Noble Conflict Read Online Free Page A

be.
    ‘Kas, what’s up with you?’ said Janna as she drew level.
    ‘I don’t get this,’ replied Kaspar.
    ‘What’s to get?’ asked Dillon. ‘Bad guys make trouble, good guys kick their arses. Bad guys go to hospital, good guys go and drink beer once their shift is over. Simple.’ Dillon didn’t do nuances.
    ‘Yeah, but why?’ Kaspar persisted. ‘Why did they arrange a diversion to get this man into the core when he didn’t even try to escape or do any damage? And he was so calm, he didn’t seem the least bit deranged or fanatical. He was just reading , about Calliston Water, of all places. What’s that all about?’
    ‘They’re all intellectually challenged, my hero, so why worry about it?’ Janna offered as explanation. A smile later, she slapped his butt and headed for the door.
    ‘Yes, but why go for his knife and not the gun?’ Kaspar asked.
    But Janna was gone and Dillon wasn’t listening.

The savagery, the brutality, the sheer inhumanity of the Uprising was like nothing that had gone before. When the Insurgency first started, we in the Alliance had no choice but to fight as they fought. Nothing less than our very survival was at stake. We became worryingly adept at killing them, but we were paying for our new expertise with the loss of our humanity. We came to realize that we were destined to become just like them – constantly plotting, rejoicing in enemies slain, keeping score by counting bodies.
    We had to adopt a new ethos or lose our very souls.
    With our technical ability, we put our minds to the development of non-lethal weapons. Thus came the stun rifle, immobilizing gas and the glue-guns, amongst others. Renouncing killing was our salvation. Though the battle may continue, let us never return to those dark days of long ago where killing was seen as the first, last and only solution.
    Ours is a noble conflict.
    Extract taken from ‘Towards a New Morality’ by Sister Madeleine

4
    By the time Kaspar got back outside, the front lawn looked like a medical convention. Non-wounded guests and dignitaries had long since been escorted off the premises, leaving behind only the wounded friendlies, who were being triaged by one junior doctor, a guy in his mid-twenties with light brown hair and a permanently creased forehead. He had assessed each casualty and split them into three groups – ‘beyond hope’, ‘non-urgent’, and the third vital category, ‘serious but saveable’. Only one person was in the first category: a middle-aged woman who’d had a heart attack when the assault started and the terrorists began lobbing thermal grenades. Either bad luck or bad judgement on the part of the terrorists meant that the ‘beyond hope’ category contained far fewer people than Kaspar had first feared.
    It was so damned unfair that none of the terrorists was ‘beyond hope’, because he and the other Guardians only used non-lethal weapons. Each terrorist casualty was allocated their own team of medics. The unconscious ones were put on spinal boards, had central lines inserted and were wired up to heart monitors. Those still consciouswere handcuffed. Then everyone was carefully loaded into transports and flown to the Clinic – Capital City’s trauma centre.
    Watching the way the terrorists were being handled made Kaspar slightly ashamed of his previous wish that his weapon might do more than stun. His first real-life confrontational situation, and what was his reaction? To wallow in anger and yearn to dish out the same as the Insurgents. It was just as well that the High Councillors set the rules about the Guardians using only non-lethal techniques and weapons, not him. He’d have to watch that in future. In combat, he needed to make sure that he kept his emotions on lock-down.
    ‘This is surreal,’ he said.
    ‘What is?’ said Janna.
    ‘The way we treat the bad guys just the same as our own. In fact, better,’ replied Kaspar. ‘I always knew that was the philosophy, but it’s weird