Conflagration

The Right Reasons

A generation ago, Sister Judith had done something monumentally stupid for the wrong reasons.

It had all started with the arrival of her draft notice form the Olost Ministry of Defense mere weeks after graduating from nursing school. As a member of the First Father Fundamentalist Church of Christ, she would have qualified for status as a conscientious objector. She could have been put to work in a veterans' care home or some other such safe, rear-echelon duty. It would have been a simple matter of filling out the forms, but the eager, young nurse craved adventure. She wanted to serve on the front lines. That was where her skills were needed the most, and that was where the adventure would be. So, she'd simply reported at the induction center and volunteered for front line duty.

For the next three years of her life, she'd experienced horror like she never wanted to see again. She'd seen first-hand mankind's cruelty to one another. Though she was there to heal people, she still felt complicit in the carnage.

She was proud of the aid she'd given to the wounded, but she was not proud of her military service in the way most veterans seemed to be. She was ashamed of it. She was ashamed of all those she'd not been able to help. She was ashamed that she'd survived while other nurses and doctors, friends and colleagues, had died. And she became more and more ashamed as the unending cycle of war and peace between the Olost Federation and the Kell Republic now rolled over another generation of damned youth. Neither side was right, and both sides were wrong. No one, not even the politicians and generals driving the machine of war, understood what the war was about. But the machine rolled on. And she was ashamed that she had once been a cog in that machine.

After her generation's war had ended, she'd sworn to only do good, to ease human suffering, and to serve the Reengineered Christ. She'd even gone to the Great Cathedral in Cook's Dell and sworn an oath before the altar to never again be a cog in an evil machine of suffering. Since then, she'd obeyed that oath.

Until about a year ago.

It was then that the elders of Pilgrim's Rest began discussing hiring mercenaries and breaching their contract with the Safe Harbor Terraforming Company. At the first mention of this plan, Sister Judith had objected, but what weight did her words carry against such an important man as Father Elijah? Almost none.

Then, it had gotten worse. The discussion came around to how they would pay the mercenaries when they couldn't even afford to pay Safe Harbor. It had been Brother Jotham who'd first proposed paying the mercenaries with a narcotic called "lady."

After the war, Sister Judith had seen the ravages of lady on the addicted. She strongly objected to this course of action, but again her objections were ignored. What else could she do? She'd considered just leaving the planet, but she was the only person in Pilgrim's Rest with any kind of medical knowledge. People would die if she left.

Follow the path set forth by me, the Reengineered Christ had said to his followers, and it will always guide you true. It may not always be the easiest path, but stray not, and I will see you through. Sister Judith knew her Fourth Testament. The Reengineered Christ had also said: Shelter those in peril and give no call to their tormentor.

The young pilot, Erin's words from that morning rang in Sister Judith's ears. "Honest," Erin had said to her, "we just want to get home. We don't want your drugs."

"We don't want your drugs," Sister Judith repeated the words aloud as she sat alone in her tiny cabin, an open copy of the Fourth Testament on the table before her. Those two outsiders were the only two people on the whole planet who didn't care about the drugs currently being loaded onto their own plane. "...your drugs." Sister Judith repeated to the empty room. The open testament felt like it was casting the eye of judgement upon her. She knew it must be finding her wanting. She now understood that she was once again a cog in the machine of human suffering. She had failed in her oath, but the Reengineered Christ had sent her a messenger in the form of a young pilot not even of the faith.