Honorverse favorite passages

“Solarian command of Standard English never ceases to amaze and impress me,” she said, never looking away from Kristoffersen. “All of you bring such eloquence and poetry to our common tongue. Assuming, however, that you’ve captured the gist of Major Pole’s response accurately, I suppose we’ll simply have to come and get our people.”

“And just how do you propose to do that?” Kristoffersen snapped. “You may have a damned fleet sitting out there, for all I know. But you aren’t out there, and neither are the assholes sitting in the brig. You’re inside, with us, Lieutenant, and you really don’t want to fuck with the Gendarmerie on our own ground. Not unless you’ve got a hell of a lot more powered armor and heavy weapons than I see! You want to try fighting your way into this section, you go right ahead, because there’re going to be a hell of a lot of dead Manties before you get into it! And it sure would be a pity if the brig should be accidentally depressurized as a consequence of your decision to attack the Gendarmerie for refusing to release legally quarantined personnel.”

His eyes glittered as he delivered the none-too-veiled threat, and Hearns’ expression turned colder than ever.

“Why am I not surprised?” She shook her head. “Let me explain something to you, Captain. It already occurred to us that you noble and courageous gendarmes might threaten to kill our civilians. I mean, we are talking about the Solarian Gendarmerie, those champions of truth, justice, and the Solarian way. Tester knows you’ve shown the rest of us poor, benighted neobarbs the high road to civilization often enough! Trust me, we’ve all been deeply impressed by your intervention battalions’ willingness to terrorize anyone who gets in your way…as long as they’re not in a position to shoot back.” Her cold contempt sent a boil of pure fury sweeping through Kristoffersen, but she only continued in that same scornful tone. “We, however, are in a position to shoot back, and if any of the civilian spacers in your custody are harmed in any way, we will hold you—meaning, in case you were wondering, you personally, Major Pole, and all of your personnel collectively—responsible for it. And for your information, the illegal detention of our civilians constitutes kidnapping and unlawful constraint under interstellar law. Which can be—and will be—construed as an act of piracy. And pirates, as you may be aware, are liable to summary execution.”

Kristoffersen stared at her in sheer disbelief.

“So now you’re threatening to try us as pirates?” he demanded.

“No, Captain. We’re warning you that if any of our people are harmed, we’ll execute you as pirates,” she said flatly.

Despite himself, her level tone sent an icicle through Jorn Kristoffersen. No one had ever threatened to execute Solarian Gendarmes! But as he looked into those cold, blue eyes and heard the unflinching certitude in that voice, he felt a terrifying suspicion that she meant it.

“Captain, I think you’d better go tell Major Pole what the situation is before you dig this hole any deeper for all of you,” Hearns told him with a curled lip. “Inform him that he has fifteen minutes to agree to release our personnel. After that time, we’ll come get them. And be sure you tell him what will happen if any of our people are hurt along the way. I wouldn’t want him to wonder why he’s being kicked out an airlock without a skinsuit.”

......

“Tell me, My Lady,” Mateo Gutierrez said over his private link as the Solarian stormed away, “do you think there was anything less diplomatic you could’ve said to him?”

“I certainly hope not,” Abigail replied. She turned her head, glancing back over her shoulder as Kristoffersen disappeared down the corridor, then returned her attention to Gutierrez. “I tried not to miss any of his buttons, anyway.”

“Oh, I’d say you got most of them,” Gutierrez said judiciously. “I thought twice he was going to go ahead and go for his gun, anyway.”

“In which case he’d be dead…and the universe would be a better place.”

Gutierrez twitched as he heard the cold, bitter, genuine loathing in her voice. Hatred was alien to Abigail Hearns, as he knew far better than most, but she was a Grayson. Graysons met the Test in their own lives. They did their jobs, and they honored their responsibilities, and a thousand years surviving on the planet which tried to kill them every single day gave them a sort of implacability which could be frightening to behold. It wasn’t like the fanaticism of the Faithful on their more hospitable and welcoming planet of exile, but it was something a San Martino like Gutierrez—or perhaps a Gryphon Highlander—could understand. Whether even they could have matched it was another question, of course, but Mateo Gutierrez had realized long ago why the mountain clansman in his own genes had responded so powerfully to the Grayson granite inside Abigail Hearns and her people.

Roguevictory wrote:

cthia wrote:Sometimes, the proof is in the pudding. How could Haven have survived for four years without rolling out anything new?

Easy. Their main conflict in that period was a civil war which means their enemies had the same hardware but the hostile commanders were somewhere between the average SLN Battle Fleet flag officer and Young or Santino in skill.

Though it was an act of supreme lunacy to be convinced that they hadn't come up with anything new in that time.

Hutch wrote:True enough, and if you think about it, the time 1915-1920 was when Shannon Foraker was placed at Bolthole with the knowledge of Manty CLAC's and SD(P)'s in her mind. To design, engineer and then build a fleet capable of deterring the SKM would probably have taken most of those four years (IIRC, Theisman trotted out her new ships late in PD 1919 or early 1920).

So the new stuff was in the pipeline(and probably being improved as it went) all during the Civil War period in the Republic. IMHO as always. YMMV.

All right , I'll say it, 'CAUSE TRUMAN WAS TOO MUCH OF A PUSSY WIMP TO LET MacARTHUR GO IN THERE AND BLOW OUT THOSE COMMIE BASTARDS!

cthia wrote:I disagree with you both.

Remember Rodney Dangerfield in "Back to School?"

All right , I'll say it, 'CAUSE TRUMAN WAS TOO MUCH OF A PUSSY WIMP TO LET MacARTHUR GO IN THERE AND BLOW OUT THOSE COMMIE BASTARDS!

BECAUSE HIGH RIDGE WAS TOO MUCH OF A PUSSY WIMP TO LET ELIZABETH'S NAVY GO IN THERE AND BLOW OUT THOSE COMMIE BASTARDS!

fallsfromtrees wrote:High Ridge was too smart to let White Haven to go in there and blow out those commie bastards - because then the war would be over, and he would be forced to call elections, which would then seat all the new nobles from San Martin, and that would be the end of the High Ridge government before they could get very much graft out of it. Duh

Back in the shattered ruins which had once been a village named Glen mo Chrìdhe, the sound of rain was overlaid by the heavier patter of falling debris. It lasted for several seconds, sparks bouncing and rolling through the wet as some of the still-burning wreckage struck, and then things were still once more. The crater was dozens of meters across, deep enough to swallow an air lorry…and more than enough to devour the cellar into which the thirteen-year-old boy had just darted with the food he’d been able to scavenge for his younger sister.

“I know you’re glad to see me,” she repeated. “And I’m pretty sure I know who suggested you and I have a little talk. All the same, I don’t expect the conversation to do wonders for my appetite.”

“It wasn’t Admiral Gold Peak, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Gervais replied, and she shook her head.

“Didn’t think it was. She’s a pretty direct person, and she’s had the opportunity to talk to me about it herself if she wanted to. For that matter, she probably would’ve gone through Sir Aivars if she was the one asking the questions. Same for Captain Lecter. Nobody on Admiral Khumalo’s staff, on the other hand, really knows me or enjoys the opportunity to just slip questions into a casual conversation. Which leaves us with ‘the usual suspects,’ doesn’t it?”

“All right, then,” she said, “as Duchess Harrington would say, ‘let’s be about it.’” She smiled tightly. “What certain unnamed senior parties would like to know is whether or not I think there’s any truth in the reports that my father and his lunatic terrorist cronies were responsible for detonating multiple nuclear devices—probably with the Star Empire’s knowledge and direct connivance—in the town of Green Pines. Nuclear devices which, according to the Mesan authorities, killed thousands of people, and one of which was detonated in the middle of a crowded park on a Saturday morning, incinerating every child present. Is that about the gist of it?”

Gervais winced internally. Helen Zilwicki had one of the sturdiest personalities he’d ever met, and that acid tone was very unlike her.

“More or less.” He sighed. “That’s not exactly the way anyone put it, of course. And I don’t think it’s the way anyone would describe it if they were asked to. What I think they’re really interested in is any insight you might give them as to why the Mesans might’ve gone about it the way they did. Claiming your father was involved, I mean.”

“I’d think that was pretty obvious!” Helen planted her forearms on the table and leaned forward over them. “Daddy’s been a pain in their ass ever since Manpower kidnapped me in Old Chicago when I was thirteen. Trust me, you do not want my dad pissed at you—not the way that pissed him off—and having him get together with Cathy Montaigne only made bad even worse from Mesa’s perspective. Then there was that little business on Torch. You remember—the one where my sister wound up queen of a planet populated by liberated slaves, every single one of whom hates Mesa and Manpower on a—you should pardon the expression—genetic level? If there’s anyone in the entire galaxy whose reputation they’d like to blacken more than his, I don’t know who it might be! And if you throw in the opportunity to saddle Torch with responsibility for something like this, and then claim Daddy’s involvement means the Star Empire was behind it, as well, it can only get even better from their viewpoint. Just look how they’re using it to undercut our credibility when we claim they’ve been involved in everything that’s been going on out here in the Quadrant! Obviously we’ve invented all those nasty, untruthful allegations out of whole cloth as another prong of whatever iniquitous plot we’ve hatched against them! Doesn’t the fact that we’re enabling Ballroom terrorists to nuke their civilian population prove we’re only targeting them as a way to distract all right-thinking Sollies’ attention from our own evil, imperialist agenda?”

The anger in her tone wasn’t directed at Gervais, and he knew it. It wasn’t even directed at the “unnamed senior parties” who’d asked him to have this conversation with her. It was, however, an indication that she was more worried—and hurting worse—than she wanted anyone to suspect. And it didn’t do a thing to make him feel any better about dragging her into this conversation in the first place, either.

“I think they’ve already figured that part out,” he said after a moment. “What they’re really asking about is whether or not you have any idea what really happened. What could have transpired to suggest the idea of blaming your father and the Ballroom to them in the first place.”

“You mean they’re wondering what Daddy could’ve been doing that might’ve gotten him involved in whatever happened, whether he was responsible for it or not, don’t you?”

“I think that’s probably a fair enough way to put it,” he agreed.

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you out with any specifics,” she said a bit tightly. “Daddy understands operational security pretty well, you know. And he’s always been careful not to put me in an awkward position by telling me things a Queen’s officer ought to be reporting to ONI. If he had been up to something, he wouldn’t have discussed it with me—definitely not before the fact, anyway. And there’s no way he would have sent me any letters that said ‘Oh, by the way, I’m off to Mesa to nuke a city park.’”

Her scorn was withering.

“Helen, I don’t think anyone thinks you’ve been deliberately ‘holding back’ anything that could help them get a handle on this. And I’m sure everyone’s fully aware your father wouldn’t be sending you chatty messages about clandestine operations, whether they were his or the Ballroom’s or Torch’s. They’re looking for…deep background, I guess you’d say.”

“I don’t have a lot of that for them, either,” she said in a more normal tone. “Anything they don’t already have available, I mean. That exposé Yael Underwood did on him a while back did a pretty good job of blowing his cover and pasting a great big target on his back. Underwood did get most of his facts right, though, and I doubt I could add a lot to his history. The short version is that ever since he resigned his commission after he tangled with Manpower for the first time, he’s been directly involved with the Ballroom. He’s never made any secret of that, or of the way he’s been directly involved with Torch, as well, ever since its liberation. He’s more of an analyst than a ‘direct action’ specialist, and I don’t doubt he’s helped the Ballroom plan the occasional operation. I’m not saying he’s not capable of a more…hands-on approach when it seems appropriate, either, because he damned well is. But I think pretty much everyone realizes that’s not really what you might call the ‘best and highest use’ of his talents. Of course, that’s subject to change if you go after somebody he cares about. When that happens, he gets very hands-on.”

She paused, looking steadily into Gervais’ and Helga’s eyes across the table, then shrugged.

“He’s pretty tight with the Royals, too, since that business with Princess Ruth, although he’s been a lot more focused on Torch and the Congo System since Berry got crowned Queen. And he and”—the hesitation was so slight that only someone who knew her as well as Gervais did would have realized she’d changed what she’d been about to say—“the Torches have certainly been looking for every way they could possibly hurt Mesa. Hell, Torch has declared war on them! And let’s not forget what those bastards tried to do to the entire planet five months ago.

“So, on the surface, there’s a certain plausibility to Mesa’s claims. He hates Manpower’s guts; they’ve tried more than once to kill him—or me, or Berry, or Cathy; and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d managed to turn up at least some evidence Manpower was about to use those StateSec stumblebums to hit Torch. Trust me, if he’d seen that coming, he would’ve done anything he could to prevent it. But he wouldn’t have tried this way. If nothing else, he’d’ve known it wouldn’t work, and he’s spent enough time with Cathy to know exactly how disastrous something like this could be politically—not just for Torch, but for the abolitionist movement in general.”

“Not even if he thought the attack on Torch was going to work?” Helga asked quietly, and Helen looked at her. “I mean, if he found out about the attack and didn’t know Admiral Rozsak would be able to stop it? If he figured your sister and all his friends on Torch were going to be killed?”

“No way.” Helen shook her head firmly. “Daddy doesn’t think that way. Oh, I’m not saying he wouldn’t have made Mesa and Manpower pay big-time if they’d managed to pull something like that off, but he wouldn’t have done it before he knew they’d pulled it off. And he wouldn’t have gone about this way it even if they’d managed to turn Torch into a cue ball. It’s not the way he thinks, not the sort of thing he’d involve himself with.”

“Grief and hatred can make someone do terrible things,” Gervais pointed out gently, and Helen surprised him with a snort of laughter.

“You don’t have to tell me that. Remember what happened to me on Old Terra? Or what happened to my Mom? Or the way I met Berry and Lars, for that matter? But Daddy is a very…guided weapon, Gwen. He’s got really good target discrimination, and he’s just as good at holding down the collateral damage. Besides, nuking a park? A park full of kids?” She shook her head. “He’d die first. Or, for that matter, kill anybody else who thought that would be a good idea! I’m not saying my Daddy’s a saint, because he’s not. I love him, but nobody who knows him would ever claim he’s an angel. Or, if he is, he’s one of those avenging angels with a really sooty halo, anyway. And I could see him not worrying a whole lot about the tender sensibilities of a bunch of slave-trading Mesans. I could even see him using a nuke against some kind of hard target, the kind that wouldn’t kill a stack of civilians when it disappeared in a mushroom cloud. But not this. Never a park.”

“You’re sure?”

“Gwen, I’m damned sure Daddy didn’t plan and carry out this strike. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know why he hasn’t spoken up yet. And, yeah, I’ll admit that scares the shit out of me. He’s got to know how Mesa’s using Green Pines as a club to beat both the Star Empire and the Ballroom, and he’d never let them go on doing it if he could do anything—like surfacing to refute their version—to stop it. But it’s not his style. Oh, yeah, if they’d actually managed to genocide Torch, then he might’ve gone after them on Mesa. He wouldn’t have done it until he knew they’d gotten through to Torch, though, and he wouldn’t have done it this way even then. He’d’ve been looking for another target, and when he was done, there wouldn’t be any question about who’d been responsible for it.”

“Why not?” Helga asked, her tone one of fascination despite the topic of the conversation, and Helen gave another, harsher snort of laughter.

“Because if my Daddy had gone after a target on Mesa, he wouldn’t have wasted his time on Green Pines. If he was in city-killing mode, he’d’ve gone after Mendel and their entire system government, not some lousy bedroom community. And, trust me, the hole would’ve been a hell of a lot deeper!”

Shadow of Saganami wrote:...Obviously I haven't bothered to get to know you as well as I should've, or this wouldn't be coming as such a surprise to me. But I do know you well enough to know, especially now, that you're part of that hardheaded, stiff-necked, stubborn bunch that's determined to succeed without whining, without excuses, or special allowances. The kind who're too damned stubborn for their own good and too damned stupid to know it. Sort of like Gryphon Highlanders."
She grinned at him, and to his own obvious surprise, he smiled back.

"I guess maybe we are sort of alike," he said finally. "In a way."

"And who'd've thunk it?" she replied with that same toothy grin.

"It probably wouldn't have hurt to've had this discussion earlier," he added.

"Nope, not a bit," she agreed.

"Still, I suppose it's not too late to start over," he observed.

"Not as long as you don't expect me to stop being my usual stubborn, insufferable, basically shallow self," she said.

"I don't know if all of that self-putdown is entirely fair," he said thoughtfully. "I never really thought of you as stubborn."

"As soon as I get over my unaccustomed feeling of contrition for having misjudged the motivation for that nose-in-the-air, superior attitude of yours, you'll pay for that," she assured him.

"I look forward to it with fear and trembling."

“All right, we’re close enough,” Ganny said. “So go charge, or whatever you call it. And the frigates can tally ho.”

She’d had the com on, so her statements were heard throughout the ship. Waiting in the assault shuttles in the bays which had once housed humble cargo shuttles—but the Hali Sowle’sinnocence was far behind her—some of the Marines frowned. Ganny’s pronouncement was decidedly un-military, bordered on the disrespectful, and made light of an upcoming deed of heroism and martial glory.

Most of them smiled, though, and a few laughed out loud. By now, they were accustomed to Ganny.

For her part, Lieutenant Colonel Kabweza maintained a straight face, as befitted her dignity as the commander of the operation. She did chuckle about it later, though.
On the command deck, Major Sydorenko kept a straight face, too, even though Ganny had just grossly violated several millennia of protocol. She was the lawful commander of Hali Sowle, and as such still the traditional “Mistress after God,” but she certainly wasn’t the military commander of the expedition. She could give whatever orders she liked aboard her own ship, and Sydorenko’s ignorance of how to run a starship was great enough that she wouldn’t have attempted to overrule Ganny there even if she’d had the authority to do so. But the major was supposed to issue any and all military orders. Orders which included niggling little things like when to launch the attack.

Fortunately for Ganny—or maybe the other way around, given the old woman’s pugnacious nature—Sydorenko was amused, not offended. Due to her own lineage, she wasn’t much given to genuflecting at the altar of protocol. Scrags might have been “super” soldiers in general, but that did not run to blind obedience. In fact, they’d been notoriously insubordinate. There were drawbacks to telling someone they were a superior breed. That being so, why should they tamely accept the orders of someone who was clearly their inferior?

Besides, despite the casual nature of her comment, Ganny was a stone cold professional, and “we’re close enough” translated to “we’ve reached the ops plan’s carefully calculated and specified range.” And a very tense time they’d had of it over the last couple of hours. They’d been in-system for just over five hours; Hali Sowle’s velocity relative to Balcescu Station was down to a mere 4,280 KPS; and the range was barely eight million kilometers. Most of them had been privately nervous that something would go wrong at the last minute, and that nervousness probably helped explain those smiles and chuckles.

Still…

Colonel Ali bin Muhammad cleared his throat. “I believe Anichka’s supposed to give that order, Ganny.”

Ganny waved her hand. “Fine, fine. Give it, then.”

Sadly, military propriety took another hit.

“You heard the Old Lady,” Sydorenko’s voice came over every listening com. “Let us now do unto others as they have wet dreams of doing unto us."

"'Dreams of Peace'?" she said, speaking very carefully, as if she couldn't quite believe what she heard herself saying. "That's his treecat name?"

Nimitz nodded his head very firmly, and Honor tasted his confidence—his assurance—about the name he'd assigned. No wonder he'd been hesitant to share it with her! If anyone in the galaxy had demonstrated his unflinching, tough-as-nails readiness to do whatever duty required of him, however grim that duty might be, it was Thomas Theisman! He was the one who'd rebuilt the Republican Navy into a war machine that could actually face the RMN in combat. The man who'd planned and executed Operation Thunderbolt. The man who'd planned Operation Beatrice! The man—

Her thoughts paused, and Nimitz stared up into her eyes with an intensity which was rare, even for the two of them. They sat that way for several, endless seconds, and then Honor inhaled deeply.

Yes, Theisman had always done his duty. Would always do his duty, without flinching or hesitating, whatever its demands. But she supposed the same thing could be said of her, and what was she doing here on this planet, of all planets in the universe, if she didn't "dream of peace?" And the more she thought about it, about what it must have been like to spend all those years trying to defend his star nation against an external enemy even while he saw State Security making "examples" out of men and women he'd known for years — out of friends — the more clearly she realized just how longingly a man like Thomas Theisman might dream of peace.

roseandheather wrote:

Yes, Theisman had always done his duty. Would always do his duty, without flinching or hesitating, whatever its demands. But she supposed the same thing could be said of her, and what was she doing here on this planet, of all planets in the universe, if she didn't "dream of peace?" And the more she thought about it, about what it must have been like to spend all those years trying to defend his star nation against an external enemy even while he saw State Security making "examples" out of men and women he'd known for years — out of friends — the more clearly she realized just how longingly a man like Thomas Theisman might dream of peace.

Mission of Honor

I can't even...

God bless President Pritchart. God bless Thomas Theisman. And God bless the Republic.