The Imperium Read Online Free

to hit us
with the big stuff, they instead laid down just enough fire to keep
us occupied, while they went about collecting our wounded.
    Perhaps it was all that we had experienced over the tour and the
feelings associated with going back home to the pain that awaited
us there or it was the sounds of her fellow comrades screaming as
they were dragged and packed away…I'll never know. Maybe all that
silence and the carefully crafted distance dance we had been doing
for almost two years, had eaten away at her, inside.
    I heard her yell "You fucking bastards!" and
then saw her step out of our line, face contorted in exquisite
anger. She started shooting in the direction of the Pegasus like
vehicle, where they were taking the bodies.
    Before I could react to what was happening, I
saw her lurch once to the left, which dropped the hand she had been
using to steady the weapon, but did not prevent her from continuing
to shoot. And then she lurched again and I saw that her right hand
had been severed and was still gripping the trigger as it fell. The
third time she lurched, her body was turned toward me and our eyes
met.
    I'd saw everything there. The balloon I had
popped that made her cry when we were toddlers, how she looked in
the pale pink dress she had worn on her 16th birthday, the glaze of
passion on her face every time we made love, the vision of her
holding the son that I had always pictured and the photo I had kept
in my mind of how she would look in our final days after she had
gone grey.
    Then the left side of her head blew out and
her eyes opened wide as if she was surprised to find herself out
here amongst the carnage and then they slowly closed as her body
slumped and she slipped down to join the crumpled mix of flesh and
machines.
    I've heard many accounts of what I did after
that and they all feel like they could be true.
The similar details that they have, is that I went crazy and began
firing on everything that moved, taking out most of the
Ascendency's forces and that my actions incited others to join me
instead of retreating.
    That day we had won a battle that we should
have lost and saved tons of our troops from the mind washing
clutches of the Ascendency. But, none of it registered with me. I
had lost the only thing that mattered in the world.
    When the last month of my tour was up, I
refused to go back. I told my commanding officer that there was
nothing there for me. He understood and was glad to have me stay
on. It did not take long for me to work my way up to commanding my
own company. I was an effective soldier, so much so that some
people said that I was crazy when locked in the heat of battle.
Maybe they were right.

    All I know is that in the beginning I had
fought for honor, to do my part as the ones before me had done and
to solidify my place as a citizen of the Imperium. Then, I had
fought for love, for the future, I thought I could seed with my
wants and hopes of a life with Shadra.
    And now…
    Now I fight for revenge.