Honorverse favorite passages

Hutch wrote:And the second passage from Torch of Freedom. 'Scrag' and 'Heroine' share no letters and certainly haven't been used together...until now...

Harper S. Ferry and Judson Van Hale were still ten meters from the New Age Pharmaceutical representative when Tyler looked up and saw Berry. Unlike any of the other commercial representatives in the room, he took a step towards her the moment he saw her, and Genghis's head snapped up in the same instant.

The 'cat reared high, ears flattened and fangs bared in the sudden, tearing-canvas ripple of a treecat's war cry, and vaulted abruptly from his person's shoulder towards Tyler.

Tyler's head whipped around, and Harper felt a sudden stab of outright terror as he saw the terrible, fixed glare of the other man's eyes. There was something . . . insane about them, and Harper was suddenly reaching for the panic button on his gun belt.

The pharmaceutical representative saw the oncoming 'cat, and his free hand flashed across to the briefcase he was carrying. The briefcase with the "perfume" of which no one at New Age Pharmaceutical had ever heard . . . and which Tyler didn't even remember taking from the man who'd squirted that odd mist in his face on Smoking Frog.
Genghis almost reached him in time. He launched himself from the floor in a snarling, hissing charge that hit Tyler's moving forearm perhaps a tenth of a second too late.

Tyler pressed the concealed button. The explosive charges in the two massively pressurized canisters of "perfume" in the briefcase exploded expelling the binary neurotoxin which they had contained under several thousand atmospheres of pressure. Separated, its components had been innocuous, easily mistaken for perfume; combined, they were incredibly lethal, and they mingled and spread, whipping outward from Tyler under immense pressure even as the briefcase blew apart with a sharp, percussive crack.

Genghis stiffened, jerked once, and hit the floor a fraction of a second before Tyler, left hand mangled by the explosion of the briefcase, collapsed beside him. Harper's finger completed its movement to the panic button, and then the deadly cloud swept over him and Judson, as well. Their spines arched, their mouths opened in silent agony, and then they went down as a cyclone of death spread outward.

* * *

Lara and Berry did their best to maintain suitably grave expressions, despite their mutual amusement, as they walked towards Berry's chair. They were about halfway there when the sudden, high-pitched snarl of an enraged treecat ripped through the throne room.

They spun towards the sound, and saw a cream-and-gray blur streaking through the crowd. For an instant, Berry had no idea at all what was happening. But if Lara wasn't especially well socialized, she still had the acute senses, heightened musculature, and lightning reflexes of the Scrag she had been born.

She didn't know what had set Genghis off, but every instinct she had screamed "Threat!" And if she wouldn't have had a clue which fork to use at a formal dinner, she knew exactly what to do about that.

She continued her turn, right arm reaching out, snaking around Berry's waist like a python, and snatched the girl up. By the time Genghis was two leaps from Tyler, Lara was already sprinting towards the door through which they'd entered the throne room.

She heard the sharp crack of the exploding briefcase behind her just as the door opened again, and she saw Saburo and Ruth Winton through it. From the corner of her eye, she also saw the outrider of death scything towards her as the bodies collapsed in spasming agony, like ripples spreading from a stone hurled into a placid pool. The neurotoxin was racing outward faster than she could run; she didn't know what it was, but she knew it was invisible death . . . and that she could not outdistance it.

"Saburo!" she screamed, and snatched Berry bodily off the floor. She spun on her heel once, like a discus thrower, and suddenly Berry went arcing headfirst through the air. She flew straight at Saburo X, like a javelin, and his arms opened reflexively.

"The door!" Lara screamed, skittering to her knees as she overbalanced from throwing Berry. "Close the door! Run!"
Berry hit Saburo in the chest. His left arm closed about her, holding her tight, and his eyes met Lara's as her knees hit the floor. Brown eyes stared deep into blue, meeting with the sudden, stark knowledge neither of them could evade.

"I love you!" he cried . . . and his right hand hit the button to close the door.

JeffEngel wrote:

cthia wrote:I wasn't going to bring it up, because I knew I'd get thrashed for it. Lambasted even!

But you did it for me...

WHY THE HELL DID HOME FLEET HAVE ANY OLD GARBAGE IN ITS ORDER OF BATTLE? Much less so much of it! WTFG?

Any waller is better than no waller. It's not like they had a lot of empty SD(P)'s hanging around unused. This was the same period when Eighth Fleet was doing system raids to keep Haven off-balance with whatever ships they had to do it with - including BC(P)'s being used like wallers just because they had the missiles to do it and the RMN really, really needed it done.

"All right, see? I'm here," Berry said, and Lara laughed.

"And so graceful you are, too," the Amazon said. "You who keep trying to 'civilize' us!"

"Actually," Berry said, reaching out to pat the older woman on the forearm, "I've decided I like you all just the way you are. My very own wolfpack. Well, Thandi's, but I'm sure she'll lend you to me if I ask. Just do me a favor and try not to get any blood on the furniture. Oh, and let's keep the orgies out of sight, too, at least when Daddy's around. Deal?"

"Deal, Little Kaja. I'll explain to Saburo about the orgies," Lara said, and it was perhaps an indication of the effect Berry Zilwicki had on the people about her that an ex-Scrag didn't even question the deep surge of affection she felt for her teenage monarch.

Honor turned her attention openly and fully to Zilwicki's companion as the captain gestured at him. He was a very young man, she realized. Not particularly distinguished in any way, physically. Of average height—possibly even a little shorter than that—with a build which was no more than wiry, almost callow-looking beside Zilwicki's massively impressive musculature. The hair was dark, the complexion also on the swarthy side, and the eyes were merely brown.

But as she gazed at him and reached out to sample his emotions, she realized this young man was anything but "undistinguished."

In her time, Honor Alexander-Harrington had known quite a few dangerous people. Zilwicki was a case in point, as, in his own lethal way, was young Spencer Hawke, standing alertly to watch her back even here. But this young man had the clear, clean uncluttered taste of a sword. In fact, his mind-glow was as close to that of a treecat as Honor had ever tasted in a human being. Certainly not evil, but . . . direct. Very direct. For treecats, enemies came in two categories: those who'd been suitably dealt with, and those who were still alive. This unremarkable-looking young man's mind-glow was exactly the same, in that regard. There was not a single trace of malice in it. In many ways, it was clear and cool, like a pool of deep, still water. But somewhere in the depths of that pool, Leviathan lurked.

Over the decades, Honor had come to know herself. Not perfectly, but better than most people ever did. She'd faced the wolf inside herself, the aptness to violence, the temper chained by discipline and channeled into protecting the weak, rather than preying upon them. She saw that aspect of herself reflected in the mirrored surface of this young man's still water, and realized with an inner shiver, that he was even more apt to violence than she was. Not because he craved it one bit more than she did, but because of his focus. His purpose.

He wasn't simply Leviathan; this man was also Juggernaut. Dedicated every bit as much as she to protecting the people and the things about which he cared, and far more ruthless. She could readily sacrifice herself for the things in which she believed; this man could sacrifice anything in their name. Not for personal power. Not for profit. But because his beliefs, and the integrity with which he held them, were too strong for anything else.

But although he was as clean of purpose as a meat-ax, he was no crippled psychopath or fanatic. He would bleed for what he sacrificed. He would simply do it anyway, because he'd looked himself and his soul in the eye and accepted what he found there.

She looked around at the suddenly taut faces of her co-workers. ACS was a civil service organization, despite its military ranks, and most of her subordinates and staff had never imagined in their darkest nightmares that they might ever actually see combat. But Grimm's position as the commanding officer of the Manticoran Junction's traffic control service required her to cooperate closely with its military hierarchy. Not all ACS commanders had been comfortable fits for that side of their duties, but it helped that Grimm was herself ex-Navy. In fact, she'd reached the rank of captain of the list before transferring to ACS, and she'd quickly acquired a reputation among her military colleagues for efficiency and brains. That was especially welcome in the wake of her immediate predecessor, Admiral Allen Stokes, whose sole claim to his position had been his brother-in-law's close ties to Baron High Ridge and First Lord Janacek.

She flipped up a plastic shield and punched a large, red button on her console. A harsh, strident buzzer sounded, and every other sound on the command deck of HMSS DaGama, the Junction's central ACS platform ceased abruptly. Every eye turned towards her as the saw-edged audio alarm jerked her personnel's attention to her.

"It hasn't been declared yet, but we have damned sure got ourselves a Case Zulu, people," she announced in a flat, tense voice. "I'm declaring Condition Delta on my own authority. Clear the Junction—all traffic, wherever it is in the queue, not just the outbounds already on final. I want anything that might draw an MDM's attention way the hell away from here ASAP.

"After that, Jordan," she continued, turning to her exec, who still held half a slice of cake, "get ready for the ride of your life. Unless I miss my guess, what Admiral Yestremensky had to deal with when Earl White Haven took Eighth Fleet to Basilisk was a walk in the park compared to what's coming our way. Get a dispatch boat away to Trevor's Star with a sitrep immediately. Then go ahead and start setting up for a minimum-interval transit of everything Admiral Kuzak and Duchess Harrington have. I'm not sure what their deployments are, but we could have close to a hundred wallers coming through that terminus nose-to-arse. And if a couple of SDs misjudge their intervals and collide—or bring their wedges up too close together—we are going to have one hell of a mess."

"No joke," Captain Jordan Lamar said feelingly.

"So I want our best controllers on that lane," Grimm said. "Forget about the standard watch schedule. Pull in the best from wherever the hell they are and get them at those consoles—" she jabbed a finger at the Trevor's Star traffic controllers' section "—ten minutes ago. Then see what we've got available for tugs."

"Yes, Ma'am. I'm on it," Lamar said. He looked down, saw the cake as if for the first time, and stared at it for just a moment. Then he chuckled harshly, shoved it into his mouth, and turned to his own com to begin giving orders.

"Bradley," Grimm went on, turning to her official liaison to Admiral Thurston Havlicek, the Junction Defense Command's commanding officer, "bring Admiral Havlicek up to speed on what we've already done. I'm sure we're going to have drones incoming from these people in the next thirty or forty minutes, and I'm sure he's got his own plans for dealing with them, but ask him if there's anything we can do to help. I'm thinking we may need to be looking at ways to stack the incoming wallers to block the drones' LOS to the terminus, keep them from getting a close enough look to tell the Peeps what's coming or when. Whatever JDC needs and we can do, he's got, but I need to know what he wants now."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am!" Commander Bradley Hampton said with a grateful smile. "I'll get right on it."

"Good," Grimm said quietly, and looked back at the plot. The first Ghost Rider platforms were already twenty-five thousand kilometers out, accelerating at just over five thousand gravities. She couldn't see them, though she knew they were there. But she could see the blossoming impeller signatures of Junction Defense Command's LACs. Over thirty-five hundred were already in space, and more were appearing with metronome precision as the LAC platforms launched.

You bastards just go right ahead and come in on us, she thought venomously at the impeller signatures of the battlecruisers trying to spy on her command area. Come right ahead. We've got something for you.

cthia wrote:At All Costs...



"Good," Grimm said quietly, and looked back at the plot. The first Ghost Rider platforms were already twenty-five thousand kilometers out, accelerating at just over five thousand gravities. She couldn't see them, though she knew they were there. But she could see the blossoming impeller signatures of Junction Defense Command's LACs. Over thirty-five hundred were already in space, and more were appearing with metronome precision as the LAC platforms launched.

You bastards just go right ahead and come in on us, she thought venomously at the impeller signatures of the battlecruisers trying to spy on her command area. Come right ahead. We've got something for you.

cthia wrote:
Simply deserves to be referenced again.

I always envisioned ACS to be a single large platform. This passage suggests at least three, the central being HMSS DeGama -- of which somehow, I didn't previously catch had registry names.

Theemile wrote:

cthia wrote:Simply deserves to be referenced again.

I always envisioned ACS to be a single large platform. This passage suggests at least three, the central being HMSS DeGama -- of which somehow, I didn't previously catch had registry names.

You do realize there are >50 12-20Mton Modern forts surrounding the Junction as part of it's defenses. (At it's max, there was 120 forts, using more manpower than the "mobile" fleet). The Degamma is just the "civilian" control center of the wormhole.

cthia wrote:

Theemile wrote:

You do realize there are >50 12-20Mton Modern forts surrounding the Junction as part of it's defenses. (At it's max, there was 120 forts, using more manpower than the "mobile" fleet). The Degamma is just the "civilian" control center of the wormhole.