Noble Conflict Read Online Free Page B

– and kind of wonderful – to see that we actually practise what we preach.’
    ‘Pardon me if I’m less than impressed,’ hissed Janna. ‘My arm hurts like a bastard and some pointy-nosed heifer with a stethoscope ran right past me to get to a terrorist with an ingrowing toenail.’
    ‘Let’s have a look,’ said Kaspar.
    Janna rolled up her sleeve to reveal a vicious-looking raised blister covering at least a third of her left forearm. The area around the blister was an intense, angry red.
    ‘You should get that looked at,’ said Dillon.
    Kaspar shook his head at Dillon. Winding up Jannawhen she was already puce with anger was like cheating at Solitaire – a guaranteed win but hardly worth the effort.
    ‘You think? Try telling that to the medicos. These Insurgents come at us with thermal grenades, we defend ourselves with stun-guns and then the doctors give them priority for treatment.’ Janna was spitting nails. ‘How messed up is that?’
    ‘It’s the price we pay for being better than them,’ chipped in Dillon. ‘Though I must admit, I wasn’t thinking particularly charitable, non-lethal thoughts when it all kicked off. I would’ve happily killed them all and screw what the Council say. My mum was in the audience.’
    ‘Is she OK?’ Kaspar frowned.
    ‘Oh, yeah. She’s gone home now. I didn’t get much of a chance to speak to her, to be honest, so I’ll have to CommLink with her tonight. She’s going to worry about me even worse than before now.’
    ‘Amen to happily killing them all,’ said Janna. ‘Considering what those animals do, stunning them just isn’t enough. Maybe we could go back to using some of the early non-lethals that the first Guardians used, like the quick-setting plastifoam that often caused death by suffocation.’
    ‘Or the infrasonic generators that were meant to cause nausea but actually burst your eardrums,’ said Dillon with relish.
    ‘How about the mood-altering drugs that caused madness and suicide?’ Janna’s eyes lit up at the thought.
    ‘Or my personal favourite, the spray that incapacitated by causing diarrhoea,’ laughed Dillon.
    ‘Ooh, that must have been nasty.’ Janna’s nose wrinkled at the idea. ‘At least stun rifles require less clean-up.’
    In an attempt to change the subject, Kaspar pointed out that not everyone flitting about the lawn was a medic.
    ‘Wow, they’ve got a TV crew here. That was fast.’
    Vivian Sykes, veteran of a hundred bloodbaths, picked her way through the carnage, stopping every few steps to deliver some words of on-camera wisdom.
    ‘ . . . yet another illustration of why they won’t win. In spite of their provocation, their relentless nihilism and their savage attacks on our people, we in the Alliance hold tight to our principles: that we can defend ourself without descending to the level of animals, that a war can be conducted rationally and without losing our essential humanity, no matter how evil the enemy. This is Vivian Sykes for Daily Report, at the Guardian Inauguration Ceremony outrage.’
    Later, in the barracks, Kaspar and the other Guardians sat drinking beers in front of the TV in the recreation room as they watched the rest of Vivian Sykes’ special report. The Guardians who had saved the day received barely a mention, fifteen seconds if that. The rest of the ten-minute report was filled with commentary and images of transports arriving at Capital City’s Clinic, the hi-tech trauma centre where Insurgent prisoners were always taken for treatment. Unconscious terrorists were carefully unloaded before being whisked away to operating theatres,or tucked into neat beds in brightly decorated high-dependency units.
    ‘Oh, please,’ snapped Janna. She threw a beer can at the TV and leaped to her feet.
    Kaspar watched as she stormed out of the room. And a major part of him couldn’t blame her.

5
    Kaspar lay in bed; he was exhausted but his mind was buzzing too much to allow him to sleep. He was a