I always looked up at the stars. The stars of red and yellow, blue and green. So many worlds. The night sky was always riddled with holes. Holes into other universes. Other times. I looked up to the stars and I dreamt of adventure.
Most of the adults had been to the stars. They were trained as pilots, all of them. We were the largest trading corporation for ten star systems. Anyone who had received basic training could be called up as a pilot. Thousands of men and women left their families each day. Not all of them returned alive.
I had lived under the threat of invasion for so long I was sure they would never come for us. They had passed over us too many times. When our transportation freighters started to disappear we suspected space pirates. But the elite guards we sent never returned. Neither did the ships or the cargo. Something was out there, in the black, waiting.
We were not a warring people. We had no enemies, no civil war and very little crime. That was why we had been passed over. We had no value. Our soil wasn't worth mining. Our food was traded to us. Our clothes were simple. Our buildings were made by outside hands. The ships we built were basic. But they day they came. They day they bought death down upon us. We had nothing they wanted. But they didn't need any excuses to kill us. They did it because they wanted to.
I had to run when they came. I took my little brother and I ran for the hills. I never saw my father alive again. And then I lost my brother. I was heart broken. Dead. Those monsters had taken everything from me. Left me on my home world, now a lifeless rock, with no escape. And I ran, I searched. But I couldn't find him.
When the recovery and rescue ship arrived I had been alone for hours. My mother had run out, looking for him. She never came back. I was a wreck. The rescuers had to carry me to the ship. I couldn't walk. Over the next few days all I did was listen. I saw the destruction and devastation of my home world. The monsters were coming out in force and whole civilisations were falling. It was when they returned and blew my home world out of the sky I swore my oath. I would fight for my people. I would end the monsters' dreams of conquest.
I trained hard. I became a soldier. A monster killer. A hero. I didn't make much difference though. No one could. But I made just enough to keep myself sane. Just enough to keep myself from self destructing. Saving a life here, a life there. A child, a baby, a family. I remember my forty-first mission. I had failed to protect a family of four. All were dead but the man. He was being dragged off. I knew what would happen to him. So I raised my gun and shot him.
It's hard, even now, living my life. I came from an age where space flight was common. It was a brilliant dream for the children but there were no big announcements for each new flight that went up. But here, on this planet, everything was a new discovery. I thought it would be another adventure. To be part of a space program that was just starting out. To be one of the first to look at the stars from a new angle and walk on a planet in another solar system.
But they were too primitive. Their rockets were huge, lumbering creatures that roared as they took off and threw fire from their engines. And after they had walked on one other surface. Once they had unlocked just one of the universes great secrets, they stopped. The space programme just ended. They weren't interested in the stars. But I was. I no longer would have done anything to go to the stars but it was still my dream.
The people of the earth did not want to know what the universe had to offer them. And every single night I look up at the stars. The plain, white stars and dream but know I shall die with my dream unfulfilled.