fb2ec8f
|
I bet you were a Boy Scout." "You are incomprehensible." "It's just a compliment."
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
3fc286d
|
Rock shrews. It had all started with damned rock shrews.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
e321aff
|
Darman was expert at his craft, too, but there was a sense of hard-won skill, and there was no randomness or mystery to that. She liked him for being so pragmatic. It crossed her mind that she might be saving clone soldiers from death by biological agent so they could die from blaster and cannon round. It was a horrible thought.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
5e602d0
|
I tell you this: think what you like, hate who you like, because that's between you and God, but you will act as the community requires, or the community will no longer require you.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
6d48b49
|
If you were a nomad, your nation traveled in your heart. And without the Mando heart, you had nothing -not even your soul- in whatever new conquest followed death
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
e238454
|
Oh, I'm coming too." BB rotated and moved in Naomi's direction. "A fragment of me will remain here to pilot the ship, but I'll transfer to the Mjolnir. We've never done this for real before, by the way. Have we, Naomi?" "Why now?" "Why not? I know I'm not your dedicated AI, but I can do anything Cortana can." Mal picked up a little rivalry there. He'd have to ask about Cortana later."
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
2fc3060
|
Nobody else in Special Operations knows about this, and I really don't want Skirata to know, because ... fine man though he might be, he does have an issue with Kaminoans. Any man who refers to them as tatsushi and actually boasts of recipes is probably best kept out of the loop. Dismissed." Scorch chuckled approvingly as they clunked their way down the corridor toward the mess with Maze at their heels. "You think Skirata would really eat a..
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
c26af19
|
BB didn't say a word. Maybe integrating into Naomi's systems had shut him up for once. Mal decided to keep a watchful eye on the relationship. Everyone was getting on fine: better than fine, in fact, a really close-knit and easy-going team. The last thing they needed was a Spartan saddled with an AI she didn't want. But that wasn't a problem he could solve, given that they were the two most advanced and expensive pieces of defense technolog..
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
53b0c93
|
They had nothing left to throw at Earth now, not unless the Forerunners decided to rise from the dead.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
99866eb
|
Success is everyone's child. Failure is an orphan." Omas smiled ruefully."
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
6239ef3
|
Real evil wasn't about bending the law to suit justice: evil was acting out of small, intensely personal expedience and losing sight of the bigger picture so often that you never got it back again.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
4318a32
|
savored the bizarre moment of epiphany; he had a sister, of sorts. And he had a wife, too, and a father, a legal one, and he had brothers. He was like any other man. The out-of-reach normal life that had tormented him was now fully his. It was wonderful, even if very few beings had a family as strife-prone, heavily armed, and bizarre as this. "But he never forgets his kids." "I always knew he'd come back."
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
b169a5c
|
Right then Niner didn't care if she had less idea of guerrilla warfare than a mott. She possessed one fundamental element of leadership that you couldn't teach in a lifetime: she cared about those she led. She had earned her rank on the strength of that alone.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
4408488
|
Buy'ce gal, buy'ce tal Vebor'ad ures alit Mhi draar baat'i meg'parjii'se Kote lo'shebs'ul narit A pint of ale, a pint of blood Buys men without a name We never care who wins the war So you can keep your fame --Popular drinking chant of Mandalorian mercenaries--approximate translation, edited for strong language
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
1566861
|
She understood that the Republic faced desperate times. She just wondered how many desperate measures that could justify. Somehow it seemed an affront to the Force to do this to fellow humans, even if they seemed remarkably sanguine about it.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
cc8b30f
|
Fett, I have a beautiful daughter...' He shouldn't have said that. Now I'm angry, and I don't often get angry. 'Never use your kids, scumbag. Never.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
6a1eff5
|
Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but memories.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
b90947b
|
She held her hand out to him. He hesitated for a moment and then reached across the table and took it. "We could be dead tomorrow, both of us," she said. "Or the next day, or next week. That's war." She thought of the other Fi, whose life had ebbed away in her arms. "And I don't want to die without telling you that I missed you every day since you left, and that I love you, and that I don't believe what I was taught about attachment any mor..
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
805e0cd
|
think what you like, hate who you like, because that's between you and God, but you will act as the community requires, or the community will no longer require you.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
5ceab28
|
This is how corruption begins. One small concession at a time. One thing you feel you have to do for a good reason.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
f92d935
|
What happens to people when they realize they're never going to die? Wow. The whole human existence is predicated on inevitable death.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
add480e
|
have to hand it to you, Esganikan. We put our boots on Earth soil less than fifteen minutes ago, and you've already offered to kick off a world war and pissed over all the diplomatic channels. Not bad. Give us another hour, and we can start Armageddon.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
52f6ba3
|
As she let the mirage of a distant ruined town lull her into a meditative state, she could detect both of them in her mind somehow, and they felt...similar. Both obsessive; both so committed to their mission that anything was permissible in completing it.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
cbe3edc
|
All that she was, and all that she would be in the future, was because a clone soldier had put such undeserved faith in her that she had become that Jedi he imagined she was.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
16ffa5c
|
For some reason that hurt most of all. If these kids didn't know their culture and what made someone a Mando, then they had no purpose, no pride, and nothing to hold them and their clan together when home wasn't a piece of land. If you were a nomad, your nation traveled in your heart. And without the Mando heart, you had nothing--not even your soul--in whatever new conquest followed death. Skirata knew at that moment what he had to do. He h..
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
37d0a3c
|
And he explained that there was no Mandalorian word for "hero." It was only not being one that had its own word: Hut'uun."
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
73bd49a
|
You ever worked with Wookiees?" The commandos shook their heads, wide-eyed. "Well, everything you've heard is true."
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
452d932
|
The man hesitated and then reached across to shake Ordo's hand, surrendering soft pale civilian fingers to a black gauntlet. The look on his face said clearly that he hadn't expected to find flesh and blood inside the droid-like shell, or to retrieve his hand uncrushed afterward. "My pleasure, sir," Ordo said. It was unusually quiet in the EasyRide after that. At least the reality had registered on them."
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
a39cff0
|
But there hadn't been one day since she had parted from Omega Squad on Qiilura nine months ago that she hadn't agonized over the use of soldiers who had no choice, no rights, and no future in the Republic that they gave their lives to defend. It was wrong.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
d76e949
|
dwelling on life's restrictions didn't do much for anyone's morale.
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |
64d5d96
|
didn't have a mother or a father, but a stranger willingly chose me to be his son. You had a mother and father, and they let strangers take you. No, General, don't pity me. You're the one who's had the worse deal." It was shocking and it was true. The extraordinary clarity of his assessment hit her so hard that she almost gasped. It told her things she didn't want to know about herself. None of them changed her intentions."
|
|
|
Karen Traviss |