May 17 2051

Director’s Office
Department of Planetary Security
Lisbon Portugal

The Director was seated at his desk, allowing himself a moment of reflection.  

It had taken 50 years but his job was almost completed.  Tomorrow the first 3 squadrons of Operation Revenge would launch.  The countdown for the launch had started hours earlier but that was a formality; at noon Greenwich time the 18 one-man fighters organized into 3 squadrons would leave Earth’s atmosphere. 

Earth would finally start the process of paying the alien slavers back for the horrors of The Raid.   More importantly than hurting the slavers, that had already been done 2 years before when the Horab attempted to raid Earth again, was finding out where the Legion was located.  More than anything in his life the Director wanted to hurt the Legion for the pain that alien organization had caused him to suffer during the last 50 years.

Brian Kinney had been the Director of Planetary Defense for over 45 years.  While Earth’s military was responsible for the nuts and bolts of the operation; they answered to Brian Kinney.  The Director theoretically answered to the President of Earth but in reality he answered to no one.  Two generations had been born and raised with revenge in their hearts.  They would stand for nothing less than total revenge on the alien monsters that had defiled the planet on May 18 2001 and stolen 8428 young men into a life of slavery.  Brian Kinney had become the focus point of the desire for revenge and he had used the power that gave him to make sure that no Earth government had reneged on their promise to avenge The Raid.  

The president of Earth knew full well what would happen if he openly opposed the Director on anything that had to do with The Raid.

Brian was one of the few still living that had a direct connection to the victims of The Raid.  Though 50 years had passed he still loved Justin Taylor with all of his heart.  He had done nothing in the past 50 years that didn’t promote the idea of gaining revenge for the loss of his lover and the others stolen that day.   

What had made it so horrible for Brian was that he had only admitted to himself that he loved Justin the night before The Raid.  He then had less than an hour with his Justin before the disaster that split them up.

Brian had never believed that another man could love him let alone that he could love another man.  Justin had wormed his way through the defenses of Brian’s heart in the eight and a half months he had known Brian before the event that tore them apart forever.  Brian had fought tooth and nail to deny that he cared for Justin; then less than 24 hours after he finally was forced to admit the truth to himself Justin had been stolen from him.  Taken by alien monsters to become a sexual slave to other alien monsters.  

Over the years many on Earth had given up on the victims of The Raid; the feeling was that they were all dead by now.  While some had given up on the idea of rescuing the victims of The Raid very few had given up on the idea of gaining revenge on the Legion.  

Brian never believed that his Sunshine had died, not for a second had he ever believed that Justin was dead.  He knew that he would know when that happened no matter how far away from him Justin was and he knew with every fiber of his being that when Justin died he would die too.

Michael Novotny, who had also known Justin before The Raid was in Brian‘s office.  Michael and Brian had known each other for over 65 years and considered the other his best friend.  That meant much more to Michael than it did to Brian, always had and always would.

“It’s finally here Mikey.  The day that we start our march to revenge.”

“You mean the day we send 18 more young men to their deaths.”

“Death is a risk soldiers take when they sign up.”

“Brian you’ve used your advertising skills for the last 45 years to manipulate public opinion to support this desire for revenge.  We can defend ourselves now; the annihilation of the Horab attack 2 years ago proves that.  Why do we need to go out into space looking for trouble?”

“Mikey you’ve always been a disbeliever, why is that?”

“You’ve done all of this work, manipulating an entire planetary population’s opinion just to gain revenge for your twink that wouldn’t go away.  You’re willing to risk the entire population of Earth just to gain revenge for losing somebody you think you were in love with.”

“Mikey, Mikey, will you ever learn?  From the moment those ships attacked 12 Earth cities they were asking to be punished.  If I hadn’t been the one to lead someone else would have.  The Empire, the Horab, and most of all, the Legion, have to learn that Earth is not to be trifled with.  

The Military tell me that there is very little chance that these aliens can really harm the Earth now that we know about them and have developed N-Space drive ourselves.  We may not be strong enough to destroy them either but we can certainly cause them a lot of damage.  

It was a good thing that a byproduct of the Horab’s ability to take over the minds of some humans, to use as translators during The Raid, was the implantation of knowledge into the humans’ minds.  Daphne and Donna were able to give us a fair amount of information about the Empire and the Legion before they died.   We have a reasonable idea on the location of the Empire so we stayed away from there during our development of N-Space drive.  Our attack squadrons are not operating completely in the dark.  When they return home, after their mission, we will know even more.”

“That’s assuming that they return home.”

“Not every pilot that tested N-Space returned home either but enough did that we were able to work out the kinks and now we have a whole fleet being built that can be used to protect Earth space, colonize new planets and attack the Empire when we locate it.  I have confidence in the men manning the squadrons launching tomorrow to return with valuable knowledge about our enemies.”

“Does Gus know that you are risking the life of his son on this pipe dream of yours?  Do you really believe that they will find your twink after all of these years and bring him back to you so you can live happily every after.  Even if they did find him and brought him back he wouldn’t be the Justin you knew 50 years ago.”

“Taylor knows the risks he’ll be taking.  Whether Gus knows or not I don’t know since we haven’t talked in 10 years.  The day that Taylor enlisted, over his father’s objections, Gus stopped talking to me.”

“So you really are willing to risk the love of your son and the life of your grandson just to bring back some little blond twink who probably doesn’t even remember who you are?’

“Mikey you do know that insulting one of The Stolen could get you killed don’t you?”

“I’m 80 years old Brian, that isn’t much of a threat anymore.”

“Michael I would know if Justin were dead.  I have to believe that or I would have died years ago.”

“For all of our sakes I hope you’re right.”

“Whether I am or I’m not doesn’t matter anymore; Operation Revenge starts tomorrow and nothing can stop it.”

TBC