[center][b]Year Zero[/b]
by [name]JustLurking[/name]
Chapter 1[/center]

Private Merlin of the 3rd Heavy Infantry sat behind the steel-glass bubble in the cockpit of his exomech and adjusted his grip on the yoke for what seemed like the fiftieth time this morning. The pads of his black socked paws were shiny with sweat and the textured rubberised grips of the main controls were not designed with comfort in mind. His thumbs ached from prolonged periods of arching them over the big red buttons which terminated both handles.

Pressing the buttons would unleash a hail of cannon fire at his enemies - at least it would once he disengaged the safeties by flicking the little switch to his left. He would flick the little switch once he received the order from his superior, probably once the wolves reached the shore line.

He looked out again to the troop ships that were approaching from the west. His stereographic HUD tinted everything a washed out amber. In the top left corner, in tiny print, it listed the status of the various systems of his mech. In the bottom right there was a box which displayed the images captured by the mech’s binoculars.

With a flick of his eyes Merlin enlarged the image to fill most of the display and increased the magnification to maximum. The box became a translucent overlay showing ghostly wolven figures superimposed on reality.

He dismissed the image. The ability to look soldiers from the invading army in the eye did nothing to relieve his anxiety. The wolven warriors were calm and placid and had nothing but death and hate in their eyes.

At this distance the battle computers couldn’t establish any accurate targets. That would change once the air force arrived and performed a pass over the looming ships. The intelligence they returned would, no doubt, paint his field of vision with thousands of markers.

At the moment the only marks he had were those belonging to the battlegroup. He looked to his left and right. As his eyes passed over the units, personnel and equipment information, provided by the battle computers, appeared on the HUD showing the status of each.

The battlegroup stretched across the shoreline in either direction as far as the eye could see. At the front were exomechs, in a staggered line, two deep. Behind that were emplacements for the heavy artillery, surface to air missiles and the like. Behind them were the energy weapons: lasers and plasma cannons.

The sight of so many powerful weapons reassured him - if only a little. Merlin wasn’t very well travelled but from everything he had heard Coalition technology was miles in advance of anything the wolves could field. With a field full of the most powerful weapons known to foxkind they were going to send the wolves yelping back to their mommas.

He checked himself. Just because victory was assured didn’t mean there wouldn’t be losses on his side. The front line was a very dangerous place to be - whether or not you were in a heavily armoured exomech.

Where was the air support?

The grassy hill he was on was twenty or thirty metres from the shore. Just yesterday families would have been picnicking here, cubs would have been tossing frisbees around and collecting shells, lovers would have walked along the soft sand of the shoreline hand in hand.

Now the only presence on this idyllic landscape was military. The jagged angles of metal behemoths alternately shone and cast shadows in the early morning sun. The sight of the killing machines was morbidly beautiful. It was an image which would trouble even the most heartless of furs and convince even the most virulent militant to take vows of pacifism.

Private Merlin, unlike his namesake, wasn’t given to such deep thoughts. His stomach rumbled. He hadn’t had breakfast this morning and he was hungry. He was sure there was some rule which said soldiers should get a meal before going into battle. He didn’t want to die, but if he had to then he’d prefer to have a full stomach.

The air force arrived. The sky was full of aircraft streaking forward to meet the ships.

A group of faster reconnaissance craft led the way. They made a pass over the ships, fire was exchanged and the planes scrambled to get out of range.

On the ground Merlin held his breath and waited to see if the battle computers had received enough intelligence to give an estimate of the enemy strength.

After a scarce three seconds the information began to assemble itself on his HUD.

“Spraint!” A voice cursed over the platoon local comms, “There’s millions of them.”

Merlin grit his teeth at the behaviour of the ill-disciplined private as the Lieutenant chewed him out. Still his assessment was correct - there were easily millions of them.

By this time the wolves had got their fighters in the air. The two forces rushed to engagement.

The Lieutenant stopped his tirade to give the order “Safeties off!”

Merlin flicked the little switch, a line of the minuscule text in the top left hand of his vision changed from “Cannon safeties: ON” to “Cannon safeties: OFF”. It was time to give those loup a warm foxen welcome.

The battle in the sky was epic. Both forces trying to push through the other and obliterate their ground troups. Fortunately the air force, the heavy artillery and the energy weapons were doing a good job of shielding the infantry from wolven attack. Unfortunately their wolven equivalents were doing almost as good a job against the foxen craft.

As the battle progressed the wolves managed to edge near enough to land troops. Merlin prepared himself to defend his homeland. He took a good long look at his enemy.

Wolves were, on average, larger and heavier than foxes. These soldiers were no exception. Each was equipped with a heavy looking automatic weapon (hand held - so no automatic targeting), some (thoroughly inadequate looking) body armour and a helmet with (Merlin sneered at this) a monographic HUD. They approached on foot.

Their relatively weak equipment gave Merlin confidence. He targeted the nearest wolf and let loose the cannon. He swept the cannon sights across the wolves on the shore and watched as they were torn to pieces - their body armour as ineffective as he had judged it.

The wolves kept landing more troops to replace their fallen and they were coming faster and faster now.

Merlin gritted his teeth and stared wild eyed at the carnage around him. The wolves were dying in droves. Why were they still coming? Why didn’t they cut their losses and retreat? They were completely outclassed.

Flaming, melted shrapnel rained down from the sky as the battles progressed above and below.

Still the wolves came. As more and more wolves landed Merlin found that he couldn’t kill them quick enough. The line of wolves continued to advance closer with each minute. He swept the cannon back and forth through the crowd but it wasn’t enough to stop the battle crazed army before him.

Then an explosion from his right sent his exomech and his world reeling.

When he had gathered his wits a second later he saw that fire from an aircraft has destroyed the mech beside him. Worse was that the explosion had destroyed part of the steel-glass around the cockpit. Worse still was the wolf who had clambered onto his mech and who was now hanging from the side with one hand. Worse than that was the weapon that was levelled at his head by the wolf hanging from the side of his mech. But the very worst thing, as far as Merlin was concerned, was the feral grin/snarl plastered on the wolven soldier’s muzzle - a snarl of victory, a snarl which promised his death.

The automatic weapon unloaded at point blank range into his throat, killing him instantly and taking off part of his lower jaw in the process.

Eventually the wolves overwhelmed the left and right wings of the foxen infantry, swarmed around the gaps they had made and out flanked their opponents. By the time the fox generals realised their mistake and ordered a retreat it was too late.

The cost to the wolves was high, but the cost to the foxes was total. Not one fox survived the battle.

The wolves marched onwards into fox territory.

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Eleven year old vixen Mor sat in a foetal position, chin up against her knees in the bushes. She’d been forced to sleep under them last night. Her body was sore and stiff, her stomach was empty, her dress was stained and her fur was a mess. Thoroughly miserable, she stared at the ground directly in front of her as if she could make it suffer for the anger and fear she felt.

It’d been a day since her sire left her here, but he promised he would return for her so she waited. He would come back for her - she refused to believe otherwise.

Her mind drifted back to last night.

He seemed to be frightened about something. He’d come home, run up the stairs, burst into her room, grabbed her paw and dragged her out of the house. They stopped only so he could fetch the rifle he kept locked in the cabinet in his room. He hadn’t even bothered to close the front door behind them.

Then they had been running or at least walking very fast down the streets of Light Province in the twilight.

The death grip he had on her hand hurt her and his grip on the rifle looked no less intense. She tried to keep up with him but he was walking too fast for her short legs so he ended up half dragging her behind him. At one point she tripped on a stone and it felt as though he dislocated her shoulder.

He remained deaf to her pleadings or complaints though - only saying that she should “Run faster.”

Finally, they approached their destination, which turned out to be a small park. He took her into the bushes.

“Sweety,” he began as he dropped to his knees, grasped her shoulders and looked intently into her eyes, “you stay here in the bushes - you understand? Don’t let anyone know you’re here and don’t leave for any reason. I’ll be back soon. Just stay there.”

Then he kissed her on the forehead, hugged her tightly, got up and walked away.

Mor stood in the bush, her hands limply by her sides, with a wide eyed expression of confusion and fear on her face, the very picture of traumatised youth. She watched her sire depart and suddenly came back to herself. She lunged towards the bush line, right hand open and outstretched. “Daaaddeee!” She called forlornly. Remembering her sire’s warning, she stopped short of actually leaving the bushes even as he deserted her.

He reached the entrance to the park, looked left and right to see if he had been observed, and took off at a run without ever looking back.

That had been a day ago.

Mor was young but she wasn’t stupid. She knew what guns were for and she knew what had been happening to foxes with guns recently.

She’d watched soldiers on the tri-d set as they fought the invading wolves. She’d watched them die one after another as the wolves advanced. She’d watched as the wolves took the Coalition building in the capital and executed their leaders. She’d watched until three days ago when the tri-d signal was cut off and replaced by ‘official’ programming from the wolven government.

Then her father had turned the tri-d set off in disgust at what he called “Loup propaganda.”

But even without the tri-d she had still watched, because the day after that the wolves took her home city, The Province of Light.

All in all, she had a very good idea what her father had intended to do with that rifle. She just hoped that he would be able to come back for her like he had said he would.

There wasn’t anything better to do so she slept most of the day.

[center][b]❖ ❖ ❖[/b][/center]

Mor was woken by the sound of heavy footsteps. Thinking it was her sire returned to collect her, she jumped to her hands and knees and peered out of the bushes. What she saw poured water over her hopes.

Endless rows of foxes, escorted by armed wolves, gloomily marched in all directions.

Mor watched in sickened awed as row after row after row marched passed the park and her hiding place.

Suddenly the sun went dark. A wolf stood over her. He had a truncheon raised above his head ready to strike the little vixen.

“Please Sir! No.” A voice called out from behind her.

A pair of thin, black socked, foxen arms wrapped themselves around her shoulders and a body placed itself between her and the truncheon, shielding her from the blow she was about to receive. The wolf paused mid swing, puzzlement written all over his face.

“Please Sir. I’m sorry Sir. This is my little sister. She slipped away when I wasn’t looking. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again Sir.”

The wolf paused and mulled things over, it was obvious he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Finally he came to a decision.

“All right, back in line you two,” he turned to address the mystery rescuer directly, “and don’t let it happen again.”

“No Sir. Of course not Sir. On our way Sir.”

The black socked hand took Mor’s left and pulled her into the nearest line.

In the anonymity of the crowd Mor turned to look at the one who had saved her from a beating. He was a young tod with perky black tipped ears, black eye markings and short whiskers. He wore a grey hooded pull over, canvas shorts and trainers. They all looked as messy as her clothes did. He was slightly taller then she was.

A sense of guilt washed over her. This cub had risked himself for her because he believed her to be someone she wasn’t. Obviously the war had sent him a little barmy, the poor guy didn’t even recognise his own sister any more. She resolved to break it to him gently.

“Thanks for saving me back…” she began.

“Think nothing of it.” The boy smartly replied, head high, chest thrust forward, a smug smile on his muzzle and a swagger in his step.

He was a complete contrast to the rest of the foxes. Mor couldn’t help but think of the artful dodger when she looked at him. Like the dodger this tod seemed to be alive and vibrant and colourful against a backdrop of sadness and suffering.

“Ah, well. No really, thank you. You see …” Mor struggled to find the words to tell him.

The tod turned his head in puzzlement.

“The thing is,” she finally collected herself, “I’m not your sister. Sorry”

The tod looked at her a few seconds longer. Then he smiled wider than ever.

“I know,” he said, “I’m an only child.”

Mor felt very foolish and relived at the same time.

“Sorry. I thought you had gone mad or something.” She explained relief evident in her voice.

“That’s okay. And anyway you’re a fox so I think that makes you my sister.” He gestured at the press of foxes around them, “I think right now we all need brothers and sisters.”

“Well thank you for being my brother.” Mor said, seriously impressed by the young fox.

“Don’t mention it.” He replied, “My name’s Cælin by the way.”

“Mor.”

“Glad to meet you.” He grinned.

“Stop talking!” A wolven guard screamed at them.

They held hands for the remainder of the journey. Silently drawing strength from each other’s presence.

Their destination turned out to be a hall which had hastily been converted into a holding pen. The large arch windows had been boarded up on both sides so that only a chink of light filtered in from the very top. There was a pile of blankets and rations in the middle of the room. A large bucket in one corner was provided for obvious functions.

A hundred or so foxes of all ages, sexes and classes were packed in. Two wolves stood guard at the door. One on the inside of the hall and one on the outside.

A quick stock take showed that there wasn’t enough blankets to go around and that it would be necessary to share them or to take turns sleeping. Despite the shortage of blankets the first course of action decided upon by the captive foxes was to hang one in front of the bucket. No one objected.

The food was plentiful enough if extremely unappetising. The food packets themselves were extremely difficult to open. Asking the guard for a pair of scissors or a knife was fruitless - indeed, attempting to talk to him at all was a waste of time. The flavour didn’t bother Mor who hadn’t eaten in two days. She immediately polished off a pack once she managed to rip though the plastic with her teeth.

Finally there was no more for the foxes to discuss and they broke apart into ones and twos to mull around their enclosure.

Cælin and Mor found a spot beneath one of the boarded up windows and talked to each other in whispers.

They talked about their lives, their likes and dislikes, minute details and grand designs, they laughed and joked together and cried in each others arms. Cælin turned out to be the same age as Mor “Little sister indeed.” she said with mock hurt.

“You were right you know.” Cælin said at one point.

“Right?” Mor asked, confused.

“Back in the street,” he clarified, “you thought I was mad. Well you were right I am mad. Absolutely livid in fact.”

Mor watched as the artful dodger façade dropped away from the handsome tod’s features and was replaced by hurt and fear and hatred.

“They murdered my family right in front of me.” He hissed, “I want them dead. All of them.”

She put her arms around him and held him close.

“I don’t think my father is coming for me.” She confided.

He looked at her in confusion and she told him her story. Afterwards they picked a free blanket, wrapped in around themselves and tried to get some sleep.

[center][b]❖ ❖ ❖[/b][/center]

They must have succeeded because the next thing either of them knew they were waking up. Blinking sleep out of their eyes the pair awoke facing each other.

“…right, all the Males. Front and centre. Hurry it up. As fast as you can.” A bored looking wolven corporal stood in front shouting.

Dazed Cælin looked around stupidly. Mor cried out as a large hand ripped him from the blanket and hoisting him in the air. The hand turned out to be attached to a large not terribly friendly looking wolf.

“You heard him fox. Move.” The wolf practically tossed Cælin towards the front of the hall.

Cælin, now wide awake, hit the ground running and got into line with the other tods at the front.

Once the guards had finished rousing or rooting out the remaining stragglers and had assembled them in rows at the front the corporal spoke again.

“Okay, you know the drill. Same as yesterday. Follow us. Stay in formation. No talking. No stragglers.” He droned, “Anyone got a problem with that?”

“I do!”, Cælin spoke surprising even himself, “You can’t split us up like this! And where are you taking us anyway?”

A look of disgust washed over the corporal’s face. He was obviously not used to being talked back to, especially by a scruffy kit.

“You’re going to be fixed and I can do whatever I damn well please. You’d better learn that soon fox.” The wolf spoke the last word, ‘fox’, with revulsion plain in his voice.

“Wadda ya mean fixed?” Cælin was becoming belligerent with rage, “I’m not broken ya dam yiffing loup scu…”

At this point the corporal made a downwards motion with his right hand and pain erupted across the back of Cælin’s skull. He folded to the ground. The last thing he heard before blacking out was the wolf who had struck him from behind saying “Anyone else got a problem with that?”

At the back of the hall Mor watched on, restrained by one of the older and wiser vixens, as the guard who had knocked Cælin down scooped him up and tossed him over his shoulder. The tods, their guard and the corporal marched out of the holding pen and up the street. Mor’s heart shattered as for the second time that week she was separated from a loved one.

[center][b]❖ ❖ ❖[/b][/center]

When Cælin awoke again the first thing he would notice would be pain. Three pains specifically, in the back of his head, in his left ear and in his groin.

Cælin awoke.

A long draw out pitiful whine, “Arrroooowwwwwoooee,” escaped his lips before he even opened his eyes.

He was lying in a bed, his head buried in the pillow. He tried to sit up and look around but the pain in his groin flared up. Eventually he managed to roll onto his back without cause the pain in any of the three effected areas to flare up too much. He opened his eyes and took stock of his situation.

The light hurt them momentarily. He was in a large, well lit white room with beds along each wall and the smell of antiseptic in the air. A hospital ward he realised.

A wolven guard stood beside the door.

The beds were occupied by mostly the same tods that had been in the holding pen with him. There wasn’t one vixen or wolf in the room.

The other tods seemed to share much the same pain he was in. He couldn’t ask since the beds were spaced too far apart to talk and the wolf on guard didn’t look like he would tolerate a shouted conversation.

As he looked at his fellow foxes he noticed something. Each seemed to have a white metal strip running up thee outside edge of his left ear. Slowly, in fear and apprehension, Cælin moved his hand to touch the area of pain he felt in his left ear.

He jerked his hand away immediately as his not-gentle-enough touch caused a wave of pain to shoot down the side of his face. More carefully this time he brought his hand to his ear. He could feel the smooth, cool strip which now adorned his ear.

If he had had anything substantial to eat in the last day he would have been sick.

A clatter from the hall way beyond the door interrupted his thoughts. Three guards entered and took up positions on the left of the door. Ten fox nurses pushing trolleys followed them in. They each seemed to have a designated number of beds in the ward which they went to immediately. They were followed by another three guards who took positions on the right.

Cælin was the first in his nurse’s assigned beds. His nurse was a young professional looking vixen. Her left ear was tagged just like the ears of Cælin and the other foxes.

“Hello there little guy.” She greeted him as she wheeled the trolley over, “We were all worried about you.”

“Worried about me?” The implications of that statement scared him, “How long was I out?”

“Two days.” She replied simply.

She thrust a plate into his hands.

Cælin was shocked, “Two days!?”

“Some of that will have been from the anaesthetic.” She explained, trying to open a packet of food.

“Anaesthetic!?”

The nurse got the ration open and dolled it out onto the plate.

“You’d make a good parrot you know.” The nurse joked, “The anaesthetic from your operation.” She continued in a more consolatory voice, “I’m sorry cub but while you were out they gave you a vasectomy.”

Anticipating his next exclamation she explained, “They sterilised you.” Then quickly to forestall his denial, “It’s reversible but they don’t want foxes breeding out of their control. They want to keep the birth rate at the replenishment rate. No higher. No lower.”

She checked for infections or inflammation around the tag on his ear.

“But why?” Cælin asked voice wavering.

“Because they don’t want to run out of slaves and the don’t want their slaves to out number them.” Was her succinct reply.

Taking a penlight from her pockets, she proceeded to conduct a pupil examination on his eyes.

“Slaves!?” he choked out, horror now etched on his face.

“Sorry cub. I really wish it wasn’t so.” She said her professional demeanour gone for a moment, “I really wish this wasn’t your life. But there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Cælin pulled himself together and asked in a stronger voice, “The ear tags?”

“Nothing special about them, they’re just radio tags. They broadcast an ID number which can be used to look up all your details in a database. The number is printed on the tag itself in case it has to be entered manually.”, She explained

Defiantly he asked, “And if I remove the tag?”

“Don’t.” She said, “They’re a titanium plastic weave. They won’t come off without the proper tools and if you try you’ll remove a chunk of your ear. Plus while you were out they came round the ward and took biometric details, paw prints, iris scans, the works.” She expounded, “If they found you without a tag they could issue you another pronto and all you would have achieved is ripping your ear.”

“Hoi! Number 245633!” Came a shout from one of the wolves at the door, “Shut your trap slut and move it!”

She gathered her things and made to move onto the next bed, “Sorry cub - got to go. Good luck.”

She left Cælin with his meal.

[center][b]❖ ❖ ❖[/b][/center]

Later that afternoon the wolves announced that the foxes had been discharged and that they would all be marching back to their enclosure. Cælin was gratified to find that we were still in Light Province. He had been worried that he might have been transported out of the city while he was unconscious. The wolves marched the tods, who were hobbling in pain, back to hall/holding pen they had been taken from.

They were reunited with the vixens who had also been tagged in their absence. There was much consolation from the vixens when they heard what had been done to the tods.

Mor was overjoyed to see Cælin again.

“I thought they were taking you away for good and I was never going to see you again!” She cried with tears of happiness as she clutched him gently to herself.

Later on as he told her his story he confessed “I’ve never felt so violated before.”

“Slaves.” She agreed, “It’s just not right.”

[center][b]❖ ❖ ❖[/b][/center]

Nothing happened for the next two days. The foxes mulled around, talked, ate and slept. Occasionally the bucket was changed - usually when the smell started to annoy the guard. Cælin noticed his various aches and pains fade away.

On the third day the corporal returned, flanked by his flunkies. “All right you scum. Front and centre the lot of you. Hurry it up.” He shouted, “You’re shipping out today.”

After the object demonstration on Cælin no one dared question where they were being shipping out to.

The group marched out of the pen, onto the street and towards the harbour. Cælin and Mor marched side by side. The journey was several hours on foot and many of the foxes, all of whom were civilians, started to drop behind from exhaustion. Those who couldn’t keep up were punished.

Finally they reached the docks.

The place was a hive of activity. There were ships at every berth and ships queued up behind them waiting for a free berth. Cargo was being loaded and unloaded. Troops embarked and disembarked. A PA droned on unceasingly in the background.

But the most horrific of all was the sea of red fur. Thousands upon thousands of foxes were being marched - no - herded onto the ships in regimented groups. Mor’s jaw dropped her muzzle agape as she drank in the full horror of the situation. Cælin just stood there eyes burning with hatred and sorrow. As one their hands drifted to meet each others, their gazes never leaving the scene in front of them.

Finally the PA announced “Lot four oh two to bay seven. Repeat. Lot four oh two to bay seven.”

“That’s you scum.” The corporal announced as he took a swing at the back side of the nearest fox with his truncheon, “Get moving.”

They were marched onto bay seven and from there onto a ship. As they walked up the gangway a computer, with an attentive, bespectacled, scrawny, wolven clerk sat behind it, beeped as it registered their presence.

The clerk gave the soldiers a thumbs up as the last of the troop reached the top of the gangway. From there they were led into the hold and into a large rectangular cage - one of many which were arranged in a grid across the level and one of the few that wasn’t already occupied.

One of the guards addressed the slaves as they entered the cage, “Your training will be the responsibility of your new masters whoever they might be,” as the last fox passed the threshold he swung the gate shut and continued, “but all foxes are expected to know one command. That is ‘Identify’. When you are told to identify yourselves you will recite your ident. number and nothing else. I suggest you use this time to memorise your numbers. It’s a long trip to Lyngvi City”

As the gate was locked behind them the foxes took stock of their new lodgings. They were much the same as their previous dwelling, blankets, food, bucket. Their spirits thoroughly crushed, they settled down for the voyage to their new lives.

Soon after the ship left dock. Cælin and Mor had left The Province of Light. They would never return. 

