The other side

[defanatic]

[center]The Other Side[/center]

Morgan Voros bolted across the street as his sergeant shouted at him to do so. Heavy Stubber fire shredded the street behind him as he went, tearing apart a corner of the building that he ran behind. He was the last of the squad to cross the street. Entering an apartment, they picked their way through crumbling walls, staircases, and rubble. He hoisted his lasgun up to his shoulder, and aimed down a corridor. He could hear voices. A figure span out of the door way, and his chest was blasted apart by the beams emitted from the lasgun.

Morgan had passed six years of age when he received an Imperial seal. It was a poorly made thing, constructed from copper and mass-produced in one of the many factories around town. It was for the celebration of the birthday of a long forgotten, long dead governor. Morgan got a seal, and was very proud. He’d melt a bit of wax, and stamp the seal down. He’d watch the wax dull, and take the seal off. The impression of the Imperial Aquila would stare back at him.

At first, the two headed eagle looked vaguely sinister. Its ever-present form was on all public buildings, as well as the tops of flag poles and some fence posts. Preachers wore the Aquila around their necks, and sometimes on top of staffs. Morgan got accustomed to it's presence, though. It was his possession.

It was also around this time when he felt something was wrong with the doctrines. There was no denying the presence of the Emperor, or his benevolence. But Morgan would look down the streets, and there would be rubbish drifting with the wind. A torn Imperial poster would flutter down as well. The apartment blocks everyone lived in were graying with the chemicals in the air that were spewed out from the vast factory complexes and the traffic that clogged the roads during busy hours.

A sniper had dropped one of Morgan’s squad mates. Morgan had attempted to pull his friend away from the exposed area for medical attention, but the next round ended his life. Morgan dropped the corpse and took cover. The vox operator was calling in for air support. Morgan could hear the quad-mounted auto cannons opening fire, and assumed the response was affirmative. The sergeant shouted at the squad, telling them they had to get moving. Everyone hitched up. Morgan attempted to grab his friend’s dog tag, but the sniper shot at his outstretched hand, and he withdrew.

When Morgan was eight, he moved into a new school. It was more pious than the previous one he went to. On leaving, he would go into compulsory military service. There, he walked in cathedrals with high pillars stretching into darkness above. Statues of great heroes lined the corridors, each with a commemorative plaque. For some of the statues, they were the only record of them left. Any tuple on a database had been erased, accidentally or deliberately, many centuries ago. Morgan thought it was ironic that once great heroes and saviours had been reduced to guardians of dark forgotten corridors.

He thought to himself that the lives of all people would eventually be forgotten. Even those who had saved planets, or brought them to ruin, would be reduced from a chapter, to a paragraph, to a footnote, an urban legend, and then forgotten, relegated to a symbol that’s origins are lost, a statue, or the name of a backwater suburb.

Morgan crossed into a hallway on the second level of the apartment building. Down below he could see some traitors shuffling into position. He began firing snap shots down, and the return fire was belched upwards. An imperial man with a flamethrower quickly ended the engagement, and Morgan could hear the screams of the dying, the crackle and pop of sizzling flesh. He fired a few more shots down at those who had escaped the worst of the damage, as did his teammates.

In learning about history, Morgan found out that many thousands of years ago, they still used very similar technology as contemporary society does. The reason for this, he mused, was that technology and science had been relegated to a religion. The Adeptus Mechanicus were the priests of the religion, the “technomagi” that ran and maintained the machines of the Imperium. Everything was mystical about the machines. They had a “machine spirit”, although what it did was unknown.

Inquiring into machines, how they worked, and what everything did was “heresy” to the tech adepts. The only way any new technology was made wasn’t really new. Tech Adepts would search planets, scouring them for long lost technology that had been deployed during the “Dark Ages of Technology” where Artificial constructs had attempted to rule Humanity. This sort of method for making new technologies was, Morgan thought, very backwards and primitive.

Lasgun blasts took out parts of the wall and melted bits of piping that had fallen on to the road. Morgan sat behind a wall, and attempted to jam another battery pack in. It didn’t catch. He pulled the pack out, and saw that a node was bent. He reached in and tried to bend it back. It didn’t budge, and his finger hurt. He pulled out a spoon and levered it straight. The pack slid in smoothly the second time around. Morgan closed the catch to ensure the pack didn’t fall out, and tossed a grenade out the window to deter anyone from opening fire while he was getting up.

Morgan thought that during his entire life, he had been quite lonely. He did have a girlfriend during school, but she eventually left him due to his liberal ideas and concepts. Many would-be friends were also turned off by his theories. He decided that one of the major controls the Imperium had over people were, in fact, the people. No one could reject the doctrines of the Imperium, for doing so they would run the risk of becoming a social pariah or even disowned by their own parents.

Indeed, this was not the only control they had involving friends and family. Friends and family could tip off the Arbites to any heretical thoughts. This does not guarantee that you be arrested, unless you are high up in the chain of command. Those very high up would garner the attention of the almost legendary Inquisition, whose shadowy presence kept the Imperium from collapse under daemonic influence. The entire population of the Imperium believed this, for to do otherwise would result in rejection, death, and in some cases, torture.

The going had been slightly easier after they had penetrated enemy lines. They managed to construct a make-shift stronghold in a factory that had been used to make textiles. A couple of captured, deployed weapons were set up facing out of the entrances. The occasional enemy squad would attempt to storm the factory, but would be forced back by the squad’s relentless fire. An hour later, another Imperial squad joined up with them. Together, they held off many more attacks. In the distance, gunfire could be heard, and the sound of bombers overhead.

Too late did everyone attempt to find cover. The factory was demolished by the high-explosives that had been sent careening into it. Morgan tried to pick himself up, but his arms were too weak. He collapsed. He started to try to crawl away from the wreckage, but began to feel as though he wasn’t getting enough air. He rolled over, and blood spilled out of his mouth. Morgan felt helpless, and a shortness of breath. His breathing became more stuttered. He blacked out, and eventually drowned.

Morgan was taught that on death, his soul would go and see the Emperor. Then his soul and the Emperor’s would merge, and he would receive eternal bliss. He did not question that. If the universe was so horrible, might there be something better after life? He thought it beneficial that he believed so, because it did not matter what he believed, so he should believe that which made him happier at the dark, dirty, galaxy he lived in. He was wrong.

Everything he had been told was a lie...

[Kwizard]

Ah, the switching back and forth between time periods is a nice style - and I think you used it well. My only suggestion would be to make the story simpler - there seems to be a lot going on for such a short tale.