Honorverse favorite passages

roseandheather wrote:

HMS Hexapuma and HMS Warlock emerged from the central terminus of the Manticoran Wormhole Junction, exactly one T-year from the day Midshipwoman Helen Zilwicki, Midshipman Aikawa Kagiyama, and Midshipwoman Ragnhild Pavletic had reported aboard her. Now Ensign Zilwicki sat beside Lieutenant Senior Grade Abigail Hearns at Tactical. Naomi Kaplan would live, and return to duty, but her injuries had been so severe that she'd been returned to Manticore for treatment months ago. Abigail was undoubtedly too junior for permanent duty as a Saganami-C-class heavy cruiser's tactical officer, but Captain Terekhov had flatly refused to allow anyone to replace her before Hexapuma's return to Manticore.

Helen was glad. And she was glad some other people were still aboard, as well.

She glanced over her shoulder and hid a broad mental smile as her eye met Paulo's. Ansten FitzGerald had been less severely wounded than Kaplan, but although he'd been permitted to return to active duty for Hexapuma's voyage back to Manticore, he was still in obvious pain and more than a little shaky. That wasn't especially amusing to anyone who knew and respected the Exec, but watching Aikawa Kagiyama hovering—unobtrusively, he undoubtedly imagined—in the background while he kept an anxious eye on FitzGerald certainly was.

"Message from Invictus, Sir," Amal Nagchaudhuri announced.

"Yes?" Terekhov turned his command chair to face the communications officer. HMS Invictus was the flagship of Home Fleet, no doubt in orbit about the planet of Manticore.

"Message begins," Nagchaudhuri began, and something in his tone made Helen look at him sharply.

"'To Captain Aivars Terekhov and the men and women of HMS Hexapuma and HMS Warlock, from Admiral of the Green Sebastian D'Orville, Commanding Officer, Home Fleet. Well done.' Message ends."

Helen frowned, but before the message had time to sink in, the main tactical display changed abruptly. In one perfectly synchronized moment, forty-two superdreadnoughts, sixteen CLACs, twelve battlecruisers, thirty-six heavy and light cruisers, thirty-two destroyers, and over a thousand LACs, activated their impeller wedges. They appeared on the display like lightning flickering outward from a common center, a stupendous globe thousands of kilometers in diameter, and Hexapuma and Warlock were at its exact center.

Helen recognized that formation. She'd seen it before. Every man and woman in Navy uniform had seen it, once every year, on Coronation Day, when Home Fleet passed in review before the Queen... with its flagship in exactly the position Hexapuma and Warlock now held.

Even as she stared at the display, another icon appeared upon it. The crowned, golden icon of HMS Duke of Cromarty, the ship which had replaced the murdered HMS Queen Adrienne as the royal yacht, sitting just beyond the threshold of the Junction. A Junction, Helen sudden realized, which had been cleared of -shipping—all shipping—except for Home Fleet itself.

The vast globe accelerated towards Cromarty, matching its acceleration rate exactly to Hexapuma's, holding formation on the heavy cruiser and her single escort, and the raised wedge of every ship in that huge formation flashed off and then on again in the traditional underway salute to a fleet flagship.

"Additional message, Sir," Nagchaudhuri said. He stopped and cleared his throat, then continued, and despite his throat clearing, his voice seemed to waver about the edges.

"Message begins. 'Yours is the honor.'" He looked up from his display, meeting Aivars Terekhov's eyes.

"Message ends, Sir," he said softly.

The Shadow of Saganami

Also known as: The part where Rosie hugs the book to her chest and cries a lot.

Oh yes.

A very short passage but I feel it sums things up well.

"The instant any Solly warship crosses the Spindle hyper limit inbound," Michelle Henke said flatly, "the gloves come off. There won't be any preliminary surrender demands this time, and despite whatever Admiral Crandall may be thinking, we're not going to be thinking in terms of a fighting retreat, either. I think it's about time we find out just how accurate our assumptions about Battle Fleet's combat capability really are."

Don't mess with Mike Henke. She means business.

A Rising Thunder

There was little panic aboard SLNS Belle Poule, but only because her crew was too busy for that. There was no time for those who could actually see the displays, recognize what the readouts meant, to really consider what was happening, the stunning realization that they truly were as out-classed as the “preposterous” reports from Spindle had indicated.
And they were out-classed.
The Manticoran missiles came flashing in, still at that incredible—impossible—acceleration rate, and just before they entered the counter-missile zone, the electronic warfare platforms seeded among the attack birds spun up. Of the two hundred and forty missiles launched by Hiram Ivanov’s three cruisers, fifty carried nothing but penetration aids, and they’d been carefully saved for this moment. Now “Dazzler” platforms blinded Solarian sensors even as their accompanying “Dragons Teeth” suddenly proliferated, producing scores of false targets to confuse and saturate their targets’ defenses. The Solarian battlecruiser crews had never seen, never imagined, anything like it. Ignorant of the energy budgets the RMN’s mini-fusion plants allowed, they simply couldn’t conceive of how such powerful jammers could be crammed into such tiny platforms. The threat totally surpassed the parameters their doctrine and their systems had been designed to cope with.
Pyun’s battlecruisers managed to stop exactly seventeen of the incoming shipkillers in the outer zone. The other hundred and seventy-three streaked past every counter-missile the Solarians could throw with almost contemptuous ease.
* * *
Liam Pyun watched his command’s destruction ripping through his defenses. He’d always been more willing than most of his fellow officers to consider the possible accuracy of the outlandish reports coming back from the endless Manticore-Haven war. He’d had to be careful about admitting he was, given the contempt with which virtually all of those other officers greeted such “alarmist” rumors, but now he knew even the most bizarre of those reports had understated the true magnitude of the threat. No wonder the Manties had managed to punch out Byng’s flagship so cleanly at New Tuscany!
His people were doing their best, fighting with frantic professionalism to overcome the fatal shortcomings of their doctrine and training in the fleeting minutes they had. They weren’t going to succeed, and he knew it, but they weren’t going to simply sit there, paralyzed by terror, either, and he felt bittersweet pride in them even as he cursed himself for having walked straight into this disaster.
But how could I have known? How could I really have known? And even if I had—
And then the Manticoran missles burst past the inner edge of the counter-missile zone. They came driving in through the desperate, last-ditch, last-minute fire of the battlecruisers’ point defense clusters, and the laser clusters were almost as useless in the face of the Manty EW as the counter-missiles had been. They managed to pick off another twelve missiles, but that still left a hundred and sixty-three shipkillers, and Pyun felt his belly knotting solid as his ships’ executioners came boring in on the throats of their wedges. They were going to—
One hundred and sixty-three Mark 16 missiles, each with the better part of thirty seconds’ time left on its drive, swerved suddenly, in a perfectly synchronized maneuver, and detonated as one.
* * *
“Nicely done, BB,” Hiram Ivanov said approvingly as the FTL reports came in from the Ghost Rider drones and Sloan Tompkins’ CIC updated the master tactical plot. “Very nicely. In fact, I think that rates a ‘well done’ for your entire department.”
* * *
“They hit our wedges!” Steinberg blurted. “My God, they hit our wedges!”
Her tone was so disbelieving—and so affronted—that despite himself, Pyun actually felt his mouth twitch on the edge of a smile. The ops officer was staring incredulously at her displays as CIC’s dispassionate computers updated them.
It was true. It had happened so quickly, the X-ray lasers had cascaded in in such a massive tide, that it had taken Steinberg (and Pyun, for that matter) several endless seconds to grasp what had actually happened—to realize they were still alive—yet it was true.
The rear admiral would dearly have loved to believe Halo had succeeded in its decoy function. That the Manty missiles had been lured astray by his battlecruisers’ sophisticated electronic warfare systems. But much as he would have preferred that, he knew differently. No defensive system in the galaxy could have caused every single missile in an attacking salvo to waste its fury on the roofs and floors of his ships’ impeller wedges. No. The only way that could have happened was for the people who’d fired those missiles to have arranged for it to happen.
“Christ!” Captain Gilmore shook his head like a man who’d been hit one time too many. “How the hell—?” He stopped and gave his head another shake, then grimaced. “Sorry, Admiral.”
Pyun only looked at him, then wheeled back towards Steinberg at the ops officer’s inarticulate sound of disbelief. She looked up and saw the admiral’s eyes on her.
“I—” It was her turn to shake her head. “Sir, according to CIC, Retaliate took one hit and Impudent took two. That’s it. That’s all!”
“Casualties?” Pyun heard his own voice asking.
“None reported so far, Sir.”
“But that’s ridic—” Gilmore began, then made himself stop.
“Ridiculous,” Pyun agreed grimly. “Except for the minor fact that it happened. Which suggests it was what the Manties intended to happen all along. In fact, the hits on Retaliate and Impudent must’ve been unintentional.” He smiled very, very thinly. “I suppose it’s nice to know not even Manty fire control is perfect.”
Steinberg looked back up at him, and Gilmore inhaleddeeply.
“Sir, are you suggesting they deliberately targeted our wedges?” the chief of staff asked very carefully. “That it was some kind of…of demonstration?”
“I don’t have any better explanation for it, Steve. Do you?”
“I—”
“Excuse me, Captain,” Lieutenant Turner interrupted respectfully, “but we’re receiving a transmission I think the Admiral had better hear.”
“What kind of transmission?” Pyun asked.
“It’s from the Manties, Sir. But it’s not a direct transmission from any of their ships. It’s coming from…somewhere else.”
“‘Somewhere else’?”
“Yes, Sir.” The communications officer seemed torn between relief at his continued existence and unhappiness at something else. “Sir, I think it’s being relayed from another platform. From several other platforms, actually.” Pyun only looked at him, and Turner sighed. “Sir, it looks to me as if they must have at least ten or fifteen relay platforms out there, and they’re jumping the transmission between them to keep us from locking them up. And, Sir, I think they’re transmitting to us in real time.”
Pyun started to protest. They were still over a light-minute and a half from the Manties. There ought to be a ninety second-plus transmission lag. But then he remembered all those grav pulses, and his protest died.
“Very well,” he said. “Put it on the main display.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The same brown-haired, green-eyed man appeared, and Pyun felt his jaw muscles tighten.
“I trust,” Captain Ivanov said, “that you realize we just deliberately didn’t destroy your ships. As I’ve already said, my Empress would prefer to resolve the differences between the Star Empire and the League without further bloodshed. That doesn’t mean more blood won’t be shed anyway, but I’d really prefer not to have it happen here, today. If you persist in approaching this terminus, however, I will have no choice but to continue this engagement, and the next salvo won’t be targeted on your wedges. You have ten minutes to reverse acceleration or translate into hyper. If you’ve done neither at the end of those ten minutes, I will open fire once more, and this time we’ll be firing for effect. Ivanov, clear.”
It was very quiet on Belle Poule’s flag bridge. No one said a word. In fact, for several seconds, no one even breathed. All eyes were on Liam Pyun as he stood continuing to gaze at the blank display from which Hiram Ivanov had disappeared. Then the admiral squared his shoulders, drew a deep breath, and turned his back on the display.
“Captain Gilmore, instruct Captain Zyndram to reverse acceleration immediately. And tell him to get our hyper generators online.”

Just one reason I love Alison:

"Not too shabby, but if I were you, I'd have the bay dyed a deeper shade of blue." -AoV

It's not textev, but I suspect Samantha may insist on treecat guards for Alison and Alfred, and the rest of the treecats may agree, to help Honor concentrate on revenge etc.

Given the memory singer probably had an escort when she went visiting, perhaps one of her scouts might identify with Alfred's loss of family and choose to be his companion, a bond that may help heal both.

L

Amaroq wrote:A very short passage but I feel it sums things up well.

"The instant any Solly warship crosses the Spindle hyper limit inbound," Michelle Henke said flatly, "the gloves come off. There won't be any preliminary surrender demands this time, and despite whatever Admiral Crandall may be thinking, we're not going to be thinking in terms of a fighting retreat, either. I think it's about time we find out just how accurate our assumptions about Battle Fleet's combat capability really are."

Don't mess with Mike Henke. She means business.

marcus wrote:A Rising Thunder

There was little panic aboard SLNS Belle Poule, but only because her crew was too busy for that. There was no time for those who could actually see the displays, recognize what the readouts meant, to really consider what was happening, the stunning realization that they truly were as out-classed as the “preposterous” reports from Spindle had indicated.
And they were out-classed.
The Manticoran missiles came flashing in, still at that incredible—impossible—acceleration rate, and just before they entered the counter-missile zone, the electronic warfare platforms seeded among the attack birds spun up. Of the two hundred and forty missiles launched by Hiram Ivanov’s three cruisers, fifty carried nothing but penetration aids, and they’d been carefully saved for this moment. Now “Dazzler” platforms blinded Solarian sensors even as their accompanying “Dragons Teeth” suddenly proliferated, producing scores of false targets to confuse and saturate their targets’ defenses. The Solarian battlecruiser crews had never seen, never imagined, anything like it. Ignorant of the energy budgets the RMN’s mini-fusion plants allowed, they simply couldn’t conceive of how such powerful jammers could be crammed into such tiny platforms. The threat totally surpassed the parameters their doctrine and their systems had been designed to cope with.
Pyun’s battlecruisers managed to stop exactly seventeen of the incoming shipkillers in the outer zone. The other hundred and seventy-three streaked past every counter-missile the Solarians could throw with almost contemptuous ease.
* * *
Liam Pyun watched his command’s destruction ripping through his defenses. He’d always been more willing than most of his fellow officers to consider the possible accuracy of the outlandish reports coming back from the endless Manticore-Haven war. He’d had to be careful about admitting he was, given the contempt with which virtually all of those other officers greeted such “alarmist” rumors, but now he knew even the most bizarre of those reports had understated the true magnitude of the threat. No wonder the Manties had managed to punch out Byng’s flagship so cleanly at New Tuscany!
His people were doing their best, fighting with frantic professionalism to overcome the fatal shortcomings of their doctrine and training in the fleeting minutes they had. They weren’t going to succeed, and he knew it, but they weren’t going to simply sit there, paralyzed by terror, either, and he felt bittersweet pride in them even as he cursed himself for having walked straight into this disaster.
But how could I have known? How could I really have known? And even if I had—
And then the Manticoran missles burst past the inner edge of the counter-missile zone. They came driving in through the desperate, last-ditch, last-minute fire of the battlecruisers’ point defense clusters, and the laser clusters were almost as useless in the face of the Manty EW as the counter-missiles had been. They managed to pick off another twelve missiles, but that still left a hundred and sixty-three shipkillers, and Pyun felt his belly knotting solid as his ships’ executioners came boring in on the throats of their wedges. They were going to—
One hundred and sixty-three Mark 16 missiles, each with the better part of thirty seconds’ time left on its drive, swerved suddenly, in a perfectly synchronized maneuver, and detonated as one.
* * *
“Nicely done, BB,” Hiram Ivanov said approvingly as the FTL reports came in from the Ghost Rider drones and Sloan Tompkins’ CIC updated the master tactical plot. “Very nicely. In fact, I think that rates a ‘well done’ for your entire department.”
* * *
“They hit our wedges!” Steinberg blurted. “My God, they hit our wedges!”
Her tone was so disbelieving—and so affronted—that despite himself, Pyun actually felt his mouth twitch on the edge of a smile. The ops officer was staring incredulously at her displays as CIC’s dispassionate computers updated them.
It was true. It had happened so quickly, the X-ray lasers had cascaded in in such a massive tide, that it had taken Steinberg (and Pyun, for that matter) several endless seconds to grasp what had actually happened—to realize they were still alive—yet it was true.
The rear admiral would dearly have loved to believe Halo had succeeded in its decoy function. That the Manty missiles had been lured astray by his battlecruisers’ sophisticated electronic warfare systems. But much as he would have preferred that, he knew differently. No defensive system in the galaxy could have caused every single missile in an attacking salvo to waste its fury on the roofs and floors of his ships’ impeller wedges. No. The only way that could have happened was for the people who’d fired those missiles to have arranged for it to happen.
“Christ!” Captain Gilmore shook his head like a man who’d been hit one time too many. “How the hell—?” He stopped and gave his head another shake, then grimaced. “Sorry, Admiral.”
Pyun only looked at him, then wheeled back towards Steinberg at the ops officer’s inarticulate sound of disbelief. She looked up and saw the admiral’s eyes on her.
“I—” It was her turn to shake her head. “Sir, according to CIC, Retaliate took one hit and Impudent took two. That’s it. That’s all!”
“Casualties?” Pyun heard his own voice asking.
“None reported so far, Sir.”
“But that’s ridic—” Gilmore began, then made himself stop.
“Ridiculous,” Pyun agreed grimly. “Except for the minor fact that it happened. Which suggests it was what the Manties intended to happen all along. In fact, the hits on Retaliate and Impudent must’ve been unintentional.” He smiled very, very thinly. “I suppose it’s nice to know not even Manty fire control is perfect.”
Steinberg looked back up at him, and Gilmore inhaleddeeply.
“Sir, are you suggesting they deliberately targeted our wedges?” the chief of staff asked very carefully. “That it was some kind of…of demonstration?”
“I don’t have any better explanation for it, Steve. Do you?”
“I—”
“Excuse me, Captain,” Lieutenant Turner interrupted respectfully, “but we’re receiving a transmission I think the Admiral had better hear.”
“What kind of transmission?” Pyun asked.
“It’s from the Manties, Sir. But it’s not a direct transmission from any of their ships. It’s coming from…somewhere else.”
“‘Somewhere else’?”
“Yes, Sir.” The communications officer seemed torn between relief at his continued existence and unhappiness at something else. “Sir, I think it’s being relayed from another platform. From several other platforms, actually.” Pyun only looked at him, and Turner sighed. “Sir, it looks to me as if they must have at least ten or fifteen relay platforms out there, and they’re jumping the transmission between them to keep us from locking them up. And, Sir, I think they’re transmitting to us in real time.”
Pyun started to protest. They were still over a light-minute and a half from the Manties. There ought to be a ninety second-plus transmission lag. But then he remembered all those grav pulses, and his protest died.
“Very well,” he said. “Put it on the main display.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The same brown-haired, green-eyed man appeared, and Pyun felt his jaw muscles tighten.
“I trust,” Captain Ivanov said, “that you realize we just deliberately didn’t destroy your ships. As I’ve already said, my Empress would prefer to resolve the differences between the Star Empire and the League without further bloodshed. That doesn’t mean more blood won’t be shed anyway, but I’d really prefer not to have it happen here, today. If you persist in approaching this terminus, however, I will have no choice but to continue this engagement, and the next salvo won’t be targeted on your wedges. You have ten minutes to reverse acceleration or translate into hyper. If you’ve done neither at the end of those ten minutes, I will open fire once more, and this time we’ll be firing for effect. Ivanov, clear.”
It was very quiet on Belle Poule’s flag bridge. No one said a word. In fact, for several seconds, no one even breathed. All eyes were on Liam Pyun as he stood continuing to gaze at the blank display from which Hiram Ivanov had disappeared. Then the admiral squared his shoulders, drew a deep breath, and turned his back on the display.
“Captain Gilmore, instruct Captain Zyndram to reverse acceleration immediately. And tell him to get our hyper generators online.”

There had to be at least one Solarian officer with a functional brain, hmm?

One of my favorites from Crown of Slaves:

Anton Zilwicki arrived at the Felicia with no fanfare or advance notice of any kind. That was the way he would have wanted it, anyway. But the real reason for the secrecy was the man sitting next to him on the sled which carried them over from The Wages of Sin.
It might be better to say: strapped in, and very securely, rather than simply "sitting." Anton, from his years as a yard dog in the Manticoran Navy, was qualified High Expert with virtually every kind of vacuum gear, from skinsuits to self-contained, modular hardsuit yard craft. All of which meant that he was quite comfortable and at ease.
Jeremy X wasn't. The galaxy's most notorious terrorist—or "freedom fighter," take your pick—might very well also be the galaxy's best pistolero. But what he knew about extravehicular activity in a spacesuit could be inscribed on the head of a pin.
That would have been true under any circumstances. Under these, riding in a stripped down, pure reaction-drive yard sled chosen primarily because it was so tiny—and unsophisticated—as to be undetectable by any except very good military grade sensors at very close range, he was visibly nervous. Given that Jeremy generally had the proverbial "nerves of steel," Anton found the whole thing rather amusing.
"Where did they find this piece of crap?" Anton heard him mutter. "A toy store?"
Anton grinned, secure in the knowledge that Jeremy wouldn't be able to see the expression since he was sitting behind him. Jeremy would be peeved, if he did. As it was, he was going to be peeved enough when he discovered that Anton had overheard the remark. Jeremy's lack of expertise when it came to EVA also extended to his lack of expertise with space communication gear. Apparently, the head of the Ballroom had failed to grasp the fact that although their coms had been stepped down to levels which precluded long-range communication—for security reasons—that didn't mean they'd been taken totally off-line. Since safety concerns made it far better for the passengers of the sled to be able to communicate with each other in an emergency, they'd retained their short-range capability.
"As a matter of fact," he said, slandering the standard yard sled with cheery mendacity for his passenger's benefit, "I believe a lot of these jury-rigged sleds of the casino's were put together from stuff found in the space station's toy stores. The framework itself looks like plumbing supplies to me—non-metallic, of course—but the seats and handlebars are taken from children's tricycles. I'm quite sure of it."
He glanced down at the dinky little handlebar upon which the gloved fingers of his right hand rested lightly. It really did look like something from a kid's bike which had been glued, solely as an afterthought, to the flimsy-looking (but incredibly light and strong) composite tubing which made up the main shell of the sled. "In fact," he added, "this looks a lot like the kid's model—the VacuGlide, I think they called it—I bought for Helen, oh, maybe fourteen years ago."
He heard what sounded like a choking noise coming from Jeremy. Anton's grin widened and he proceeded on with great cheer. "Oh, yes. No reason to use anything heftier, of course. If we were in a gravity field or under any kind of real acceleration, it'd be different. But in the here and now, the principal concern is to have sleds which can transport people back and forth without being detected. In order to keep this masquerade going, of course. It'd be hard to convince the galaxy my daughter—sorry, 'the Princess'—was still in dire captivity if it became known that the Felicia had as much traffic coming and going as a small spaceport."
With very great cheer: "Oh, yes, it all makes perfect sense. Nice to see somebody's thinking clearly for a change. Of course, I admit it makes for flimsy transportation." He glanced back at the rear of the sled. "Propulsion, ha! That gadget back there is just an aerosol can with delusions of grandeur. Don't want anything big or powerful enough to push our radar signature too high, now do we?"
Anton could see the Manticoran rating from the Gauntlet who was serving as the sled's pilot sitting ahead of both of them, at the very front of the sled. The woman's shoulders were shaking a little, from suppressed laughter at the breezy mendaciousness of Anton's remarks.
Jeremy's helmet swiveled, to bring his face toward Anton's. The motion was a very gingerly one, as if he were afraid even a head movement might fling him off the sled.
"I am not amused, Captain Zilwicki."
"My, what a majestic pronouncement—although I think that's supposed to be 'we are not amused.' The royal plural, you know." Anton clucked. "Surprising, really, coming from such a rabid egalitarian."
Jeremy started to make a testy response. But Anton could now see his face through the turned helmet, and saw the man bite it off. Then, his usual puckish humor returned.
"I won't argue the point, given the role your daughter is playing in this mad affair. But I'll be interested to see if you retain your good humor when the holovids go berserk. Which they will, you know, once the news gets out. Ah, yes. Captain Zilwicki, Rogue of the Spaceways. I can see it now, splattered all over every display screen within five hundred light-years. A month from now—two, at the outside—your face will be the best known in the inhabited galaxy." Jeremy was almost cooing, now: "Do try to smile into the recorders, Captain."
Anton scowled. And reminded himself, not for the first time, that needling Jeremy X was a risky proposition. The man's tongue was as quick and accurate as his gunhand.
They were almost at the Felicia by then, however, and Anton set aside his gloomy prognostications concerning the future prospects for his much-cherished anonymity. His only thoughts now were for his daughter.
He'd been furious with her, at first, when Jeremy X and his comrade Donald brought him the news on Smoking Frog. All of Anton's smug self-satisfaction at the successful conclusion of his little expedition had vanished instantly. (Oh, yes, it had been quite successful. For about the hundredth time since, Anton contemplated with great pleasure the prospect of ruining Georgia Young with the information about her he'd uncovered on Smoking Frog. More precisely—destroying her completely, as a political factor in the Star Kingdom.)
But the anger hadn't lasted long. Before Donald X, who'd brought the news on the courier ship, had gotten halfway through his explanation, Anton had realized the truth. Yes, granted, he could still chide his daughter for the minor recklessness of going to The Wages of Sin in the first place. But Anton knew perfectly well that a maniac like Templeton would simply have struck elsewhere. If there was anyone to blame, it was Anton himself, not Berry. He was supposed to be the superspy, not her. Which meant he should have been the one to discover that the Masadans were lurking on Erewhon—in which case, he never would have made the trip to Maya Sector in the first place.
But all of that was hindsight, and Anton Zilwicki had never been a man given to pointless recriminations. Not even pointless self-blame, much less shifting the blame elsewhere. What mattered—all that mattered—was the courage and determination his daughter had displayed thereafter. Which had been great enough that even such hard-bitten revolutionists as Jeremy and Donald had clearly been in something approaching a state of awe.
So was Anton himself, for that matter. It was obvious to him that the waif he had rescued years earlier on Terra was . . .
Hard to say, what she was now. But certainly no longer a waif.
* * *
"Welcome," the ex-slave in charge of the docking bay said as Anton and Jeremy swung out of the boarding tube and into Felicia's internal gravity field. She motioned toward another ex-slave, standing nearby and smiling. "Eduard will take you to the Princess. I assume that's who you'd like to see first, Captain Zilwicki."
One of the things Anton had been told was that the ex-slaves on the Felicia had been made aware of the true identity of the two girls. He finished removing his helmet and shook his head.
"No, actually. I'd like to see my daughter first."
Both ex-slaves seemed confused. "Yes, of course," said the one named Eduard. "That's why I'm taking you to her. The Princess."
Then, understanding, Eduard chuckled. "Oh, I see. A mismatch of perceptions, here. By 'Princess,' you refer to the real one. As the galaxy sees such things. But you're among us now, Captain, and we have our own attitudes. Please follow me. Berry doesn't know you've arrived, so she'll still be in the audience chamber."
Anton followed, shaking his head. Princess. Audience chamber. He was trying to sort it all out.
Following right behind him, he heard Jeremy chortle. "Remember, Captain! Remain of good cheer! Ah, yes. I can see it now. All over the holovids. Captain Zilwicki, Scourge of the Spaceways—and now! Introducing his daughter! Princess Berry, She Who Makes Slavers Howl! Do try to make sure she wears modest apparel, though. I've always found those scantily-clad sword-wielding princesses of the fantasies rather gauche. Don't you?"

Yes, I howled when I read that!

Reader Bob wrote:One of my favorites from Crown of Slaves:

Anton Zilwicki arrived at the Felicia with no fanfare or advance notice of any kind. That was the way he would have wanted it, anyway. But the real reason for the secrecy was the man sitting next to him on the sled which carried them over from The Wages of Sin.
It might be better to say: strapped in, and very securely, rather than simply "sitting." Anton, from his years as a yard dog in the Manticoran Navy, was qualified High Expert with virtually every kind of vacuum gear, from skinsuits to self-contained, modular hardsuit yard craft. All of which meant that he was quite comfortable and at ease.
Jeremy X wasn't. The galaxy's most notorious terrorist—or "freedom fighter," take your pick—might very well also be the galaxy's best pistolero. But what he knew about extravehicular activity in a spacesuit could be inscribed on the head of a pin.
That would have been true under any circumstances. Under these, riding in a stripped down, pure reaction-drive yard sled chosen primarily because it was so tiny—and unsophisticated—as to be undetectable by any except very good military grade sensors at very close range, he was visibly nervous. Given that Jeremy generally had the proverbial "nerves of steel," Anton found the whole thing rather amusing.
"Where did they find this piece of crap?" Anton heard him mutter. "A toy store?"
Anton grinned, secure in the knowledge that Jeremy wouldn't be able to see the expression since he was sitting behind him. Jeremy would be peeved, if he did. As it was, he was going to be peeved enough when he discovered that Anton had overheard the remark. Jeremy's lack of expertise when it came to EVA also extended to his lack of expertise with space communication gear. Apparently, the head of the Ballroom had failed to grasp the fact that although their coms had been stepped down to levels which precluded long-range communication—for security reasons—that didn't mean they'd been taken totally off-line. Since safety concerns made it far better for the passengers of the sled to be able to communicate with each other in an emergency, they'd retained their short-range capability.
"As a matter of fact," he said, slandering the standard yard sled with cheery mendacity for his passenger's benefit, "I believe a lot of these jury-rigged sleds of the casino's were put together from stuff found in the space station's toy stores. The framework itself looks like plumbing supplies to me—non-metallic, of course—but the seats and handlebars are taken from children's tricycles. I'm quite sure of it."
He glanced down at the dinky little handlebar upon which the gloved fingers of his right hand rested lightly. It really did look like something from a kid's bike which had been glued, solely as an afterthought, to the flimsy-looking (but incredibly light and strong) composite tubing which made up the main shell of the sled. "In fact," he added, "this looks a lot like the kid's model—the VacuGlide, I think they called it—I bought for Helen, oh, maybe fourteen years ago."
He heard what sounded like a choking noise coming from Jeremy. Anton's grin widened and he proceeded on with great cheer. "Oh, yes. No reason to use anything heftier, of course. If we were in a gravity field or under any kind of real acceleration, it'd be different. But in the here and now, the principal concern is to have sleds which can transport people back and forth without being detected. In order to keep this masquerade going, of course. It'd be hard to convince the galaxy my daughter—sorry, 'the Princess'—was still in dire captivity if it became known that the Felicia had as much traffic coming and going as a small spaceport."
With very great cheer: "Oh, yes, it all makes perfect sense. Nice to see somebody's thinking clearly for a change. Of course, I admit it makes for flimsy transportation." He glanced back at the rear of the sled. "Propulsion, ha! That gadget back there is just an aerosol can with delusions of grandeur. Don't want anything big or powerful enough to push our radar signature too high, now do we?"
Anton could see the Manticoran rating from the Gauntlet who was serving as the sled's pilot sitting ahead of both of them, at the very front of the sled. The woman's shoulders were shaking a little, from suppressed laughter at the breezy mendaciousness of Anton's remarks.
Jeremy's helmet swiveled, to bring his face toward Anton's. The motion was a very gingerly one, as if he were afraid even a head movement might fling him off the sled.
"I am not amused, Captain Zilwicki."
"My, what a majestic pronouncement—although I think that's supposed to be 'we are not amused.' The royal plural, you know." Anton clucked. "Surprising, really, coming from such a rabid egalitarian."
Jeremy started to make a testy response. But Anton could now see his face through the turned helmet, and saw the man bite it off. Then, his usual puckish humor returned.
"I won't argue the point, given the role your daughter is playing in this mad affair. But I'll be interested to see if you retain your good humor when the holovids go berserk. Which they will, you know, once the news gets out. Ah, yes. Captain Zilwicki, Rogue of the Spaceways. I can see it now, splattered all over every display screen within five hundred light-years. A month from now—two, at the outside—your face will be the best known in the inhabited galaxy." Jeremy was almost cooing, now: "Do try to smile into the recorders, Captain."
Anton scowled. And reminded himself, not for the first time, that needling Jeremy X was a risky proposition. The man's tongue was as quick and accurate as his gunhand.
They were almost at the Felicia by then, however, and Anton set aside his gloomy prognostications concerning the future prospects for his much-cherished anonymity. His only thoughts now were for his daughter.
He'd been furious with her, at first, when Jeremy X and his comrade Donald brought him the news on Smoking Frog. All of Anton's smug self-satisfaction at the successful conclusion of his little expedition had vanished instantly. (Oh, yes, it had been quite successful. For about the hundredth time since, Anton contemplated with great pleasure the prospect of ruining Georgia Young with the information about her he'd uncovered on Smoking Frog. More precisely—destroying her completely, as a political factor in the Star Kingdom.)
But the anger hadn't lasted long. Before Donald X, who'd brought the news on the courier ship, had gotten halfway through his explanation, Anton had realized the truth. Yes, granted, he could still chide his daughter for the minor recklessness of going to The Wages of Sin in the first place. But Anton knew perfectly well that a maniac like Templeton would simply have struck elsewhere. If there was anyone to blame, it was Anton himself, not Berry. He was supposed to be the superspy, not her. Which meant he should have been the one to discover that the Masadans were lurking on Erewhon—in which case, he never would have made the trip to Maya Sector in the first place.
But all of that was hindsight, and Anton Zilwicki had never been a man given to pointless recriminations. Not even pointless self-blame, much less shifting the blame elsewhere. What mattered—all that mattered—was the courage and determination his daughter had displayed thereafter. Which had been great enough that even such hard-bitten revolutionists as Jeremy and Donald had clearly been in something approaching a state of awe.
So was Anton himself, for that matter. It was obvious to him that the waif he had rescued years earlier on Terra was . . .
Hard to say, what she was now. But certainly no longer a waif.
* * *
"Welcome," the ex-slave in charge of the docking bay said as Anton and Jeremy swung out of the boarding tube and into Felicia's internal gravity field. She motioned toward another ex-slave, standing nearby and smiling. "Eduard will take you to the Princess. I assume that's who you'd like to see first, Captain Zilwicki."
One of the things Anton had been told was that the ex-slaves on the Felicia had been made aware of the true identity of the two girls. He finished removing his helmet and shook his head.
"No, actually. I'd like to see my daughter first."
Both ex-slaves seemed confused. "Yes, of course," said the one named Eduard. "That's why I'm taking you to her. The Princess."
Then, understanding, Eduard chuckled. "Oh, I see. A mismatch of perceptions, here. By 'Princess,' you refer to the real one. As the galaxy sees such things. But you're among us now, Captain, and we have our own attitudes. Please follow me. Berry doesn't know you've arrived, so she'll still be in the audience chamber."
Anton followed, shaking his head. Princess. Audience chamber. He was trying to sort it all out.
Following right behind him, he heard Jeremy chortle. "Remember, Captain! Remain of good cheer! Ah, yes. I can see it now. All over the holovids. Captain Zilwicki, Scourge of the Spaceways—and now! Introducing his daughter! Princess Berry, She Who Makes Slavers Howl! Do try to make sure she wears modest apparel, though. I've always found those scantily-clad sword-wielding princesses of the fantasies rather gauche. Don't you?"

Yes, I howled when I read that!

Only Jeremy... What a fantastic character...

Makes me fantasize about a "What if?" duel between Denver Summervale and Jeremy X.

Reader Bob wrote:One of my favorites from Crown of Slaves:

Anton Zilwicki arrived at the Felicia with no fanfare or advance notice of any kind. That was the way he would have wanted it, anyway. But the real reason for the secrecy was the man sitting next to him on the sled which carried them over from The Wages of Sin.
It might be better to say: strapped in, and very securely, rather than simply "sitting." Anton, from his years as a yard dog in the Manticoran Navy, was qualified High Expert with virtually every kind of vacuum gear, from skinsuits to self-contained, modular hardsuit yard craft. All of which meant that he was quite comfortable and at ease.
Jeremy X wasn't. The galaxy's most notorious terrorist—or "freedom fighter," take your pick—might very well also be the galaxy's best pistolero. But what he knew about extravehicular activity in a spacesuit could be inscribed on the head of a pin.
That would have been true under any circumstances. Under these, riding in a stripped down, pure reaction-drive yard sled chosen primarily because it was so tiny—and unsophisticated—as to be undetectable by any except very good military grade sensors at very close range, he was visibly nervous. Given that Jeremy generally had the proverbial "nerves of steel," Anton found the whole thing rather amusing.
"Where did they find this piece of crap?" Anton heard him mutter. "A toy store?"
Anton grinned, secure in the knowledge that Jeremy wouldn't be able to see the expression since he was sitting behind him. Jeremy would be peeved, if he did. As it was, he was going to be peeved enough when he discovered that Anton had overheard the remark. Jeremy's lack of expertise when it came to EVA also extended to his lack of expertise with space communication gear. Apparently, the head of the Ballroom had failed to grasp the fact that although their coms had been stepped down to levels which precluded long-range communication—for security reasons—that didn't mean they'd been taken totally off-line. Since safety concerns made it far better for the passengers of the sled to be able to communicate with each other in an emergency, they'd retained their short-range capability.
"As a matter of fact," he said, slandering the standard yard sled with cheery mendacity for his passenger's benefit, "I believe a lot of these jury-rigged sleds of the casino's were put together from stuff found in the space station's toy stores. The framework itself looks like plumbing supplies to me—non-metallic, of course—but the seats and handlebars are taken from children's tricycles. I'm quite sure of it."
He glanced down at the dinky little handlebar upon which the gloved fingers of his right hand rested lightly. It really did look like something from a kid's bike which had been glued, solely as an afterthought, to the flimsy-looking (but incredibly light and strong) composite tubing which made up the main shell of the sled. "In fact," he added, "this looks a lot like the kid's model—the VacuGlide, I think they called it—I bought for Helen, oh, maybe fourteen years ago."
He heard what sounded like a choking noise coming from Jeremy. Anton's grin widened and he proceeded on with great cheer. "Oh, yes. No reason to use anything heftier, of course. If we were in a gravity field or under any kind of real acceleration, it'd be different. But in the here and now, the principal concern is to have sleds which can transport people back and forth without being detected. In order to keep this masquerade going, of course. It'd be hard to convince the galaxy my daughter—sorry, 'the Princess'—was still in dire captivity if it became known that the Felicia had as much traffic coming and going as a small spaceport."
With very great cheer: "Oh, yes, it all makes perfect sense. Nice to see somebody's thinking clearly for a change. Of course, I admit it makes for flimsy transportation." He glanced back at the rear of the sled. "Propulsion, ha! That gadget back there is just an aerosol can with delusions of grandeur. Don't want anything big or powerful enough to push our radar signature too high, now do we?"
Anton could see the Manticoran rating from the Gauntlet who was serving as the sled's pilot sitting ahead of both of them, at the very front of the sled. The woman's shoulders were shaking a little, from suppressed laughter at the breezy mendaciousness of Anton's remarks.
Jeremy's helmet swiveled, to bring his face toward Anton's. The motion was a very gingerly one, as if he were afraid even a head movement might fling him off the sled.
"I am not amused, Captain Zilwicki."
"My, what a majestic pronouncement—although I think that's supposed to be 'we are not amused.' The royal plural, you know." Anton clucked. "Surprising, really, coming from such a rabid egalitarian."
Jeremy started to make a testy response. But Anton could now see his face through the turned helmet, and saw the man bite it off. Then, his usual puckish humor returned.
"I won't argue the point, given the role your daughter is playing in this mad affair. But I'll be interested to see if you retain your good humor when the holovids go berserk. Which they will, you know, once the news gets out. Ah, yes. Captain Zilwicki, Rogue of the Spaceways. I can see it now, splattered all over every display screen within five hundred light-years. A month from now—two, at the outside—your face will be the best known in the inhabited galaxy." Jeremy was almost cooing, now: "Do try to smile into the recorders, Captain."
Anton scowled. And reminded himself, not for the first time, that needling Jeremy X was a risky proposition. The man's tongue was as quick and accurate as his gunhand.
They were almost at the Felicia by then, however, and Anton set aside his gloomy prognostications concerning the future prospects for his much-cherished anonymity. His only thoughts now were for his daughter.
He'd been furious with her, at first, when Jeremy X and his comrade Donald brought him the news on Smoking Frog. All of Anton's smug self-satisfaction at the successful conclusion of his little expedition had vanished instantly. (Oh, yes, it had been quite successful. For about the hundredth time since, Anton contemplated with great pleasure the prospect of ruining Georgia Young with the information about her he'd uncovered on Smoking Frog. More precisely—destroying her completely, as a political factor in the Star Kingdom.)
But the anger hadn't lasted long. Before Donald X, who'd brought the news on the courier ship, had gotten halfway through his explanation, Anton had realized the truth. Yes, granted, he could still chide his daughter for the minor recklessness of going to The Wages of Sin in the first place. But Anton knew perfectly well that a maniac like Templeton would simply have struck elsewhere. If there was anyone to blame, it was Anton himself, not Berry. He was supposed to be the superspy, not her. Which meant he should have been the one to discover that the Masadans were lurking on Erewhon—in which case, he never would have made the trip to Maya Sector in the first place.
But all of that was hindsight, and Anton Zilwicki had never been a man given to pointless recriminations. Not even pointless self-blame, much less shifting the blame elsewhere. What mattered—all that mattered—was the courage and determination his daughter had displayed thereafter. Which had been great enough that even such hard-bitten revolutionists as Jeremy and Donald had clearly been in something approaching a state of awe.
So was Anton himself, for that matter. It was obvious to him that the waif he had rescued years earlier on Terra was . . .
Hard to say, what she was now. But certainly no longer a waif.
* * *
"Welcome," the ex-slave in charge of the docking bay said as Anton and Jeremy swung out of the boarding tube and into Felicia's internal gravity field. She motioned toward another ex-slave, standing nearby and smiling. "Eduard will take you to the Princess. I assume that's who you'd like to see first, Captain Zilwicki."
One of the things Anton had been told was that the ex-slaves on the Felicia had been made aware of the true identity of the two girls. He finished removing his helmet and shook his head.
"No, actually. I'd like to see my daughter first."
Both ex-slaves seemed confused. "Yes, of course," said the one named Eduard. "That's why I'm taking you to her. The Princess."
Then, understanding, Eduard chuckled. "Oh, I see. A mismatch of perceptions, here. By 'Princess,' you refer to the real one. As the galaxy sees such things. But you're among us now, Captain, and we have our own attitudes. Please follow me. Berry doesn't know you've arrived, so she'll still be in the audience chamber."
Anton followed, shaking his head. Princess. Audience chamber. He was trying to sort it all out.
Following right behind him, he heard Jeremy chortle. "Remember, Captain! Remain of good cheer! Ah, yes. I can see it now. All over the holovids. Captain Zilwicki, Scourge of the Spaceways—and now! Introducing his daughter! Princess Berry, She Who Makes Slavers Howl! Do try to make sure she wears modest apparel, though. I've always found those scantily-clad sword-wielding princesses of the fantasies rather gauche. Don't you?"

Yes, I howled when I read that!

hanuman wrote:There had to be at least one Solarian officer with a functional brain, hmm?

More than one, although I think the ones we have seen thus far who are both still alive and still Solarian officers can be counted on two hands or less if we exclude Rozack's and Barregos' people.

Current living Solarian officers with working brains, excluding anyone from Beowulf, and Rozack's and Barregos' people:

LT Askew. Presumably interred on New Tuscanny.

Crandall's staff tactical officer. Now a POW on Spindle.

Admiral Pym. Last seen during the Zunker incident.

The two SLN Captains (FF Teague & BF Dafyd) in the Office of Operational Analysis.
The Marine Colonel and Gendarme officer they met with in the SLN records repository after Operation Raging Justice failed.



Former Solarian officers with functional brains (excluding anyone who is dead or was connected to Rozsack or Barregos--i.e., Thandi Palane):

Gendarme Damien Harahap (Firebrand). Last seen working for Mesa.




Can anyone add any other living characters to either list (excluding anyone from Beowulf, and Rozack and Barregos's people, since it's questionable they can really be considered Solarian with what they have in mind).

Vince wrote:

hanuman wrote:
There had to be at least one Solarian officer with a functional brain, hmm?

More than one, although I think the ones we have seen thus far who are both still alive and still Solarian officers can be counted on two hands or less if we exclude Rozack's and Barregos' people.

Current living Solarian officers with working brains, excluding anyone from Beowulf, and Rozack's and Barregos' people:

LT Askew. Presumably interred on New Tuscanny.

Crandall's staff tactical officer. Now a POW on Spindle.

Admiral Pym. Last seen during the Zunker incident.

The two SLN Captains (FF Teague & BF Dafyd) in the Office of Operational Analysis.
The Marine Colonel and Gendarme officer they met with in the SLN records repository after Operation Raging Justice failed.



Former Solarian officers with functional brains (excluding anyone who is dead or was connected to Rozsack or Barregos--i.e., Thandi Palane):

Gendarme Damien Harahap (Firebrand). Last seen working for Mesa.




Can anyone add any other living characters to either list (excluding anyone from Beowulf, and Rozack and Barregos's people, since it's questionable they can really be considered Solarian with what they have in mind).

I don't know. I got the impression that Kolokoltsov wasn't exactly a dummy; just that he tried to manage the reins of too many out of control horses.