Izzy felt hope bleeding out of her with every passing moment. She struggled to breathe. Jules, she thought. She wouldn’t be fast enough to get to Jules.
“Whose ship is this anyway?” Delta asked.
Izzy remembered the stylish spice trader Jules had made friends with. “Trix Sternus’s, I think.”
“According to the Ohnaka Transport Solutions sale logs, the ship now belongs to—”
A series of beeps went off. Izzy grabbed the yoke and said, “Be ready to fight on landing.”
The first time Jules had worked on Kat’s farm, he’d been shorter than the wild grass. Sometimes he still felt like the scrawny little kid who’d run through those fields—frail but free. It didn’t matter how tall he’d gotten, how big he was; he still felt helpless. He loathed that he was going to help Ana Tolla and her pirates destroy a part of his homeworld. He thought of Belen in Ana Tolla’s ship, who was waiting for him to rescue her. He thought of Izzy.
Just Izzy.
So he stood at the main building and punched in the code to the stores where Kat kept the seeds she and her family had been cultivating for four generations. After everything he’d said about protecting his world, his home, he had to save the person he couldn’t lose. He wondered if that was why Izzy was so guarded. Love was a vulnerability.
He felt the butt of a blaster pistol jab into his back.
“Hurry it up,” Damar said.
“I said I’d help you get in here. I didn’t say I’d help you carry anything. I’m not crew.”
The blaster moved to his forehead. He could feel the cold metal of the barrel on his skin. Helpless. He gritted his teeth. He wasn’t faster than a blaster, but he could take this bantha’s ass by surprise. He could—not do anything. Belen. He thought her name like a prayer to the spires, to the Force, like a promise that this was not going to be the end.
“You do as we say,” Damar said.
“You kidnapped my sister and are holding me at blaster point.” He was defeated in his anger. “You know I will.”
Ana and Oksan were off preparing what she’d called phase two—the actual destruction of the crops. They’d taken the crate of white bricks with them. He’d heard her say something like “sodium mines”? No matter what they were, he had to get to them somehow. He eyed the door.
“Keep staring, farm boy,” Safwan said. With his arm in a sling and the Ketzalian’s short arms, it took two of them to load one crate. At least they moved quietly.
Jules begrudgingly grabbed a crate and began loading with the others.
Damar smirked. How could Izzy have been with someone like him? She didn’t deserve that. Jules slammed the crate on top of another.
“How come you talk so much more than your friends?” Jules asked.
Damar held Izzy’s blaster up, making sure Jules kept his part of the bargain. “They don’t have anything to say.”
Jules laughed, and the Twi’lek and Ketzalian frowned but kept working. “Must be nice to stand there while your crew does the heavy lifting. I bet you and Ana Tolla will celebrate together while they do the dirty work?”
“Shut your hole, farm boy, or I’ll blast you an extra one,” Damar growled, but the threat lacked any guts. Jules had already been threatened by Oga that day, and compared with that everything else lost its bluster.
“Did you learn to speak like that in the Core? Does Safwan get less because he’s injured and doing half the work?”
“Don’t listen to him, Safwan. We all get an equal share,” Damar said. “I can’t believe you were Iz’s rebound. Slim pickings on Batuu, right?”
He tried to joke with his comrades, but Jules hoped that the doubt he’d planted was the reason they didn’t laugh.
“You didn’t deserve her,” Jules told Damar.
“Even after all the things she said about you?” He used the blaster to scratch the side of his head. “I’m going to need a week to get the dirt of this planet off me. I’m thinking a nice spa retreat on the Risso hot springs moon. I hear the thermal waters are amazing.”
Jules wouldn’t be goaded into a fight that would end in his death, not when he needed to get Belen to safety.
“Perhaps I’ll find Iz after this,” Damar said. He was getting comfortable. He lowered the blaster and leaned against the wall. “How much do you want to bet I can get her to forgive me?”
Jules had a crate in his hands. It wasn’t heavy, but if he threw it, it would at least hurt.
“Cut it out, will you?” the Ketzalian squeaked, her plum head feathers ruffling. “You’re getting in the way, Damar. Go prep the ship so we’re ready to go.”
Jules averted his eyes from the alien. He wanted to hate her. He wanted to hate all of them. Just because they weren’t taunting him like Damar didn’t mean they were good. It just meant they were in a hurry.
Then he thought—how many times had he done a favor for pirates in the Outpost. What made Ana’s crew different from the others? Well, for starters, the others weren’t stupid enough to steal from the people who kept the blood of Batuu flowing, and they certainly didn’t mess with his family. Ana Tolla was bold, if not mad.
“You’re not my boss, Lita,” Damar told her.
Safwan slammed the crate down, and Lita went off balance in the air. “No, but I’ve been Ana Tolla’s second for five years. I outrank you. Go and prep the ship so we’re ready after she’s done with the fields.”
Damar turned red. He curled his lip and left.
Jules must have stared at the exit for too long, because Safwan tapped the blaster holstered on his good side. “Don’t think about it, Jules.”
“I think I’d much prefer it if your lot called me farm boy. It makes it less personal.”
“Makes what less personal?” the Twi’lek asked. He wrapped his hand around the blaster in warning, eyes steady.
“This—” Jules shoved the large crate at Safwan’s bad shoulder. The Twi’lek slammed into the wall, busy cradling his own head and screaming in pain.
Jules grabbed the pirate’s blaster and set it to stun before firing at Lita, who was mid-flight to get help. But as he made for the exit, it felt like a storm was rolling in. Blinding light flashed, and wind blew dust in his eyes.
He didn’t believe the sight in front of him. A ship had landed next to the silo. But not just any ship—the one he’d impulsively bought from Trix Sternus that day. When the ramp lowered, he had never been so relieved his friends had stolen his ship.
When Izzy saw Jules Rakab, she wanted nothing more than to run to him and make sure he was unharmed. But as Volt, Delta, G1-MD, and Tap stormed down the ramp ahead of her, there was no time for that.
“Help is on the way,” she said.
Jules nodded, more tense than she’d seen him all day, and that included their session with Oga. He went right to Tap, rested a hand on the boy’s hat, and said, “Belen is in their ship’s lounge. She’s got magnetic cuffs and anklets. Can you do it?”
Tap nodded. “What kind of question is that?”
Despite everything he’d been through, Jules grinned. He glanced up at Delta. “Go with him. Damar is prepping for takeoff.”
“The reunion’s great and all,” Volt said, raising his rifle. “But we’re about to have company.”
They all drew weapons and took cover behind the legs of the Avent100 freighter.
“Gee-One, ready the ship!” Izzy shouted. “As soon as Tap and Delta return with Belen, take them back to Hondo’s.”
“I am not programmed to take orders from you,” the droid said.
“Are you programmed to survive?” Volt shouted.
“Right away, beast master,” G1-MD said, then turned, muttering, “Master Hondo will hear about this.”
“You two lovebirds,” Volt said, and fired a warning shot at the entrance of the grain storage unit. “I know this is about to get a world of awkward, but can you save it until after we stop these pirates from destroying our crops? What’s the sitrep, kid?”
&nbs
p; “Two in the grain storage,” Jules reported. “The Ketzalian is stunned, but Safwan is on his way out. He’s got a broken arm.”
“I like those odds.” Volt slapped Jules’s shoulder. “I sounded the alarm. Kat’s private security should be here any moment.”
“Not yet,” Jules and Izzy said at the same time.
Izzy’s stomach felt like exposed wiring. She let Jules speak.
“Do you know what sodium mines are?” Jules asked. “They look like white bricks.”
“No. I’ve only seen her use a fire torch.”
Volt’s dark eyes practically glimmered. “I want a fire torch. But I have heard of sodilium detonators. Highly toxic and flammable. They will make sure nothing ever grows in that soil if they’re activated.”
“How’d a crew like hers get ahold of something like that?” Jules asked.
“From whoever hired her,” Izzy said. “She’ll keep the control detonator on her. And she’ll have the Zygerrian with her. Volt, I think you should go with me. I can handle Ana.”
“Izzy—” Jules started.
“No time,” she said. “Take care of Lita and Safwan.”
Izzy ran with Volt toward the fields. For a man who hadn’t seen action in years, he was fast on his feet. The sensor lights had been disabled, leaving them to run in darkness. She wished she had more than the old blaster model Volt had let her borrow, but it was going to have to do. She was the one who controlled the shot, not the weapon, lucky or not.
“Talk to me, Izzy,” Volt said. “How are we supposed to get that control detonator to deactivate it?”
“You said that stuff is toxic, right?” Her heart was a fist punching her chest. “She won’t do it if she’s within the explosives area, so the best bet is to box her in. And I’ll—Lucky?”
As she spoke, the loralora bird soared above her. She wasn’t prepared for how relieved she was upon seeing the creature again. Volt glanced up, and she didn’t miss the moment of anger that flashed across his face. She would have to deal with him later.
They kept running. Ahead Izzy could see that Ana Tolla and Oksan were halfway up the water tower, attaching the white bricks as they went.
“Lucky!” Izzy shouted, ready to put their bond to the test. She pointed at Oksan. The loralora let out a brilliant shriek, then swooped down and pecked at him until he let go of the water tower. He fell three meters, but landed on his feet.
“No, you fool!” Ana Tolla shouted. She clung to the metal rungs.
Oksan drew a blaster and shot as he tried to run. Volt pushed Izzy to the ground, and she rolled on her side. Everything was upside down, the sky dark and the moons spinning around her. She could hear the red laser fire Volt and Oksan were trading. The flap of wings. Her blood pumping in her ears. Amid all that, there was a loud grunt, and then a ceasefire.
When she sat up, Volt was back at her side and Oksan was limping to his feet. Ana Tolla flung herself off the lower rungs of the tower. She caught up with the Zygerrian and held up the detonator.
Watching Izzy run into the fields with Volt was almost physically painful. Jules should be the one beside her. He should be the one helping her stop Ana. But she’d made the right call. Volt could disarm the detonator. They all had their roles in saving Kat’s farm.
But Jules had a role in helping destroy it. There were times when he couldn’t understand why people made the choice to hurt others. In the moment when Ana Tolla made Jules choose between the farm and his sister, he hadn’t hesitated. Guilt weighed heavily on him. The only way he could make up for what he’d done was to stop Ana and her crew.
Jules returned to the storage silo, his blaster trained before him. Someone had turned the lights off. He kept his back along the surface of the walls and slunk from crate stack to crate stack. He listened for footsteps, heavy breathing, anything that would give away Safwan and Lita’s location.
He thought of where he’d been the night before, almost to the minute: out in the empty fields using hollow droid heads and helmets for target practice, wishing the answers to his future would unravel. He’d spent years waiting for his life to change, and in the course of a day, it had changed over and over again. Izzy was to thank for that. He should have said something more to her before they split up, reassured her that everything was going to be fine.
He heard it then: wings beating directly above him. He reached up to grab Lita’s tail, but his hand closed around air.
“Now!” the Ketzalian shouted.
Jules turned around in time to see the towering crates falling toward him. He jumped out of the way, but each column slammed into the next. Metal warped and hundreds of thousands of individual grains spilled from the containers. He crawled through the avalanche covering the ground. As he neared the door, he struggled to his feet and ran outside. Safwan and Lita had a head start, but not by much. He could catch up.
Aided by the light of the moons, he ran toward Ana’s ship. He knew something was wrong because his Avent100 was still docked there. What had happened to Tap and Belen? Jules dug deep down and found his strength to run raster. He thought of the people who depended on him. He thought of Izzy. He hadn’t heard anything from the fields. Did that mean they were safe or not?
When he reached the ramp of Ana’s ship, he was thrown back by a sucker punch to the face. He tumbled off the ramp and onto the grass. For the second time that day, his nose was bleeding. He wiped it with the back of his hand.
“Come on!” Lita shouted, her already nervous voice shrill.
Damar whirled around. “Not without Ana!”
“She’d leave you in a heartbeat,” Jules told him.
“No, she wouldn’t.” Damar sounded so earnest, so adamant, that Jules almost felt sorry for him. It wasn’t enough though. Not after everything he’d put Izzy through. Not after their attack on his home.
The sound of blaster fire rang out, followed by screams, then silence.
Jules wanted to turn to the fields, even though it was too dark to see. What if that had been Izzy or Volt? What if something terrible had happened? Damar had the same thoughts. Jules hated to think that he had anything in common with the blue-haired slug, but he recognized the frantic worry that had overtaken Damar as he stared off into the distance. It might be the only distraction Jules was going to get, and he took it.
He fired at Damar, the pulse of the blaster as blue as his hair, and dragged him away from the ships. Jules took back Izzy’s blaster with the intention of returning it to her.
There was a low rumble in the distance as speeders made their way to the farm. Jules threw his head back and laughed.
“No celebrating yet,” came Delta’s voice. She was out of breath, jogging back to him.
“Why are you still here?”
“Take it up with the others!” Her sweat glistened in the moons’ shine. “Your sister and Tap won’t leave without you.”
“Where are they?”
“Tap said he could turn the lights back on, and Belen is trying to take Gee-One apart.” Delta looked down at Damar, then back at Jules. “Aren’t there two more?”
“In the ship,” Jules said, and handed her the blaster he’d lifted from Safwan. “I’ll go help Izzy.”
“There are bombs everywhere,” Ana warned. “In the fields. On the tower. You’ll never find them all.”
Izzy took aim. “Hand the remote over, Ana, and we’ll let you go.”
“Liar.”
Izzy shrugged. “I had to try.”
“So selfless all of a sudden?” Ana asked. “Don’t forget, Izal. If I hadn’t left you, you would have been following my orders like the rest of them.”
Izzy saw Oksan’s head jerk up. He didn’t seem to like that comment.
“Maybe,” Izzy said. “But you should have honored our agreement.”
She wanted to think that once she’d known about the plans to cause so much destruction, she would have walked away. Izzy remembered standing on the cantina patio on Actlyon. The foul smell in the air.
The confusion of the fight. As awful as those moments had been, Izzy knew that it needed to happen that way. She’d been shaken out of a stupor. Knowing she was helping the people she’d met on the farm was a feeling she could get used to.
“And here I didn’t think you were capable of surprising me,” Ana said. Her red braid swung at her back. “Maybe there’s room for you on this crew after all. It’s not too late, Izzy.”
Izzy took a deep breath and looked at Volt. She saw three landspeeders approaching in the distance.
“I work better alone,” Izzy said.
Every light that had previously been off came back on, from the barn to the fields.
“You’re surrounded,” Volt added.
Ana Tolla held out the detonator and grinned at Izzy. Her smile was wide and cruel. “A captain goes down with the ship.”
Izzy’s body went rigid with fear. Beside her, Volt was raising his blaster, but Ana held the control too closely to her body for him to get a clean shot.
“But I don’t,” Oksan said, and in a flash he reached out and grabbed the woman’s wrist so tightly all she could do was scream and let go.
Izzy raced to catch the detonator, but before it fell to the grass, Lucky swooped down and caught it with her prehensile tail. Izzy couldn’t stop her forward momentum and fell to the grass. She groaned as she rose onto her knees and back onto her feet. Lucky flapped to a rest on her shoulder, tail up in the air. Izzy carefully retrieved the detonator and choked a sigh of relief.
“You owe me for that bird,” Volt said, but his lips quirked when he said it.
In moments, Oga Garra’s thugs descended on them. Izzy recognized at least one of the rough-looking humans from when she and Jules were surrounded in Smuggler’s Alley. But under the bright lights of the farm, their faces were a welcome sight.
Oksan knelt with his hands behind his head and went with them peacefully, but Ana fought the entire way as a large woman carried her off in a vise-like grip.
“Oga wants them all alive,” a blue-skinned Balosar said in warning.
A Crash of Fate Page 21
