Prologue
The ones who got away…

Zooty the ferret could feel the cold sweat on his furry forehead, but it wasn’t hot, he was frozen with fear. He morbidly stared into the cold and remorseless artificial eyes of his captor. It was a Hack, one of the engineered species of the Cynid Conclave bred for war and who had invaded Earth a few hundred years ago to farm its inhabitants. He could hear the Hack’s electronically distorted voice telling him and the other prisoners what was going to happen to them, but he didn’t understand why they bothered to explain since everyone knew once you were taken prisoner, your life was as good as over.  Zooty knew all too well what happened in those prison sectors nestled deep in the Cynid's enormous Nexus Cities, the Cynid controlled areas that now covered over half the planet. The animals would be imprisoned, and be eventually euthanized and ground up into the sickly organic paste that the invaders used for food, or worse subjected to their cruel and torturous experimentation. The outside city sectors of Haven City Sector IV hadn't stood a chance against the hundreds of Prowler tanks, flyers, and legions of Cynid troop castes. Hours upon hours of shelling and orbital bombardment had smashed this sector of Haven City to rubble. The city's defenders had put up a valiant defence but the Cynids never tired, driven by an insatiable hunger for war and violence. It was rumored these creatures couldn’t even feel pain through an engineered strand of a virus that pumped a controlled overdose of endorphins into their brains.

Zooty had been told the Cynids had wasted no time in the initial invasion of Earth, they pummeled the planet’s surface with drop pods by the thousands from Planetary Assault Carriers still burning with reentry heat, attacking all the major population centers at once.

They fought just as ruthlessly on the ground. No one was spared from their assault. In a few days, a proper military force could arrive to drive the invaders back out of Haven City so they could rebuild, but the Cynids would be long-gone by then.

Being just kits, still in their conditioning programs monitored by a guardian AI, Zooty and his friends were hidden away in the nursery vaults, but no one could escape the Cynids for long.    The Hacks said nothing as they dragged the kits from the hiding place out into the freezing snow with their hundreds of other captors. Zooty didn’t resist as they took him and his friends away, he just hung his head, and prayed it would soon be over. He was terrified, he felt like he was burning up beneath his fur and his chest thudded painfully, a sick feeling of anger and fear swirling wildly in his stomach.    It was always snowing on New Earth, thanks to the chunk of an unknown planet that had collided with Earth thousands of years ago in 2012, carrying with it a mutagenic crystal known only as EDEN. The insidious radiation from these crystals had been a catalyst for his species’ impossibly rapid evolution from simple animals to sentient human-sized beings that could stand on two legs. They built their society and technology from what was left of the human world, making sure not to repeat the same mistakes all prior civilizations had made.
  Beside Zooty were his closest friends, all who he had grown up with in the nursery. Among them was Firro (a talented fox psychic), and his mutual partner Tek (a brilliantly minded long-haired skunk). Tek was trying her best to get Firro to stop whining uncontrollably. However, their raccoon sniper named Reiko was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he had escaped. If that was the case, Zooty wished him the best of luck – abandonment was cruel, but there was no sense in staying behind and getting yourself killed. Zooty looked up as the Hack spoke.   “As per the Cynid War Dictum section three hundred and fifty three. Kits and non military individuals are sentenced to immediate imprisonment,” stated the Hack. “Kits will be immediately euthanized as consumption subjects, while other captives will be pending further investigation,” that affirmed Zooty’s fears. Behind his captor he could see the Hacks readying their arc-rifles with stun rounds in case anyone tried to escape. The ferret silently scoffed at the importance the Cynids placed on their ‘War Dictum’, they had set the ‘non-negotiable’ agreements themselves, believing it justified their brutality. In combat, they showed no mercy or expected it.

The Hacks opened the doors of the truck. “Get in,” they hissed. Zooty hung his head as the Hack grabbed him and started dragging him towards the truck, this was it…

Suddenly, an ear-splitting crack shattered the silence. Zooty gaped as the Hack’s head exploded, dropping limply to the ground. Gazing up at the bullet trail, he saw the impossible distance the shooter had fired from. Only Reiko could have made a shot like that!
No one hesitated, the hundreds of young ferrets, raccoons, squirrels, skunks, wolves, and foxes turned and bolted. “Get them!” a Hack screamed. “Kill them all!”

Zooty senses heightened so much he could hear the Hacks in unison flick off the safeties of their rifles with an ominous click. He anticipated the moment the first shots rang out and dived into the snow. Electrically charged stun bullets screamed overhead, the two squirrels beside him yelped as they were hit in the back of the head and fell senseless. Zooty scrambled to his feet, leapt over their dazed bodies and ducked his head just in time to hear the shots whizz past his ears a second time. In seconds the snow was littered with the bodies of his friends and the headless Hacks Reiko had shot down. The Cynids began their pursuit, chasing the groups who fled into alleyways, houses, factories, shouting as they went. To the Hacks, this was just a lethal game of hide-and-seek.
Zooty soon found an abandoned garage that had been disused for years. The war factory division hadn’t had time to demolish or reequip it, and now they never would. He squeezed under the wrecked door and tried as hard as he could to still his thudding heart. He tried telling himself everything was going to be all right, that he wasn’t going to be ground into paste or skinned, that he still had a long life ahead of himself, but deep down he knew it was hopeless. He was no soldier, he was only a kit!
Then he thought about his friends and started to panic, oh God where were they!? With a stroke of luck he heard voices and the patter of paws outside. “I saw Zooty run past here!” he heard Reiko say. “Zooty where are you!? Then, "Look out!” Zooty peered through a hole in the garage door. He saw his friends scamper into an alley pursued by a Hack carrying an Ion-Shot packed with Riot-Shells. Dammit, now Zooty would have to try to save them!

“Come on out!” The Hack hissed as it knocked aside the waste dispersion units, “we can talk this out, there’s no one else here, I can get you animals out.”   “Really?” A squirrel who had followed their group asked, poking her head out of hiding.    “No,” the Hack said flatly, and without any hesitation whatsoever pulled the trigger. The squirrel squealed as the bullets lodged fatally in her vital areas. She fell to the ground lifeless in a pool of blood. The Hack let out a sadistic laugh as he pumped the slide of the Ion Shot and loaded another Riot Shell. It didn’t notice Zooty duck under the garage door and slink down the alley, carefully stepping over the electric shell casing as he went. “Give it up, you animals are dead,” the Hack said, their fear wafting through its scent receptors.  
“You’re dead,” Zooty hissed with a bitter smile, the Hack had no idea the ferret had snuck up behind him and pulled out his side-arm. Zooty pulled trigger, sending a bullet up the shaft of the Cynid’s neck before lodging itself in its skull. It collapsed lifeless into the snow. Wordlessly, the ferret searched the body, clipping the grenades to his belt and passing Tek the Ion Shot.
  “Come on guys, we’re getting outta here.” He said.   It was his first kill, and he’d never forget it.