Honorverse favorite one-liners

"Why," grumbled Yuri, staring at the ceiling of his stateroom, "do I feel like the poor sorry slob who got stuck with guarding Napoleon on St. Helena?"

You are a splendid shield, Yuri Radamacher," he said quietly. "But the republic needs a sword also, from time to time. So why don't you—this once—let a sword advise you?"

His voice grew firmer, less uncertain. "I was specifically entrusted by the Republic to ferret out and punish traitors. Of which the two greatest, for years, were Rob Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just. Who stabbed our revolution in the back and seized it for their own ends."

No uncertainty, now: "Damn them both to hell."

"You slacker!" Cachat bellowed. Then, tightening his jaws and visibly clamping down on himself: "She only did what you should have done, Radamacher. You were second-in-command of State Security here in La Martine. It was your duty to have seen to the removal of a beast like Jamka, once his nature had become clear and the threat he posed to the people of the Republic was obvious. Not hers. Yours. Even if you had to go outside of channels to do it."

"Oh, hell, Yuri," Cachat said wearily. "You are one of the nicest men I've ever met. But some day you'll have to learn that a shield without a sword is pitiful protection in a real fight."

The big hands seemed to tighten. "That's different. But this was just a monster at his games, thinking his position could protect him from anything. He learned otherwise."

"Accept something as a fact, will you? I am far better at this than you will ever be, Yuri Radamacher. Better by nature, and then I was trained by the best there is. Oscar Saint-Just poured the iron, and—pity him!—Kevin Usher shaped the mold.

Cachat collapsed into an empty seat. "Thank God," he whispered. He put his face in his hands. "I am so very tired."

A last spark of anger almost led Yuri to demand: From what? You haven't done anything for weeks except rest.

......

But Yuri Radamacher did not ask, because the commissioner knew the answer. Victor Cachat had not slacked off. Cachat had done his duty, and done it to the full.

And now, even a fanatic was weary of such duty.

Cachat glanced around. Then, flushed a bit. "Oh. Well. Bad memories, I imagine. I once asked people here to name their replacements and—well. It all turned out a bit, ah, unpleasant."

Major Citizen happened to be standing right behind him. Diana leaned close and whispered into his ear: "You really don't want to know, Yuri. I mean, you really really really really don't want to know."

"Victor Cachat is the sweetest kid in the world! And you—" She was practically spitting like a cat. "You dirty rotten bastards! You were mean to him."

Michael Oversteegen's eyes were bloodshot in a drawn and weary face, but they blazed with triumph as Gauntlet's fire streaked towards the single surviving pirate cruiser. The idiots were sitting there with their wedge at standby, and it was obvious that they hadn't even bothered to man point defense stations!

He looked around his own bridge, counting the price his ship and crew had paid to reach this moment. Auxiliary Control was gone, and so was Environmental Two and Four, Damage Control Central, Boat Bay Two, and Communications One. Only two tubes and one graser remained operational in her forward chase armament, and none at all aft. Half her gravitics were gone, and her FTL com had been destroyed. Over thirty compartments were open to space, her surviving magazines were down to less than fifteen percent, and Fusion Two was in emergency shutdown.

Lieutenant Commander Abbott was dead, along with Commander Tyson and over twenty percent of Gauntlet's total crew, and Linda Watson and Shobhana Korrami were both among the many critically wounded in Anjelike Westman's sickbay. Barely a quarter of Gauntlet's after impeller ring—and only one of her after alpha nodes—were on line, and her forward impeller ring had taken so much damage that her maximum acceleration was barely two hundred gravities. Nine of her broadside missile tubes, six of her broadside graser mounts, and four of her sidewall generators had been reduced to wreckage, and there was no way in the galaxy he could take on yet another undamaged heavy cruiser and win.

But he and his people had already destroyed three of them, he thought grimly. If they had to, galaxy or no galaxy, they would damned well take out a fourth. Either way, there was no way he was going to abandon Refuge to the animals who had already slaughtered so many, and he had people of his own down there.

And so he'd come back anyway. Made his excruciatingly gradual alpha translation almost twenty light-minutes out, well beyond detection range from the inner system, and accelerated inward steadily. Now Gauntlet came roaring out of the dark at over fifty percent of light-speed, and every one of her surviving tubes spat missiles at the totally unsuspecting Predator.

It was over in a single salvo.

Hutch wrote:OK, more from the Short story "Fanatic"

"That f***head!" snarled Ned. "Me and him damn near came to it, once, in the mess room. Woulda, too, if the bastard hadn't backed off at the last minute. Too bad, I woulda—"

Yuri: "I will remind you that I've stressed—any number of times—the critical importance of keeping tensions between the regular military stationed on this ship and its StateSec complement to a bare minimum." He smiled easily. "Which I dare say having a Marine citizen sergeant pound a StateSec rating into a pulp—yes, Ned, I'm sure you woulda and coulda—might cut against."

--Conversation about a SS tech who comes to a bad end somewhat later--mostly for the italizied part.

Enquien jerked a nod. "Yes, Citi—uh, Sir. That's why I snuck out when she wasn't looking and came here." She hissed in a breath. "I'm scared, Sir. I think the Captain's really lost it."

Yuri sighed and shook his head. "I don't think she ever really had it, Enquien."

-About Citizen Captain Gallanti

"Just take a frickin' flechette gun, if you really need to splatter people wholesale," growled the StateSec sergeant, plucking a hand pulser out of the locker himself. "At least that way you won't blow any essential hardware apart, too! Or have you forgotten how to aim at anything smaller than a moon?"

--Sgts Rolla, on Ned Pierce's choices of weapons

"What took you so long, Assistant Special Investigator? I was beginning to wonder if you were slacking off again."

-Victor once again pushing Yuri's buttons.

And if you don't mind"—making clear by his tone that he didn't care if he did—"I prefer the title 'people's commissioner.' I don't really see where there's anything left to investigate, anyway."

Cachat stared at him. In the big display a capital ship could manage, the young fanatic seemed even larger than life.

Then, to Yuri's surprise, Cachat gave him a deep, slow nod. It had almost the sense of a ceremonial bow to it. And when his head lifted, for the first time since Yuri had met the man, Cachat's dark eyes seemed a warm brown instead of an iron black.

"Yes," said Cachat. "You have the right of it, Yuri Radamacher. Now do your duty, People's Commissioner."

--Just because I love the interaction

"Ned," Yuri heard Rolla complaining, "can't you do anything neatly? What do you use when you go fishing? Missiles?"

-Or the difference between a hand pulser and a fletchette gun...

If Yuri had had any doubts whether he loved Sharon Justice, she resolved them right then and there. She grinned at Pierce and said: "Sergeant, if you'll forgive me your poor knuckles, I'll forgive you my poor face. How's that?"

"I realize most of you—all of you, I imagine—consider me a fanatic. I neither accept the term, nor do I reject it. I am indifferent to your opinions, frankly. I swore an oath when I joined State Security to devote my life to the service of the Republic. I meant that oath when I gave it, and I have never once wavered in that conviction. Whatever I've done, to the best of my ability at the time and my gauge of the situation, was done in the interests of the people to whom I swore that oath. The people to whom I swore that oath, may I remind you. There is no mention of Oscar Saint-Just or any other individual in the StateSec oath of loyalty."

The square shoulders twitched again. "Oscar Saint-Just is dead, but the Republic remains. Certainly its people remain. So my oath still binds me, and under the current circumstances my duty seems clear to me."

--For my money, the best 'speech' Victor Cachat has ever made.

Almost done, one more post to go.

"I don’t care how many obsolete wallers he’s got in the Reserve; even he’s got to eventually figure out he’s running out of ships. Or out of trained crews to put aboard them, anyway!”

Some people might have worried that an officer of Thomas Theisman’s towering seniority would be tempted to do a little backseat driving, or at least kibitz, no matter whose flagship he was on. Yet what Honor tasted from him most clearly was something very like serenity, and she wondered if she’d ever be able to stand on someone else’s flag bridge at a moment like this without simply itching to start giving orders.

Hell, based on those sources, the woman had to be at least five meters tall, and she probably picked her teeth with a light cruiser!

He’d pulled out every scrap of data Eleventh Fleet had on Harrington…and come up with very little. Worse, most of what they did have on her were simply clippings from the standard news services, almost all of which had clearly been written by newsies who knew exactly zero about naval operations. They were basically fluff pieces about ‘the Salamander’ (who always had made good copy on a slow news day), with almost no hard data on her tactics or operational concepts but plenty of hyperbole.

Since the Battle of Spindle, he’d revised his estimate of all Manticoran officers significantly upward.

cthia wrote:What navy fails to scout the opposing navy and its probable commanders?
How can the SL not have anything on Harrington?

kzt wrote:

cthia wrote:What navy fails to scout the opposing navy and its probable commanders?
How can the SL not have anything on Harrington?

You really should look at the history of the USN intelligence vs the IJN prior to WW2. The IJN was the most likely opponent for the USN, and the USN really knew very little about the IJN's ships, training, operational traditions, weapon capabilities or leadership, and generally held them in total contempt.

This attitude paid off for the USN at Savo Island.