Bandits (2 page)

Daniel turned away from Faulk, and then bent down to touch his brother’s trembling shoulder. “He’s gone, Nick, but don’t worry
.
I’ll take care of you. You know I will.”

Nickel turned to Daniel and hugged him. He sniffled and wiped the tears from his eyes. “I know you will. I’ll take care of you too. Dad wanted me to.”

Nickel gathered his composure and forced a determined expression on his face. “Are we going to the trove? We gotta get to Dad’s stuff before they do. Someone wanted to know where his trove was, but he wouldn’t tell them.” Nickel pulled on Daniel’s arm and whispered. “He told me a secret. Said if anything ha
p
pened to him, I had to get his journal.” 

Daniel’s eyebrow arched up. “His journal?  Dad kept a diary, like a girl?” He groaned. “I knew the old man was tur
n
ing soft.”

Nickel frowned, working up a fierce appearance on his face. “No he wasn’t! Dad wasn’t soft. He was fierce and strong. He could still kick your butt, and you know it.” He glared at Daniel angrily, still upset by the loss of his father, but he didn’t hold the glare long. “Anyways, Dad never got a chance to tell me where he put the journal. Some bastard killed him tonight, before he could.”

“We gotta get out of here. You search for the journal if it’s so important, and I’ll get my gear.” Daniel grabbed Nickel by the arm to force him down the hallway so he couldn’t go back over to where their father had fallen.

Nickel pulled away. “Okay. I’ll look in the lower rooms. That’s where he was when I last saw him. He might have had it there,” Nickel said before running off.

“Faulk!” Daniel
ca
lled while he ran down the hall to his room.

His cousin was fervently packing various weapons into their packs. “Yeah? This stuff is ready to go. Anything else?”  Faulk took a quick glance around the room.

Daniel pointed to his closet. “Go into the safe in the floor of my closet. Put in 56-23-82-34 and take out all the money there. Hell if I know where we’re going, but if things don’t turn out well we may have to leave Merwin.” He grabbed a green shirt off the floor and pulled it over his head.

Faulk angrily threw down the sack he’d filled. “Leave the planet?  What the hell for? We didn’t kill your dad. Why do we have to be the ones on the lam?” 

“Look, let me make this quick for you goody do right types. Merwin is populated by Zukar from all different galaxies. Any cut-throat or snatcher that wants a safe haven from the law settles here if they can pass the Zukar’s members test. It’s a planet full of – well, criminals, hit men, and murderers – people who’ll do anything for the right price, get my drift?”

Faulk rolled his eyes
.
“Uh, well I still don’t get the da
n
ger here.”

Daniel shrugged as he looked under strewn clothes for his vest. “Our new King wants us out, off his planet, and many of the Zukar here won’t go without a fight. If we don’t find my father’s killers before they find us, we’ll all be dead or sent to a penal colony on the Planet Uukin. Damned if I know who killed ‘im. I just know I don’t want us to be next.”

“So, we’re running from the King and maybe a Zukar?” Faulk asked, raising an eyebrow as he stuffed a knife in his belt.

Daniel put on his vest over his shirt. “My father had a lot of people who hated him - first for his skills and later for his failures. It could’ve been a Zukar or the King’s men. There are different people here every week to gamble. Far as I know, it wasn’t even the usual crew, since most of them are out on snatch jobs this time of year. I just thought he was doing his usual weekly gamble bit.”

“My parents could help us. They’re ambassadors of the Galactic Peace Council.”

Daniel pointed at Faulk. “Your parents’ power as dipl
o
mats for Earth won’t help when we get sent to Uukin. Cuz, you came here for an adventure, right? Well it’s about time
you
man up and stop running to your daddy at the first sign of trouble.”  He grabbed his gun belt and quickly left the room.

He headed to the lower rooms, and climbed down the steep ladder leading downward from the secret door in the floor. “Nic
k
el? Nickel? You find it?” 

Nickel was looking under the couch. “No. Freak! I looked everywhere. We can’t leave without it. We gotta find it. Dad made me promise.”

Daniel started looking around the room and hastily turned over anything that stood in his way. “I remember wal
k
ing in on Dad when he was down here. He jumped when I came down, like he was hiding something. He was over there by the mirror.”

Daniel bumped into Nickel and then tripped over Nic
k
el’s foot. He broke his fall by landing in the middle of the mi
r
ror. While he righted himself, he saw the mirror under his fingers glow with a strange blue light.

Nickel pointed. “Look! There, on the opposite wall...the pi
c
ture moved.” 

Daniel watched with quiet interest when the picture split in half to reveal a built in shelf. It held a small black book which pushed forward. He took the book out. It felt heavy and thick as the worn pages pushed the black cover up slightly. He flipped it back and forth in his hand for a second and then opened up the first page.

    
For Daniel and Nick.

Daniel shut the book and put it in his back pocket. He turned to see Nickel staring at him. “Let’s go. We’ve got to get out of here before it’s too late.” Nickel didn’t argue but ran past him to climb up the ladder.

Faulk was waiting at the top of the stairs, and gave Nic
k
el a hand to get up.

Daniel followed Nickel up but purposely ignored his cousin’s outstretched arm. “Let’s go. Now!  Get everything to the door,” he ordered, leaping up out of the hole.

Nickel stomped his foot. “We can’t leave Dad like that. We gotta do the Zukar ceremony of death. We have to do it or he won’t rest.”

“We don’t have time, Nick. They’ll be here soon. We stayed to long already,” Daniel said sternly as he pushed Nickel toward the door.

Nickel resisted. He stumbled against Daniel’s hard pus
h
es on his back and head to force him forward down the hallway. “No! No, I’m not leaving unless we do it. It’s our Dad!”

Faulk looked solemnly at Daniel. “Look, man. I’ll pack the car. Give the kid something to remember -a chance for him to say goodbye.” With that, he grabbed the bag and left the house.

Daniel gave in and walked with his brother to stand in front of his father’s fallen body. “Okay Nickel, let’s do it.” 

They chanted and prayed the Zukar death ritual over their father. Daniel snatched his knife out of his belt and cut off a lock of his hair. He turned to Nickel and did the same. Nickel gathered the pieces and plaited it into his father’s long braids.

There was a moment of silence, and finally Nickel dropped down and hugged his father goodbye. He took a deep breath and swallowed hard, trying to be brave. “I’m ready.”

Daniel put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. He lifted him up and threw him over his shoulder. He tickled Nickel, hoping their old game of capture would take their minds off the grave road ahead of them.

“Put me down! Stop! I’ll get you!” Nickel yelled and squirmed.

Daniel slapped him on the leg, a smile tickling his lips. “Keep fighting. You squirt. You’ll never be big enough to beat me.”

“When I turn eleven, you
’
r
e
going down – you just watch,” Nickel replied with a firm smack to Daniel’s head. He laughed out as Daniel seized him with another tickle attack.

“Is that so? Then maybe I need to get all my licks in now,” Daniel chuckled and slapped Nickel’s backside. He forced it out and pushed down the conflicting emotions raging in his chest: pain, anger, and regret filled him whenever he thought of his father. Now, however, all he felt was guilt -and lots of it
.

Faulk was waiting for them in the driver’s seat of D
a
niel’s black and gold sports car.

Daniel walked around and opened the curved shining door. Pointing to the passenger’s seat, Daniel pushed Faulk’s shoulder. “Over. Get in the passenger’s seat. Now!” Daniel frowned, angry that his uninvited cousin was slowing him down.

Faulk looked at him stubbornly, refusing to move. “I can drive, dude. I’m a flight school graduate, you know. Besides, this reminds me of those old Lamborghini sports cars on Earth.”

“This is better than any old Earth car. Now, move the hell over or I’ll ditch your ass right here!” Daniel yelled.

Faulk shrugged and climbed over into the passenger’s seat. “You win this time, but I’m not going to ride around and be your lackey. I can help you. I do have skills, you know.”

Daniel climbed in and allowed the door to shut. “I’ll let you know when I need your skills, cuz. Until then, do what I say so we can live.”

Faulk worked the navigator. “You know this planet is so different from Earth and the planet where I went to flight school. It’s old fashioned here, rugged.”

“Merwin’s got over a million islands. It’s a Zukar’s pla
y
ground. There’s no other place like it in the entire universe – at least not - that I’ve visited.”  Daniel pressed his foot on the acce
l
erator.

The slick, all-terrain car Daniel maneuvered was an older model, but it was the one possession he coveted, given to him by Haden. Ever since his father’s snatching skills ran sour, Daniel had tried to pick up the discarded jobs as his father walked away from the reputation he’d built. He had to clean up the jobs and save both of their asses from getting killed for betrayal of the Zukar ways.

He loved his car. The day he got it, his father had almost caused the loss of one of the largest prizes the Zukar had ta
r
geted to steal in almost a decade: Corbitzin crystals, enough to power half the planet for fifty years. They were widely sought after for Zukar, and Galaxy Governmental Agents alike.

Daniel’s father was the picture of health and strength. Unfortunately, he was the weakest Zukar Daniel knew. His father refused to go with the Blood Hounds, part of the Zukar sect known as EBRA. The first dispatched group of Zukar, whose sole purpose was to secure the target territory. The EBRA used any means necessary to immobilize the snatch site, even if it meant killing all that stood in their way – and that happened more often than not.

His father had argued with Haden and declared, “I won’t kill innocent people. I won’t do the damn job. Daniel, you’re coming with me.” 

After that, Daniel told his father, “Go to hell,” and took over his father’s job with the Blood Hounds. His father was d
e
termined to throw his career away, and Daniel wouldn’t let him drag him down with him. On that fateful day, he’d lost all respect for his father.
Another mess I had to clean up because you didn’t have the balls to finish the job.

Daniel shook his head in disgust as he drove and rem
i
nisced on his final argument with his father. The fingers of guilt crawled from his chest and he swallowed it down. Pushing on the accelerator even harder, he thrust his thoughts of his father away along with the pain of loss that came with them
.

The car moved in smooth symmetry through the wea
v
ing roads of palm trees and willows of his home
Island
of
Bethan
. The streetlights tucked high in the palm trees that flanked the roads lit up as he passed. Few cars passed him in the small populated area of the island.

He glanced at Faulk and thought back to when he’d seen him four years ago. Faulk’s father, Uncle Kiev came to demand that his father change his criminal ways and come home to Earth. Daniel snorted then let out a small laugh at the audacity of such a demand. It had been useless for his uncle to insist that he could change his father’s loyalty to the Zukar. His father had been with the Zukar, a bandit faction of thieves on Merwin, since he was a kid. Celebrated for his
extraordinary
talents on
snatch jobs, his father had become a legend in his own right. It was too bad his father had thrown it all away.

Daniel picked up speed and maneuvered around a turn on the sandy road. “So why’d you skip out on graduation?” He took a quick
peek
at Faulk, who was absently looking out the window of the car.

Faulk put his foot on the dashboard and adjusted the seat back. “I just didn’t want to stay on with the flight school gig. My parents had dreams of me going into politics like them, but that’s just not me. I left to run my own life. I’ll be eighteen in three months, and this being told-what-to-do bull is getting real old. I knew they would be on their way to the graduation, and the school only gave us the week before graduation off. So, I took my chance and ditched the place.”

Daniel elbowed Faulk and laughed out. “I bet your dad’s gonna kick your ass when he finds out what you did.”