Still, they were Aliens and therefore had no rights, and no way of getting a license. Some species, like the Hekshanians or Hellcats, had made use of such in running a black market, but Nikatak was set in its ways, and didn't much need that. Their cities had remained unchanged since the nineties, as had their lives. The Universe didn't bother them, nor did the hostile take-over by the Alien hating Rulerists.

Rokoji hid high in a tree, holding his furry body absolutely still and taking entire stock of the forest. The frozen limbs of trees jingled against one another and dropped snow onto the ground, sometimes huge amounts of it. No snow fell now, it was too cold. Rokoji sniffed the air, his nose tingling painfully at the hostile ice crystals that danced in it, swept upward by wind. His body was curled around the tree trunk tightly, or at least his lower section. His upper section he held out over the air, and shivered. Infant fur was warm, but not insulated enough to handle adult tasks. He should not be doing this. This was for older Nikatakians.

A howl a mile south rocked the woods violently and Rokoji slipped in surprise. His upper end slammed violently down against the trunk and knocked his chin into his upper jaw, jolting his teeth. He moaned, shuffling to regain his position. A kulro, he thought, the big ugly buggers. I hope it isn't hunting for intruders. Rokoji regained his former position and looked down, smelling something alive on the wind. It had a milky scent, soft and slightly of cedar bark. Romili, he thought.

True to Rokoji's suspicions, his sister bounded into the forest and stood, sniffing out his scent. He held still, he didn't want to move. "Koji!" Romili howled his name to the open wind. "Koji, come see this! Look what's happened!"

Tempted, Rokoji leaned a little further out to see what she had. Romili waved a copy of the most recent paper in the air. Rokoji caught a glimpse of the Uni translated headline, but it said enough to make him interested. "Massacre" was what was printed, and if Romili ceased waving it around, Rokoji might have been able to read the entire thing.

Leaning even further out, Rokoji uncurled his middle set of legs from the tree and tried to see what Romili was doing now. She held the paper in her hands and started to read aloud. "Seo, March 8: Seo Prison," she read, "What began as a usual collection day for the alien prisoners being held there quickly turned into a riot. The prisoners, being escorted out to their separate destinations, rioted against the guards and nearly escaped. Thankfully, these dangerous criminals were stopped, the final toll at thirty-four dead, nineteen wounded. The warden commented simply that 'The Xeno freaks never had a chance. Teaches them for trying to outsmart Humans.' This reporter is happy to say that I feel much safer with these animals under Rulerist control." Romili stopped. Rokoji leaned farther out in amazement, horrified. His third set of legs slipped, and he fell out of the tree like a stone, landing with a thump in the snowy ground below. Climbing out of the chilly hole he'd created, he shook snow out of his eyes and from his white fur.

"There you are," Romili muttered, trotting towards him on five of her legs, the newspaper held under the sixth. "Do you believe this?" She handed him the paper as if he cared to read the rest of it. It was all pro-Human pro-Rulerist propaganda anyway.

" 'Course I do," Rokoji snorted, shredding the paper between his front claws. "Those Aliens just wanted freedom back, and they were slaughtered because of it. Nothing Humanity does surprises me anymore. They're all insane."

"True, but what the paper doesn't tell you, Koji, is that the Pagan Army was right there to help out the Aliens that did escape." Romili narrowed her eyes into two dark gray slits. "There were ninety people in that room they called a prison. Packed tight like canned food. Forty three didn't make it out, but forty seven did."

"Forty seven people who'll become warriors for our freedom." Rokoji sighed. He wanted badly to be part of that war, because he knew that the army was sadly lacking in both fighters and communications. While the papers did their best to deny it, they also slipped up in admitting to "crushing" it in places. Rokoji and his sister had grown used to taking everything the papers said with a grain of salt. If they said things were good for Aliens, they most likely weren't. If they said the Pagan Army was destroyed, that meant it was being a real thorn in their sides.

"Too bad Nikatak is so stuck on the fence. You'd think they were welded there."

Rokoji shook his head and began to walk in his sister's scent trail towards home. Another howl sounded behind them. "They're smart, in a way. If they get involved, the Humans'll massacre us too. So long as we stay out of their way, we're safe a while longer. Still…"

Romili snorted and narrowed her eyebrows in frustration. "Still…"

"Ma, Mili and I are leaving." Rokoji had only made it home a few minutes ago and his mother bit him angrily on the shoulder for being late. Then, of course, she licked his face thoroughly, saying how worried she was and how he must never go into the woods that late again and that the kulro were particularly violent these past few moons.

Rokoji took it in stride even though he hated to be babied. He was considered a punk, with his ideas about the war against Humanity and his protests that even a child could take the tests of manhood and pass, that children were underestimated. It drove his mother insane, and she busily tried to prove him wrong. Occasionally, he backs her into a corner with sound proof on something, but then she would simply refuse to listen and call it "boyhood fantasies." Rokoji hated that too, and wished that his mother, along with all the Nikatakians would get with the program and look around themselves.

"Where are you two going?" His mother asked. Her back was turned away from him at the moment. She was scaling an ice fish his da had caught. Ice fish were considered a great food of great Nikatakians, but Rokoji hated it. It tasted like snow soaked in kulro urine.

Romili bounded past Rokoji and grabbed the door handle, grinning widely. "Out," she said simply. She darted through the doorway and left Rokoji to explain.

"It's a meeting, ma. We'll only be gone an hour. At most."

"Where?"

Just like his mother, Rokoji thought. Needed to know every detail of his life. He spent careful time fabricating a false life atop his real life, a life his mother could pry into all she wanted and all she would find was the perfect son with sparkling loyal eyes. Rokoji thought that was a sickening lie, but if it kept his mother happy, he didn't much care. "Down to the Kiro Kamma." Kiro Kamma was a fast food restaurant that most of the more "with it" kids from school hung out at. Rokoji had no intentions of going there, actually, but to the local gaming hall. The place had an unsavory reputation, and the front rooms were mainly a room where the kids could play video games that had been banned in the previous year by the Rulerists. The back rooms were a meeting place for any Nikatakians who wanted to join the Pagan cause. Parents hated the place and tried to have it shut down several times, but the kids put up such a fuss they didn't bother to go on with it. "We're meeting a few friends from school then going to the spaceport to see if anything happens." That part, at least, was true. They were going to the spaceport after they finished up in the Gaming room. Their two Alien friends from offworld who had started the entire Nikatakian movement were leaving for their homeworlds. They were bizarre species, creepy leather skinned pointy eared bipeds with shaggy hair called Andoians. Their names, Emon and Luca were fabrications, obviously, but no one was the wiser as of yet.

Emon and Luca were holding their farewell meeting and shipping off that very night, on an illegal freighter headed for Ando. On Ando, they would take a small plane to the Pagan front of Umliu. Things were looking pretty bad there, and they wanted to make sure that even while they were gone, their cause would live on. Romili and Rokoji would make sure it did.

"Oh, well, have fun!" His mother coiled herself backwards and kissed his forehead, making Rokoji grumble angrily. Quickly, he turned and skittered out the door to meet his sister.

"Da, I think I'm going to join the Pagan army." Rokoji played with the food on his plate absently, not making eye contact. His father was a large, gruff Nikatakian with dark fur, a mutation that came about very rarely. Emon and Luca had encouraged their friends that if they got a chance, they should try to join the cause. They also warned to not to rush straight into battle but to seek out a training camp. "We heard they were working on one on Hekshano," Luca had told Romili upon departure. Rokoji and Romili agreed that they should try to grant the Andoians' wishes, but not without getting their parents aware of the situation. Neither sibling wished to break the news to their father, however, and Romili forced Rokoji into a game of Rulerist, Pagan, and Fence. It was a variation of rock, paper, and scissors. Rulerist beat Pagan, Pagan beat Fence and Fence beat Rulerist. Rokoji, merely out of spirit chose Pagan. His sister anticipated it and chose Rulerist. Rokoji was stuck telling his father.

His father abruptly stopped eating, swallowed and glared. "Why?" he growled.

"Aliens have no rights, but I sure as hell think we deserve some. I'm ready to fight for it." Rokoji's stomach was full of butterflies, enough to make his stomach reject some of the food he had eaten. Rokoji had to catch the vomit and swallow it back down again. It was dumb to challenge the dominant male of the household, and the fear was leftover from primordial times.

His father snorted and returned to eating. "Is this what you and your friends talk about? It's delusions, just kid dreams. Get your feet on the ground, boy! Get your head in the present. The Pagans are stupid to challenge the Rulerists just like I would be stupid to challenge Pack Leader. Pagan Army! Huh!"

"If we don't fight, who will?" Rokoji forced himself to say.

"Humph. Seems like there's plenty of fools out there willing to." His father fixed him with a warning glare that was supposed to discourage him. Rokoji didn't like it, it made all four of his knees shake. The hackles on his back stood up.

"The only people who are foolish are the ones who let this happen to fellow Aliens. They're just like us! Just like you."

Rokoji's father reared onto his last set of legs up to a huge nine feet tall. "I am Rochay and an individual! You are only a child. You can't possibly understand that we are nothing like them! You will not join the Pagan Army!" His father slammed the table with his middle paws, making the plates jump. "That is my word and that is final!"

Rokoji climbed out of his chair and levered himself up on his hind pair of legs as well. "You can't stop me," he stated simply. Dropping back down to all fours, he ran to his room and sat in his sleeping pit, growling. He knew where he was going now. He only needed to figure out how to get there.