta was both, too.
“I really am sorry about what happened,” she said.
“You mean stunning me and leaving me on the floor in an office?” Delta said dryly.
Izzy repeated her apology and made sure it sounded real, because she meant it.
“I’ll be fine,” Delta said. “Since I can’t kill you, I would like something to hit.”
Izzy stared ahead and nodded slowly. Black Spire was not like the glittering cities she’d been in, but there was something about seeing it at night that stole her wonder. Lights in homes blinked on, and the market remained open for the after-hours crowd. Shuttles carried people from either end of the Outpost, and ships were still landing, bringing mysterious cargo from every corner of the galaxy.
Izzy had never had many friends. She’d never stayed anywhere long enough. She was too quiet. Too strange. Too angry. Too scared. Too much. There were dozens of excuses she could have used. But that night she didn’t try to think of any. Delta was as close to a friend as she was going to get, and Izzy was going to need her to get Jules back.
They came to a halt in the spaceport and hopped out. There was one person directing traffic for Ohnaka Transport Solutions. G1-MD wandered around barking orders. Izzy didn’t see the Karkarodon, which was a relief. The Avent100 light freighter was still docked.
“I don’t see him,” Izzy said.
“He’ll be at the game,” Delta replied.
Izzy ran behind Delta, their heavy boots beating a rhythm on the launchpad. Delta punched a code into an office door and it hissed open. She heard Volt’s voice before she saw him.
In the smoky room, there was a game of sabacc going, but unlike the card game she’d seen on the farm earlier, this one used credits of all shapes and sizes. She even spotted a turquoise ring in the pile.
“Delta! We thought you weren’t coming. How goes—” Volt’s eyes widened, and the veins in his neck bulged, resembling nightsnakes moving across the ground. He jumped up from the table as he said, “You!”
He recognized Ana Tolla from the holovid recording they’d played for him. Even though he was nearly certain Izzy had said what she had for his benefit, it still burned. He’d been so beaten up that day that he felt like the loser droid in the death matches run in the Galma vicinity. If Izzy had waltzed into the storage barn at that moment to say she’d been playing him the whole time, he might have believed her in his current condition.
As Damar led him deeper into the back of the barn, he tried to get a sense of what they were planning. Izzy said that Ana Tolla didn’t give her crew all the details. He knew others, like the Botsini crew, who operated in a similar way. The captain gave everyone a specific job; that way if one person screwed up, he would know who. Jules always thought that could only be productive if there were backups.
Why was he thinking about their crew? He needed to find a way to get Belen out. They weren’t keeping her in the storage barn.
He took in the sight of Ana Tolla, dressed in head-to-toe black with a blaster rifle slung across her chest. There was a nervous-looking Ketzalian flying back and forth on thick purple wings. She had a humanoid head with lizard features and waxy feathers for hair. The only other time he’d seen the species was when some were on-world trading loralora birds for golden lichen. Against the door was the muscle, a Zygerrian with a gray feline face and yellow eyes. He made a guttural sound when he looked at Jules. Last was a Twi’lek with pale coral lekku that faded into multiple colors. One arm, heavily modified with tattoos, was in a sling, and the left side of his face was covered in blue bruises.
“They should have been here by now,” the husky Zygerrian said. When he crossed his arms over his broad chest, his muscles looked like boulders.
“They were right behind us!” Damar shouted.
Ana Tolla stepped close to Jules. Bile rose in his throat. He wasn’t used to steeping in anger this way. He hated it.
“I can see why she spent all day with you,” Ana Tolla said, looking him up and down. “Someone get him clothes.”
Jules scoffed. “I’m guessing you didn’t bring me all the way out here to dress me up. Where’s Belen?”
“I would worry more about where Izal Garsea is,” Ana Tolla said.
“You heard your sleemo over there,” Jules said. “They left before us.”
The Ketzalian flitted over with a pair of loose green pants. Jules held up his cuffed wrists. “Do you mind?”
The Zygerrian growled his disapproval.
“Don’t worry, Oksan,” Ana Tolla said. “He’ll do as we say or his darling sister won’t make it out of where we’re keeping her. Izal, on the other hand. She’s a survivor. I imagine she’s half way to abandoning you.”
Jules forced himself to stand his ground. Ana was wrong about Izzy. The certainty of that helped him focus on his sister. He could almost feel the freedom of his hands when Ana Tolla waved the key in front of his eyes.
“Try something,” Ana Tolla said. “I like a challenge.”
“You came to the wrong planet,” Jules told her.
Ana Tolla looked down her nose at him and smiled with red-painted lips. “Tell me why that is.”
“No one has crossed Oga Garra and lived.”
“Not yet.” Ana Tolla’s smile was arrogant. “Are you ready to get to work?”
He shrugged and summoned everything he’d learned from Izzy that day. Lying was a skill. “I’m just a simple farm boy. What am I supposed to do?”
She traced a finger along his jaw. Her eyes were an eerie pale blue. “I need you to do exactly as I say.”
“You!” Volt abandoned the game table and marched out to the open area of the landing pad like a rancor ready for dinner. “How dare you show your face here. After what you and Rakab did to me! I’ll feed you to my tooka when I’m done with you.”
“Please, jus
t hear me out!” Izzy shouted. She held her hands up to show she was unarmed.
He slowed when he noticed Delta beside her. His eyes cut from the speeder and back to them. Though Volt’s answer simmered, he was visibly thrown off by the sight of the young women together. Delta examined her short, oddly clean nails. Izzy knew that just because they had a temporary truce didn’t mean that Delta would protect her from Volt.
“I’m sorry about what we did,” Izzy said.
“Do you even know what you did?” Volt’s expression was crazed, his eyes wide as he ran his palms across his veiny skull. “I almost lost another finger! Bina is furious with me. I had to buy a one-month supply of the milk dokmas drink. Do you know how many batches of Volt’s Special Juice I’m going to have to sell on the side to pay for that?”
As Volt’s pitch rose and his yelling increased, her resolve began to wither. Less than a day in the Outpost and she had caused such a mess.
She thought of Jules in shackles. The moment he’d told her to leave. It would be the easy thing to do. Hadn’t she run every time before? Floating around space was often an easier option than facing reality. After her parents had died, she’d run. The thing about running was that sooner or later there was nowhere left to go.
“How many batches of your rusty venom would you have to sell?” she asked. “I’ll cover it.”
He looked from Izzy to Delta. “Wait. What’s the catch?”
“How many?” she repeated.
“Ten at one hundred spira each.”
“A thousand spira?”
“Never underestimate how much milk a dokma will drink,” he said with a smirk. “Plus there were the other messes—”
Her laugh was near hysterical. She was down to the dregs of her money. “I have half of that. The rest I can get from Dok once this is over. But first I need to buy a fyrnock from you.”
Volt put his hands on his hips and regarded her with suspicion. “Again, why are you doing this, off-worlder?”
“Because Jules is in trouble and I don’t have any weapons.”
Volt’s expression went blank. He turned around and went back into the card game room.
“Wait!” Izzy looked back at Delta, who simply shrugged. “I thought we had a deal!”
Before she could despair, Volt marched back out to the landing pad, and this time he carried a rifle blaster. It was New Republic issue, probably dropped off the back of a freighter. She raised her hands.
“Wait a minute, let’s talk about this—”
But he wasn’t aiming at her. He was waiting for her to give instructions.
“What about the fyrnock?”
Volt harrumphed. “You think I’m going to bring it out of its cage? It took me one hour and six rats to get it back in there in the first place. Besides, who’s going to drink after work with me if some lunatics kill Rakab? Nope. I’m coming with you.”
For the first time since being held up with her own gun by her own ex, Izzy smiled. “Let’s go get our boy.”
Ana Tolla released him from his cuffs. They fell to the floor with a sharp plink.
“That’s not a good idea,” the Twi’lek said. “What if he attacks you?”
Ana Tolla raised an eyebrow. Jules couldn’t tell if she was skeptical of Jules’s strength or annoyed that someone had spoken out of turn. “Then his sister dies, Safwan.”
He followed the crew captain out of the storage barn, where they passed an open crate full of what looked like white bricks. The floodlights had been turned off so as not to set off any sensors. He could see the Ketzalian flying high up on the outside wall, where anyone without wings would need a ladder or lift to reach. The rest of the lights across the field went off. Dread pooled in his gut when he saw the silver cargo freighter with an open ramp in front of the silo. Ana climbed aboard.
The lights in the ceiling made her red hair look like a flash of fire. He wasn’t afraid of fire, but something about the situation, about her, made him remember that night. Jules and Belen running away from their collapsing home. He’d stood there waiting for his father to come out of the neighbors’ house. He’d never been that afraid in his whole life. But then his da had walked through the flames with Tap in his arms, and for a brief moment, everything was as it always had been.
“I’m glad you’ve seen who Izal truly is,” Ana Tolla said, pulling him out of his memory. “She’s abandoned you. Can’t bring you anything but pain. It’s best that she’s gone. But me? I can give you an opportunity.”
He didn’t believe that Izzy was gone. He had to believe in her. He had to hope. “There is no opportunity you could give me. If I cross Kat, I cross Oga, and crossing Oga means being as good as dead. The only good thing is you’ll be right alongside me.”
Ana Tolla glanced over her shoulder. “I’m not offering you a job, farm boy. I’m offering you the opportunity to be a hero and save lives.”
She held out her hand to the lounge area. When Belen saw him, her eyes went round as orbs. She had been tightly gagged, and her wrists and ankles were bound by magnetic cuffs.
Jules was breathing hard, his hands balled at his sides. He could try to overpower Ana Tolla. And then what? Face four others with blasters? Even with the Twi’lek injured, Jules was still severely outnumbered and outgunned. He’d never get Belen to safety.
“Now, what do you say, farm boy? Are you ready to do exactly what I tell you?”
He thought of Izzy. Her bright eyes. Her lips. The lies that spilled from her mouth. He focused on Belen. Ana Tolla was not going to get away with this. He could only hope to stall whatever it was. Izzy had told him about some of Ana Tolla’s jobs, and he expected the worst.
Hurry, he thought at Izzy.
“I’m ready,” he said. “What do I have to do?”
“We’re going to burn this farm to the ground.”
“Excuse me!” shouted the green-and-white protocol droid G1-MD. “Excuse me. What are you doing here? There are no shipments authorized at this time. Delta! What is the meaning of this?”
Delta walked around the shipping container and waved her arms. “Calm down, Gee-One.”
“We aren’t stealing anything,” Izzy said, but she made her way to the red-striped Avent100 light freighter that had been stationed there all day. “Except this ship.”
“This vessel is not authorized for transport!” G1-MD shouted. Her already round eyes appeared even more startled as her head moved side to side.
“You can come along,” Izzy told her slyly. “You are supervisor of this operation, aren’t you? The ship will be in safe hands.”
The droid registered her words, then considered. “When you put it that way, the probabilities of success will increase if I’m there.”
Volt and Delta ran up with their weapons. G1-MD marched forward, spouting off regulation infractions and rules of Ohnaka Transport Solutions. They froze when they heard the zooming sound of a swoop bike.
The bike appeared too big for the boy who rode it. Tap cruised to a stop in front of them.
“What are you doing here, boy?” Volt shouted.
Tap shook his head. “I saw Izzy and Delta without Jules and knew something was wrong, so I followed you here.”
Volt let out a heavy sigh. “It’s too dangerous, kid.”
“I’m useful! Aren’t I, Izzy?”
“I’m sorry, Tap,” she said. “But Jules has been taken. We can’t risk you, too.”
“I can pick any lock. Can any of you say that?”
Izzy looked to Volt and Delta for help, but they offered none.
There was a fierce look in the boy’s eyes. Izzy was about his age when her mother began teaching her everything she would need to know. How to fly. How to shoot. But Tap wasn’t hers to make that decision for.
“If I say no what are you going to do?” Izzy asked.
Tap smiled. “Follow you anyway.”
“Fine. Everyone get on the ship now. I don’t know how much time we have.” Izzy led her crew aboard. “Who h
as a channel to the cantina?”
Everyone turned to Volt. He shrugged. “My girl’s a bartender there. But she doesn’t know about the game—”
“Do it now,” Izzy told him, “or I will feed you your own gut rot.”
Volt stalked off to the ship’s cargo bay, muttering a string of curses.
Izzy settled into the cockpit and strapped in. Delta took the copilot seat. Everything felt so new to Izzy. She couldn’t read a single word of the unfamiliar alphabet on the control labels. She was about to press a button that on her ship would shut the access ramp.
“No!” Delta shouted. “That’s the forward cannon. This is Teklada, a mathematical language.”
“You can read it?”
“No, but I remember it from one of the labels in Hondo’s storage. Gee-One, get over here and translate this, will you?”
Izzy took a deep breath. She was so nervous she’d forgotten about G1-MD. The droid strapped in behind them, craning her head over Izzy’s shoulder and rattling off her interpretation of the symbols.
“This ought to be fun,” Izzy muttered. “Hang on tight, everybody, we’re going to Kat Saka’s farm. Buckle in, it’s going to be a short ride!”
The ship took off. It was the smoothest ship she’d ever piloted, though she’d only flown the Meridian and a single-pilot flier at academy before that.
“Okay, Delta, now’s the time to tell me what you do know about Ana’s plan.”
G1-MD recited as if she was reading off all the information on their destination: “The grain from Kat Saka is the finest on the planet, some might say in the Outer Rim. The unique minerals in the soil of Batuu—”
“We get it, droid,” Delta said, then turned to Izzy. “What Ana did tell me was that she needed someone who would know the silo override access codes. That would be Jules.”
Volt was back in the cockpit. “Sent a warning to Oga’s. I heard last season Kat refused to sell to StarFlora Corp even though they offered enough credits to buy a yacht. Or fill a yacht.”
Izzy thought about the jobs they’d done together. Ana Tolla didn’t just steal things. She destroyed them.
A Crash of Fate Page 20
