Space Opera Quotes - Page 2

She didn’t want to be the savior of humanity. She never had. She didn’t want to be the vanguard—of destruction or salvation. What she had really wanted was to be a girl whose father lived to show her the stars.Instead she had been left to wander them alone. Until she discovered someone who saw the stars as she did.

An eerie, chilling voice interrupted him to reverberate through the house. “You believe you are safe, but you will never be safe from me. My reach is limitless, my capabilities legion. Sleep fitfully and avoid the shadows, for know that I am coming for you. When I arrive, you will pay for what you did.

We—humanity—didn’t come this far by being afraid. Explorers and visionaries have willingly headed off to certain death for thousands of years and by doing so brought us to where we are today. No one has ever told us ‘no’ and succeeded in making it stick for long.We accede to these aliens’ demands and we’ll wither away. It may take centuries or even millennia, but we’ll be so busy cowering in fear we’ll forget to move forward.I say we fight.

It was killing him, seeing her this way. She was not meant to be uncertain, timid or fearful; the woman he knew exuded confidence so fiercely it might as well be a damn spiritual aura. He needed to fix this. “It’s time to adjust your perspective. You want to show the politicians on Earth they don’t rule the galaxy? Well, let’s show them.

2 SECONDSHe was on her in an instant to brace her against the wall. She kicked and clawed at her unseen attacker, skin and irises ablaze in caustic gold. She fired anew, and the point-blank shot broke through his defenses, grazing his hip. He ignored the harsh sting to bring his Daemon up between them.1 SECOND

He simply preferred the sensation of soil beneath his feet and wind in his hair, of fresh, non-recycled air which carried on it the scent and taste of life. He preferred what was solid and real, where if you could see it you could touch it, feel its texture between the tips of your fingers. As far as he knew, no one had ever touched a star. Not even her.

Alone for a few precious seconds, he drew in a deep breath. He stood on a ruined street in a ruined city. Destruction stretched for kilometers in every direction, all caused by a single man for whom vengeance had devolved into madness.

As a rule of thumb, it was always safer if the Commander-in-Chief formulated a risky plan.

So that’s why I say ‘never have anything you can’t walk away from.’ Especially a woman. For them, because this is a dangerous life we lead and you never know if or when it will blow back on those close to you.""And for you, because trust me when I tell you there exists no greater perdition than the guilt of causing the death of someone you love.

Yes, she loved her ship more than she had loved him. But what she loved even more was what it gave her: freedom, and the key to the marvels of space. It gave her the stars, and she doubted she could ever love anything or anyone more than she loved the stars.

Why? Why did you kill them?”He laughed, recognizing it bore a frightening coldness. “Because you walked through the wrong door, and they paid you to do it. You will be a testament to the terror that arrives the moment you or anyone else crosses the invisible line you didn’t know existed until tonight. Spread the word.

Evening had turned the sky a deep persimmon. The remaining sunlight enriched the colors of the ubiquitous flowers and foliage to even greater vibrancy, as if the saturation filter had been notched up several levels.Caleb noted all this in passing as he strode deliberately forward. He didn’t know how he was going to do this, only that he had to make the attempt.

Personally, I could care less about how people chose their graves. What I do care about is that I don’t want to be dragged along into one, especially by someone who has already lived their life to the fullest.

If there was anything the last year had taught her—if there was anything Caleb had taught her, the Metigen War had taught her—it was that perspective was everything. If you wanted to understand your enemy, you must understand that they were the hero in their own story.

All these years that I had been waiting for him to return, I had been too anxious and somewhat insecure to develop any plan of action. I had scrupulously avoided giving any thought to it until the time to tackle things head-on arrived, so now I was suffering the consequences of my own indecisiveness. But in all seriousness, what steady plan could there be in matters of the heart?

It's only crazy if we fail.

He wasn’t going to be able to deactivate the field, which meant there was only one choice.He’d realized early on that his arcane, profoundly alien passenger came with a cost, possibly one too high to pay and get out the other side free and clear. He’d pay it nonetheless and without complaint if the diati would only come through for him now.Caleb closed his eyes.

Do you love me?” His voice rang flat in his own ears, deadened and weighted with the recognition there was only one chance, and a fool’s chance at that

Glacier blue plasma rippled and sparked across the interior of the portal. “It seems keeping secrets is what you do.”“Secrets are merely the necessary means. Survival is the end goal. Survival of ourselves, survival of species who do not deserve to be eradicated from the universe. Survival of the universe itself.”“Survival’s noble and all, but what good is it without the freedom to live as you choose?”“A question you have the luxury to ask because you survive.

I’ll do whatever I can to help guarantee this plan succeeds, and I’ll try to make sure I’m in the right place at the right time.” “The right place and time for what?”“If I knew that, ma’am, I probably wouldn’t need to be there.

A pulse. Beat-beating against her palm. Alive. Beat by beat the bottomless whirlwind of perceptions and data and images and sensations careening through her mind—so many how can this tiny skull hold them all—began to abate in time to the rhythm of not her pulse, but his.

He wanted to grind every Federation world into dust beneath his boot as his army blazed a trail of blood and corpses all the way to Seneca.He wanted to storm their inner sanctum and fire a laser into the skull of their Field Marshal while their Chairman watched, then fire a laser into the skull of their Chairman.He wanted to burn their bodies on a pyre and carry the ashes back to Deucali and spread them on his mother’s consecrated grave.

The alien reached out her hands to hold Alex’s tightly. “Please. Some of what I want to express, it may be difficult to locate the right words.”“Of course.”Pure alabaster eyes stared back at her. “Child, there is a hole in your mind.

There's not a hell of a lot of difference between bravery and stupidity." - Commander Boaz Aurigae

In that moment, she hated his quiet patient tone, hated the stench of the incense, and hated the beauteous pity painted on the faces of the women on the walls. Their expressions contained serene understanding; their eyes seemed able to peer into her soul. She found their forgiveness suffocating. And above all, she hated the tiny niggling thing in her that wanted to know more.

The Novoloume gazed in interest around the cabin. “So the whispers are true—Kats, SAIs and Humans have come to join with the anarchs in a quest to save us all.”Felzeor returned to Caleb’s outstretched arm and leaned in to nuzzle his nose. “What a grand quest it’s sure to be!

Thing to know about the Reaches....It’s always trying to kill you. Even the empty places between the stars."Asher Corsair, Allies and Enemies: Rogues

Because we were the good guys. We were in the right. The universe looks out for people who act with honor in furtherance of an honorable cause. It must, or we never would have gotten this far as a species.”“We won—this little conflict and a thousand like it—because we were destined to win. The universe will allow no other outcome.

It is an edged cliché that the world is most pleasant in the years of a Waning Sun. It is true that the weather is not so driven, that everywhere there is a sense of slowing down, and most places experience a few years where the summers do not burn and the winters are not yet overly fierce. It is the classic time of romance. It's a time that seductively beckons higher creatures to relax, postpone. It's the last chance to prepare for the end of the world.

Alex thrust her hand and half her arm into the labyrinth of light. Her stare blanked, and in the halo of the matrix her eyes and glyphs blazed so radiantly she looked as if she were being consumed by a primordial fire.“She just stuck her hand into Machim Command’s central server matrix!”Caleb smiled, watching on in blatant awe. “She does that.

As the sky began to darken she sank down in the chair. She had just watched over a thousand Alliance soldiers die in the space of less than a minute. Yet the encounter would be considered a victory, for the enemy was vanquished. But at such a cost. She considered what Alex had asked of her…and began to understand.

He was terrified he was making the wrong choice. He relied on his instincts in his work but now he didn’t dare trust them. The wound of betrayal still burned raw in his chest and another cut might be the killing blow.But it was the end of the world and there may be no more second chances.

I wouldn't be your best and most marvelous friend in the galaxy if I didn’t point out there might be a few negative consequences from all…” she gazed upward and twirled her hand in the air “…this.

She settled back in the chair and draped one leg casually over the other, her hands coming to rest together on her knee.“Arrest me. Torture me. Parade me about in the public square. You will have your prize catch. And you will lose everything.

You daughter is prudish?” There was a gleam of triumph in Helena Winter’s face. Fee grimaced. Prudish? No, not that she could claim. Far too mild a word for what she felt.

Follow the plan until it goes to shit, and then kill everything that isn’t human.

You’re insane.”“It’ll work.”“Which does not alter the fact that you are insane.

Noah gave an exaggerated eye roll. “Just out of curiosity, is this the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?”“It wouldn’t be fair to rank them.” Caleb gunned the engine.

They flew high above savanna grassland. The sky was the deep cornflower blue of a sunny late afternoon on Earth…exactly the color of a sunny late afternoon on Earth.Only there was no sun. Whatever was lighting this planet, it wasn’t a star.

Individuals reacted in any number of ways to extreme stress and, relatedly, to impending death.A non-negligible percentage of people reacted in a manner which could be summed up by, ‘Screw it, I’m going out in style!

There were things she wanted to say, but they were all jumbled up in her head and if she tried they’d come out backwards and mixed up and wrong. There were things she needed to say, but she was hanging on by a fraying thread and feared if she tried the thread would break, sending her plummeting alone into the abysm.There were things she would have to say, but they should wait for later. After.

He did not have time to wallow, to give a moment’s thought to what may have happened to her or whether she was alive.Turn into the punch, grab hold of the gun, leap into the arena. Attack.He had to move. Now.

She burst into her hotel room pulling her blouse over her head with one hand while she yanked her shoes off with the other. No way was she going to face an alien invasion in heels and silk.

Crushed sandstone sifted through Caleb’s fingers, insubstantial as dust. A breeze caught the debris mid-fall and spirited it away before it could join the ashes blanketing the ground. He stopped in the middle of what had once been a street, his arms pulled in at his sides, his fists balled in barely restrained fury.

Brother Cavil: In all your travels, have you ever seen a star go supernova? ...I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the Universe. Other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself! I was there. I wanted to see it and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air. ...I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to - I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the wind of a supernova flowing over me! I'm a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way!

You look like you’ve been on a month-long bender. Have you?”“No, Ken, I have not. I’ve just had a long week.” Walked the streets of a city bathed in blood and stood amid a hundred thousand corpses. Negotiated a three-way peace treaty among opposing factions of a warring alien species who’d previously held me captive. Bullied the Metigen leadership into doing my bidding. Found out we’re not the real humans, and the real humans are currently enslaving the real universe. Oh, and I think I’m addicted to my ship. How was your week? “Nothing a shower and some food won’t fix.

Reluctantly, we had already accepted every challenge at the moment we were born. And as long as we live, we have no right to give up. For we, or at least someone very similar to us, already died once, long ago in a faraway place.

If her daughter’s ship had been disintegrated in space there would never be evidence of it, never an answer to what had happened to her.If she stopped to ponder the implications she might break. And Admiral Miriam Solovy did not break.

What do you want me to do? Arrest them all?” “When you can, absolutely.” “And when I can’t?” “Do whatever is necessary to remove their ability to act against us—against humanity.” “You mean kill them.” Her expression darkened in what he sensed was sorrow, but her shoulders rose. “If that’s what it takes.

Well what would you have us do, Jason? Swan into a hardware store without any cash and say “give us your best rack or we’ll set the adorable button-nosed robots on you for bunny-boiler death by cuddling?" Jared Thomas in Red Gods Sing

I saw the Earth, yes. I saw the colors so magnificent, so vivid, so real. It was hope so large and round, green and blue.

Alex peered behind her to see Noah fussing over a scrape on Kennedy’s cheek. “Unless someone’s bleeding to death, first aid will have to wait. You’ll want to strap into the jump seats. “This could get interesting, and that’s before we get clear of the station.

He made sure his tone remained casual. He was trying to keep his son unaware of the encroaching alien invasion for as long as he could, be it another day or another hour. Once innocence was lost it was never regained.So he took his son fishing and strolled along the river and pretended as though the galaxy wasn’t on fire.

This is what I hate most about guys like you. You didn't even try.

How long you been in the infantry, sir? Anything under ten miles counts as 'almost there'.

It all goes aroundIt all goes aroundThe planet goes around the sunIt all goes aroundMy mother said it all goes aroundIt all goes aroundThe ship goes around the station

May they run free forever and grow back their limbs!

Narrow, angular features, pouty lips and hatred-filled pale, washed-out blue irises glared back at him.Caleb flashed the young man a malevolent smirk and readied his blade. “Jude Winslow, I presume.

The system is only as good as its leaders. When they fail—when the system fails—you better damn well hope I’m there to pick up the slack.”The man’s glower lost some of its fervor. “No one appointed you humanity’s protector.”“No one had to—and if you don’t understand why that is, then you’re not nearly the man I was told you are. I’m leaving now, and I’m going to assume we’re done. But if you threaten me again, you had better bring help.

Anyone who tells you life has greater value when it comes with an expiration date is full of shit. Immortality is worth the fortunes of galaxies.”She regarded him too intently. “But it’s not worth everything. You gave it up for your freedom.”His forced bravado faltered. That truth still petrified him today. “I did.