Honorverse favorite one-liners

NortonIDaughter wrote:Reminded of this one on another thread... the old Sphinx saying: The Crown rules only in consultation with the 'cats.

Behind every successful man stands a woman in consultation.

Atop every successful ruler sits a treecat bleeking.

There was an athletic grace to her carriage and an apparent assurance at odds with her youth, and she avoided collisions with ease as she made her way through the people filling the gallery, almost as if she were performing some sort of free-form dance.

Had that been all Shelton had been able to discern about her, he would probably have put her down (provisionally and a bit hopefully) as somewhat above the average of the young gentlemen and ladies senior Navy noncoms were expected to transform from pigs' ears into silk purses.

For a few more seconds he allowed himself to hope that she might walk right past War Maiden to the ship she actually sought, or that she might be lost. But any possibility of dodging the pulser dart faded as she walked straight over to the heavy cruiser's tube.

cthia wrote:Ok, another glaringly gaping ghastly gap in my understanding.

I travel frequently. This passage reminds me of walking through airport terminals. But something seems out of sync. Airplanes are nowhere near the size of Superdreadnaughts. In fact they are nowhere near the size of Heavy Cruisers, which is War Maiden. Yet in airports--LAX and London Heathrow, UK, quickly comes to mind--the terminals are huge, and one doesn't merely walk from one slip to another, one...hikes! Or, if available (yea right) one rides the motorized carts. Yet this passage implies that the abutting of such huge ships are fairly close. Closer even than what can be managed of a 727 jumbo jet. How can this be? Considering the size of Heavy Cruisers and other considerations, it seems that Honor would have had to ride to the next ship's slip.

Werrf wrote:

cthia wrote:Ok, another glaringly gaping ghastly gap in my understanding.

I travel frequently. This passage reminds me of walking through airport terminals. But something seems out of sync. Airplanes are nowhere near the size of Superdreadnaughts. In fact they are nowhere near the size of Heavy Cruisers, which is War Maiden. Yet in airports--LAX and London Heathrow, UK, quickly comes to mind--the terminals are huge, and one doesn't merely walk from one slip to another, one...hikes! Or, if available (yea right) one rides the motorized carts. Yet this passage implies that the abutting of such huge ships are fairly close. Closer even than what can be managed of a 727 jumbo jet. How can this be? Considering the size of Heavy Cruisers and other considerations, it seems that Honor would have had to ride to the next ship's slip.

I doubt there's just an open hallway between each boarding slip. Even in a terminal, there are all kinds of facilities around each gate - shops, bathrooms and the like. Each boarding slip probably has all kinds of other facilities around it to make use of the space that otherwise would be wasted. He's probably hoping she's walking to one of those facilities, or from one of them to a transport tube or what have you.

Still, he had to wonder if someone who sounded as young as she looked would ever be able to generate a proper snap of command.

cthia wrote:Changer of Worlds

Still, he had to wonder if someone who sounded as young as she looked would ever be able to generate a proper snap of command.

Well I guess she wound up not having too much trouble with that after all...

I have a new one! From SoS and the Battle of Monica:

His people were doing their best, but seven weeks of combined simulator and hands-on training wasn't enough. It wasn't second nature to them, wasn't instinctive. The slight hesitation in their responses, the friction in the decision loops, might not have been apparent against another Verge navy. But he didn't face another Verge navy. He faced the Royal Manticoran Navy, and that was a mistake few survived.

...and then Venizelos was down on one knee, and the last thing she ever saw of him he was firing steadily, calmly, like a man picking off targets in a gallery, covering her retreat while she ran and left him to die.

And then he saw Shannon Foraker's right hand come out of her lap and move slowly, almost stealthily, towards her panel. Something about its movement caught at his attention, and he crossed quietly to stand behind her. She heard him and looked up, and her hand moved away from the "ERASE" key even more slowly—and far more reluctantly—than it had come.

Tourville gazed down over her shoulder at the tactical recording she'd been replaying, and his jaw clenched as he saw what she'd seen: two pieces of wreckage, larger than most of the others, and on a vector which had clearly taken them away from the murdered battlecruiser before she exploded. A vector which just happened to look very much like an unpowered reentry course.

He looked at them for another long moment, rubbing his fierce mustache with one finger. Shannon's drone had seen them, but it was highly unlikely Hades' EMP-blinded sensors had picked them up in time, and with the destruction of the "fleeing" pinnace, no one would even think to look for them. He felt a deep flicker of admiration for whoever had thought this one up, but he knew what his duty required of him.

Yes, I know what "duty" requires, he thought, and reached down past Shannon's shoulder to press his own finger firmly on the "ERASE" key. He heard Shannon inhale sharply, saw her head twitch, but she didn't say a word, and he turned away from her panel. He walked across to where Honeker and Bogdanovich stood, both still staring in awe at the visual imagery of the spreading pattern of wreckage relayed by Shannon's drone, and cleared his throat.

"Too bad," he said gravely, and the sound of his voice startled Honeker into turning to look at him. "There can't be any survivors," Tourville told his commissioner, and shook his head regretfully. "Too bad . . . Lady Harrington deserved better than that."