Honorverse favorite passages

“He’s a little unsettling, isn’t he?” was Empress Elizabeth’s first comment after Haven’s delegation withdrew from the conference room. She looked at Honor Alexander-Harrington, who was sitting to her left a little way down the large table in the middle of the room. “Special Officer Cachat, I mean.”

Honor chuckled and reached over to scratch the ears of the cream-and-gray treecat perched on the back of the chair beside hers. “At least this time he wasn’t carrying a suicide device. I don’t think he was, anyway.”

Captain Spencer Hawke, her personal armsman, was standing just behind her. His already-stiff stance became rigid. “I assure you, My Lady, he carried no such device…this time. We checked him over thoroughly.” A bit grudgingly, the Grayson added: “So did the Queen’s Own, of course.”

“Not to mention that we had a trio of treecats keeping a beady eye on him,” added Hamish Alexander-Harrington, who was seated across from Honor with Samantha, Nimitz’ mate, curled up neatly in his lap. She made a very pleased with herself sound, and Nimitz and Ariel, the somewhat younger male treecat on the back of Elizabeth’s chair, bleeked with laughter. Samantha deigned to open one grass-green eye and look at each of them with a predator’s thoughtfulness, then closed the eye once more.

“The point being,” Honor continued, “any suicide device he’d carry—anywhere, not just here—wouldn’t be a bomb, or anything that would wreak indiscriminate damage. It’d be very selective, with just himself as the target.”

She glanced back at Captain Hawke and then over at the two members of the Queen’s Own Regiment standing guard against the wall behind Elizabeth. “We analyzed the one he brought aboard Imperator when he and Zilwicki paid me that little visit. If he’d activated it, it would have injected him with a chemical compound which would trigger a previously implanted chemical compound that was inert in the absence of the right catalyst…at which point it would have sent his heart into severe ventricular fibrillation while simultaneously triggering both brain and pulmonary embolisms.”

The empress grimaced. So did Hamish. For that matter—Honor glanced around the room—so did all the other people seated at the table. Those consisted of William Alexander, Baron Grantville and Prime Minister of the Star Empire of Manticore; Sir Anthony Langtry, the Star Empire’s Foreign Secretary; and two admirals: Sir Thomas Caparelli, First Space Lord, and Admiral Pat Givens.

“So don’t be too sure what Cachat might or might not have been carrying,” Honor continued. “If he thought it was called for, he’s perfectly capable of having a biological mechanism designed so that we could only detect it if we gave him a complete somatic screening. Which we didn’t, of course. That would have been undiplomatic, to say the least.”

Prime Minister Alexander looked alarmed. “If I’d known he was capable of that, I think we should have insisted on a somatic screen.”

cthia wrote:Cauldron of Ghosts

“The point being,” Honor continued, “any suicide device he’d carry—anywhere, not just here—wouldn’t be a bomb, or anything that would wreak indiscriminate damage. It’d be very selective, with just himself as the target.”

She glanced back at Captain Hawke and then over at the two members of the Queen’s Own Regiment standing guard against the wall behind Elizabeth. “We analyzed the one he brought aboard Imperator when he and Zilwicki paid me that little visit. If he’d activated it, it would have injected him with a chemical compound which would trigger a previously implanted chemical compound that was inert in the absence of the right catalyst…at which point it would have sent his heart into severe ventricular fibrillation while simultaneously triggering both brain and pulmonary embolisms.”

The empress grimaced. So did Hamish. For that matter—Honor glanced around the room—so did all the other people seated at the table. Those consisted of William Alexander, Baron Grantville and Prime Minister of the Star Empire of Manticore; Sir Anthony Langtry, the Star Empire’s Foreign Secretary; and two admirals: Sir Thomas Caparelli, First Space Lord, and Admiral Pat Givens.

“So don’t be too sure what Cachat might or might not have been carrying,” Honor continued. “If he thought it was called for, he’s perfectly capable of having a biological mechanism designed so that we could only detect it if we gave him a complete somatic screening. Which we didn’t, of course. That would have been undiplomatic, to say the least.”

Prime Minister Alexander looked alarmed. “If I’d known he was capable of that, I think we should have insisted on a somatic screen.”

I remember a thread or posts speculating about the sort of suicide device in question. I don't recall this textev being made an exhibit.

And who would volunteer to perform this closer more anal exam and who would volunteer to be the standby proctor? - that would probably be more like a proctor and gamble.

None of the humans in the room had any problem translating the sign for “bad idea,” and Hamish barked a laugh.

cthia wrote:I wonder, exactly what kind of aura is emanating off of Cachat? What exactly do the cats pick up from him? How does a man like him taste? (That really doesn't come out right.) How does a man like Victor taste to an empathic species? (Whew, better.)

Yow wrote:

cthia wrote:I wonder, exactly what kind of aura is emanating off of Cachat? What exactly do the cats pick up from him? How does a man like him taste? (That really doesn't come out right.) How does a man like Victor taste to an empathic species? (Whew, better.)

<This tastes nothing like chicken.>

President Eloise Pritchart raked stray strands of platinum-colored hair impatiently from her forehead as she strode into the sub-basement command center. In contrast to her usual understated elegance, she wore a belted robe over her nightgown, and her face was bare of any cosmetics.

....

Despite which, [Sheila] thought, the hastily-dressed President still managed to make her look drab. In fact, the President always made everyone around her seem somehow smaller than life, especially at moments of crisis. It wasn't anything Pritchart tried to do; it was simply what genetics, experience, and her own inherent presence did for her. Even here, even now, awakened from what had passed for a sound sleep in the months since the twin hammer blows of Javier Giscard's death and the massive casualties the Republic of Haven had suffered in the Battle of Manticore, despite the ghosts and sorrow which haunted those striking topaz eyes, that sense of unbreakable resolve and determination was like a cloak laid across her shoulders.

"You're not the only one feeling nervous, you know," a voice said very quietly in her right ear, and she glanced sideways at Thomas Theisman. The admiral's brown eyes gleamed with the reflected glitter of the shuttle's running lights, and his lips quirked in a brief smile.

"And what makes you think I'm feeling nervous?" she asked tartly, her voice equally quiet, almost lost in the cool, gusty darkness.

"The fact that I am, for one thing. And the fact that you've got your hands folded together behind you, for another." He snorted softly. "You only do that when you can't figure out what else to do with them, and that only happens when you're nervous as hell about something."

"Oh, thank you, Tom," she said witheringly. "Now you've found a fresh way to make me feel awkward and bumptious! Just what I needed at a moment like this!"

"Well, if being pissed off at me helps divert you from worrying, then I've fulfilled one of your uniformed minions' proper functions, haven't I?"

His teeth gleamed in another brief smile, and Pritchart suppressed a burning desire to kick him in the right kneecap. Instead, she contented herself with a mental note to take care of that later, then gave him a topaz glare that promised retribution had merely been deferred and turned back to the shuttle.

Theisman's diversion, she discovered, had come at precisely the right moment. Which, a corner of her mind reflected, had most certainly not been a simple coincidence. Maybe she'd rescind that broken kneecap after all.

roseandheather wrote:

Theisman's diversion, she discovered, had come at precisely the right moment. Which, a corner of her mind reflected, had most certainly not been a simple coincidence. Maybe she'd rescind that broken kneecap after all.

Mission of Honor

*opens mouth*

*closes mouth*

*lets passage speak for itself*

JeffEngel wrote:He's a keeper.

"Citizen Admiral, I have a com request from Citizen Admiral Heemskerk," Citizen Lieutenant Fraiser announced, and Lester Tourville looked up from the tactical exercise on Shannon Foraker's plot with a sudden chill. His raised hand interrupted his conversation with Foraker and Yuri Bogdanovich, and he turned to his com officer.

"Did the Citizen Admiral say what he wants?" he asked in a voice whose apparent calmness astonished him.

"No, Citizen Admiral," Fraiser said, then cleared his throat. "But a StateSec courier boat did enter the system about forty-five minutes ago," he offered.

"I see. Thank you." Tourville nodded to Fraiser and looked back at Bogdanovich and Foraker. "I'm afraid I'll have to take this call," he said. "We'll get back to this later."

"Of course, Citizen Admiral," Bogdanovich said quietly, and Foraker nodded. But then the tac officer inhaled sharply, and Tourville glanced back at her.

"Alphand's sidewalls just came up, Citizen Admiral," she said. "So did DuChesnois' and Lavalette's. In fact, it looks like Citizen Admiral Heemskerk's entire squadron has just cleared for action."

"I see," Tourville repeated, and managed a smile. "It would seem the Citizen Admiral's message is more urgent than I'd anticipated." He looked across the flag bridge at Everard Honeker, and saw the matching awareness in his people's commissioner's eyes, but Honeker said nothing. There was nothing, after all, that anyone could say.

Foraker was tapping keys at her console, no doubt refining her data, as if it were going to make any difference. Even if Tourville had been tempted to resist the order he knew Heemskerk was about to give, it would have been futile. With Heemskerk's squadron already at full battle readiness, it would have been an act of suicide to even begin bringing up his flagship's own sidewalls or weapon systems.

"I'll take it at my command chair, Harrison," he told the com officer. After all, there was no point trying to conceal the bad news from any of his staff.

"Aye, Citizen Admiral," Fraiser said quietly, and Tourville crossed to the admiral's chair. He settled himself into it, then touched the com stud on its arm. The display before him came alive with the stern, jowly face of Citizen Rear Admiral Alasdair Heemskerk, State Security Naval Forces, and Tourville made himself smile.
"Good afternoon, Citizen Admiral. What can I do for you?" he inquired.

"Citizen Admiral Tourville," Heemskerk replied in a flat, formal voice, "I must request and require you to join me aboard my flagship immediately, pursuant to the orders of Citizen Chairman Saint-Just."

"Are we going somewhere?" Tourville's heart thundered, and he discovered his palms were sweating heavily. Odd. The terror of combat had never hit him this hard.

"We will be returning to Nouveau Paris," Heemskerk told him unflinchingly, "there to consider the degree of your complicity in Citizen Secretary McQ—"

His voice and image cut off, and Tourville blinked. What the—?

"Jesus Christ!" someone yelped, and Tourville spun his chair in the direction of the shout, then froze, staring in disbelief at the main visual display.

Twelve glaring spheres of unendurable brightness spalled the velvety blackness of deep space. They were huge, and so hellishly brilliant it hurt to look at them even with the display's automatic filters. And even as he stared at them, he saw another ripple of glaring light, much further away. It was impossible to make out any details of the second eruption, but it appeared to be on the approximate bearing of Javier Giscard's flagship . . . and the StateSec battle squadron which had been assigned to ride herd on him.

Lester Tourville wrenched his eyes back to the fading balls of plasma which had been the ships of Citizen Rear Admiral Heemskerk's squadron. The silence on his flag bridge was total, like the silence a microphone picked up in hard vacuum, and he swallowed hard.

And then the spell was broken as Shannon Foraker looked up from the console from which she had just sent a perfectly innocent-seeming computer code over the tactical net to one of the countless ops plans she'd downloaded to the units of Twelfth Fleet over the last thirty-two T-months.

"Oops," she said.