Noble Conflict Read Online Free PDF Page A

low-grade Guardian, a rookie, a grunt. What did he know about issues and causes? He’d joined up to serve and protect the Alliance, plus he loved the idea of no two days panning out exactly the same. The prospect of working on his uncle’s farm, where one year was pretty much the same as the five years that had gone before, had filled him with dread. Hell! His uncle’s idea of excitement was to grow a larger than average melon that he could display as a 3D holographic image on the farm’s website.
    ‘What do we do if we are attacked?’ Kaspar had once asked his uncle when he was about seven or eight years old.
    ‘We activate the emergency alarm and we go to the shelters,’ had been the reply.
    ‘Is that it?’ Kaspar had puzzled. ‘We just abandon the farm to them and hide?’
    ‘Better than getting killed.’ That had ended the discussion as far as Uncle Jeff was concerned, but even at that young age Kaspar hadn’t been at all convinced that hisuncle was right. Surely if that was the case, then they were all just victims-in-waiting? And as he grew older, Kaspar couldn’t shake the feeling that he was meant to be more, do more than just be an agric walking around with a virtual target painted on his back.
    Uncle Jeff was full of tall tales about the Insurgents and what they did to their captives.
    ‘Kaspar, don’t argue with me,’ he snapped with exasperation one night over dinner when Kaspar had questioned another one of his incredible stories. ‘The Insurgents are evil incarnate, and those who associate with them can’t help but become evil themselves. Why d’you think the Council have ordered that no one should ever touch them using bare hands except specially cleared medical staff? They are unclean and just one touch could infect us with God alone knows what.’
    ‘But, Uncle, how can someone just touch you and  . . . ?’
    ‘Kaspar, are you calling me a liar?’ Uncle Jeff asked softly.
    ‘No, sir,’ Kaspar said hastily. He knew from bitter experience when to back down – like now.
    ‘You’re a smart boy, but you don’t know everything,’ said Uncle Jeff. ‘The Council know better than most what the Insurgents are capable of.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘We don’t question the Brothers and Sisters of the Council in this house. Do I make myself clear?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    Uncle Jeff allowed himself a smile now that his pointhad been made. ‘We are farmers, Kaspar. That is all we are and all we need to be. It is not our place to question the High Council. They are wiser than we will ever be.’
    Kaspar didn’t answer.
    Uncle Jeff regarded him for a moment, then sighed.
    ‘Kas, I know that sometimes this life must seem  . . . mundane compared to the lives your parents led. But both your parents asked me to keep you from harm if anything should happen to them, and I intend to keep my word.’ Uncle Jeff placed a hand beneath Kaspar’s chin to raise his head. ‘Your mum and dad wanted nothing more than to keep you safe. Your mum even made me promise to only let you eat food grown or produced on this farm and to drink only the water from my well. As a child she wouldn’t drink anything else. I’ve kept my word all these years and I’m not going to break it now. So I will teach you everything I know and you will take over the farm when I’m gone. OK?’
    ‘Yes, Uncle,’ Kaspar replied, lowering his gaze in feigned obedience.
    But that was on the outside.
    Inside, Kaspar’s mind was racing. Uncle Jeff obviously derived pleasure from drawing ice-cold water from his very own well at the back of the farmhouse and preparing meals made entirely from produce grown on his own farm. Not that Uncle Jeff ever drank just water himself! During the day, he drank fruit juice – usually melon, or whatever he could whisk together from leftover fruit and vegetables each morning. With and after dinner, Kaspar’suncle drank melon brew, which was so potent that his breath after one glass could blister