SPOILERS--Quotes from Shadow of Victory

October 1922 Post Diaspora

“And good evening to you, Admiral Tourville. We’ve been waiting for you.”
—Vice Admiral Michelle Henke, Countess Gold Peak
CO, Tenth Fleet, Royal Manticoran Navy

“Indeed I am. Anyone stupid enough to sign off for even a tenth of what it looks like Tyler bought into in this case certainly qualifies as a ‘sucker,’ and after the price your people paid derailing this plot, the only break I’m interested in giving him would occur somewhere around the C4 vertebra.

“Aivars!"
* * *
His wife’s stylus and pad went flying the instant the lift car doors opened, and as he watched the pad hit the floor with a sharp, crunching sound, a corner of Aivars Terekhov’s mind found time to hope she’d saved her latest creation before she demolished it.

And then she was in his arms, slender and graceful, warm and soft, so heart-stoppingly beautiful his eyes burned and his vision blurred, and he forgot all about broken pads. He forgot about everything as he crushed her in his embrace and buried his face in the sweet-smelling silk of her feathery red hair.

“Oh, Aivars,” she whispered, and turned her face up to his. Her lips were soft and sweet, and he drank the fire of her kiss deep for endless seconds while her arms locked around him like iron.

“It probably really would have, Helen,” Helga told her earnestly. “He’s very quick that way for someone with a Y-chromosome.”

She settled into the waiting chair, and Helen and Archer resumed their own seats. Gutierrez remained standing, somewhat to the chagrin of the waitstaff who seemed, for some odd reason, to find the next best thing to two massively-built meters of uniformed, armed watchdog plunked down in the middle of their restaurant moderately unsettling.

“Well, it turns out that ‘Mwenge’ is a word in a very ancient language, one called Swahili,” Kotarski said now. “And what it translates as is ‘Firebrand.’ I haven’t run down ‘Dupong’ yet, and I don’t intend to, since I’d just as soon not draw any attention to him if someone’s monitoring my data searches, but I’m willing to bet it means the same thing—or something very like it—in yet another ancient language.”

“You mean—?” Szponder said, his own eyes lighting with amusement.

“Exactly. He’s literally told Pokriefke and Mazur and all those aparatczycy over at KWSS that he’s here to burn their house of cards down around their ears, and they’re too damn stupid to realize it!” He shook his head with another chuckle. “How can I not like someone with that sense of humor?”

“Sir, I’ve never run a dedicated construction or repair department,” Ginger pointed out. “That’s one reason I was assigned to Weyland. I’ve spent almost my entire career in shipboard assignments. The way it was explained to me, BuPers detailed me to Weyland to pick up more ‘yard dog’ expertise, and I’d think that kind of background would be in demand running the engineers aboard something like a Taylor.”

“That’s all right, Captain. That’s not what you’re going to be doing.”

“It’s not?” Surprise startled the question out of her, and he snorted.

“No.” He shook his head. “What we have in mind for you, Captain Lewis, is something a little more challenging. Welcome to your new command.”

“Hi, Helen,” Paulo d’Arezzo said. “Sorry I haven’t been able to get a message to you sooner. It’s been crazy! But they promise me a dispatch boat’s pulling out for Spindle this afternoon. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the Kitty.” His face twisted, but he continued unflinchingly. “She never had a chance when they took out Hephaesteus, but I’m fine—fine, you hear me? And Captain Lewis and Senior Chief Wanderman are fine, too. In fact, we’re all in the same ship now. There was a drill on Weyland that had all the R&D staff dirtside when the attack came in. And Aikawa made it to. He wasn’t in the ship when they hit us. He was in transit between Manticore and the station.”

He paused, his recorded lips seeming to tremble just a bit, as he came to the end of that first, rapid-fire spurt of words. Then he drew a deep breath, and his gray eyes were dark and shadowed when he spoke again.
“It’s…sort of hard to believe anyone’s still alive,” he said softly, “and the one person I most need to talk to about it’s off in some ship named Quentin Saint-James. I wish to hell you were right here right this minute, but, God—! When I heard about what happened to Hephaestus—and to the Kitty—I went down on my knees because Captain Terekhov’d taken you with him. I’ve run scared where people are concerned for too long, Helen. But the Yawata Strike clarified a lot of things for a lot of people, and one of the things it clarified for me is how I feel about you. I think you feel the same—or I sure hope you do, because I’m going to be a real pain in the ass if you don’t!”

His lips quivered again, this time with a smile—or Helen thought it was a smile, anyway. She wasn’t really sure, because she was crying, she realized—crying so hard she could hardly even see the imagery, even as she laughed—and her hands rose to cover her mouth.

“Look,” he went on, “the CW’s deploying to Spindle as soon as we get the new personnel worked up. And when we get there, I’m taking you to the best restaurant in Thimble. And after that, we’re finding a hotel, and—”

He went on talking, and Helen Zilwicki took one hand away from her lips and touched his face on the display—the face she’d known she would never see again—with trembling fingers while it wavered and swam through her tears.

“Indeed you may, Captain.” Culbertson let his chair come upright, planting his forearms solidly on the table top. “Captain Grierson’s arrival gives us far more light platforms than Admiral Gold Peak ever contemplated when she drafted our instructions. Captain Zavala’s Saltash operation also gives us a far better meterstick for how effective those light platforms can be, even against heavy Frontier Fleet units. My primary responsibility at this time is the defense of Manticoran citizens here in Montana, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take advantage of that effectiveness and those platforms. What I intend to do is to organize at least three, hopefully four, task groups of light cruisers and destroyers. I’d like for each of them to have a core of at least one division of Rolands, to give them some long-range firepower. I may break up your division, Captain Tremaine, to assign a Saganami-C to each of them, as well. And I also intend to attach a single freighter—I’m looking at our smaller support ships first, but I’m willing to commandeer civilian ships from the supply chain Admiral Khumalo’s set up for us here in Montana, if I have to—with a load of Mark 23 pods and a pair of dispatch boats, so they can send for more help if they need it.

...

“The gloves are off now,” Culbertson said flatly. “You’ve all seen the reports on Second Manticore. As Duchess Harrington told Filareta, if war’s what the Sollies want, then war is what they’re damned well going to get. By this time, Kolokoltsov and the other Mandarins have received the Grand Alliance’s formal declaration of war, and Admiral Gold Peak is already moving on the Madras Sector. That being the case, I see no reason we shouldn’t take a few offensive steps of our own. I intend to take or destroy any Frontier Fleet units in those systems. In addition, we will seize any Solarian civilian shipping as legitimate prizes of war…and if our people should just happen to walk into another Mobius situation—” those bleak, brown eyes circled the table again “—then they can damned well do something about it.”

“Good afternoon, Mister Firebrand,” he said. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for some time now. My name’s Zavala—Jacob Zavala.” He smiled thinly. “I understand you represent the Star Empire of Manticore…too.”