Columbus Day Quotes
"There we were, innocently drifting along in the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days."
"What a shit job that was, I was happy to be home in the States."
"Hell, I didn’t want to be there anymore, that’s why I joined the Army in the first place."
"We shouldn’t even be fighting the Ruhar, they aren’t our enemy, our allies are."
"The life also appealed to me, I loved the outdoors; camping, hunting, fishing, hiking, canoeing."
"Peacekeeping duty in Nigeria wasn’t what I would have wished for, but we got orders, and I went."
"The Thuranin are the patron species of the Kristang."
"The greater the level of a nation's technology, the worse it was hit by the crisis."
"Being American, the world’s only superpower, strongest military force in history, it was hard to think of ourselves in the role of the native primitives."
"The Kristang said we weren't ready, that we couldn't be trusted with their level of technology."
"Damn, it was good to get the band back together!"
"We were going into battle with none of the hoped-for enhancements."
"If you want to brag about getting laid, you can brag about getting laid, or you can actually get laid. It's real simple."
"I had a great team, and we were honing ourselves for battle with an enemy that had threatened our home planet."
"The Ruhar call it, some damned thing, but we’re calling it Butt-scratch-istan."
"This was an experiment, a bright idea from Division."
"Avoid concentrating your forces, and keep cover as much as possible."
"The Rules weren't focused on protecting soldiers or civilians on either side, there was no alien equivalent to the Geneva Conventions for space warfare."
"The incredible technology of the Maxohlx and the Rindhalu did not extend to creating, or even operating, the wormholes that made long-range interstellar flight practical."
"We are going to show the Kristang that the United Nations Expeditionary Forces are disciplined, competent, and ready to take on combat operations in the future."
"Long-term, it was cheaper and more effective to avoid making more enemies, than it was to kill enemies."
"If you know anything about history, you know these kinds of hearts and minds campaigns have, let’s say, a mixed record."
"We call it a hamvee, it’s like the old humvee on Earth, only it’s leftover hamster vehicles."
"You don’t have to be nice to these hamsters, but don’t try to intimidate them."
"Yes, sir. We've got this." I didn't have to like it. That's why they are called 'orders' and not ‘suggestions'.
"If I said this was November Golf," which was No Go in Army slang, "would it make any difference?"
"I am Sergeant Joe Bishop." I said, and put my teabag into a cup. It was a lot less elegant than the way she'd made tea.
"Allies? Alliances are for equals. The Kristang are your patrons, and you are their client species. Their pets. Or slaves."
"We did not wish to contaminate your planet, and cause deaths and suffering needlessly."
"You may think your fifteen minutes of fame entitles you to special treatment, but that's a November Golf, you got that?"
"We need to be prepared to defend this planet on our own."
"We didn't encounter any trouble from the Ruhar, other than minor, annoying and random acts of sabotage here and there."
"I interpreted those as hamsters giving the finger to UNEF."
"Some of the Ruhar families had been here for three generations."
"Fort Arrow even had a large swimming pool, the best feature of which was being able to see female soldiers in swim suits."
"Unfortunately, not one single damned time that I went to the Fort Arrow Dining Facility were they making cheeseburgers."
"Meat of any kind seemed to be getting in short supply on Paradise."
"Sure, spinach is a good cheap source of protein, and it was tasty enough when I loaded my salad up with walnuts and croutons, but sometimes a soldier wants a hunk of meat to chew on."
"It was a good day, away from the base, out in the bush, exploring something new, nobody shooting at me."
"Shading my eyes, I looked up to check the position of the sun."
"My zPhone gave a strangled squawk and went silent."
"We're going to keep them busy and off balance and hit them whenever we can, buy time for the Kristang task force to get back here."
"The situation on Earth has become worse, much worse."
"We're just crunchies under the treads of their tanks."
"We need to stop thinking that we're allies of the Kristang, and realize we're just native troops they can use as cannon fodder."
"UNEF needs to stop thinking of any grand ambitions out here, and focus on survival."
"If we're going to have any survival options, I'd better get back to planting potatoes. Lots and lots of potatoes."
"All the determination and human spirit in the universe wouldn't mean a damned thing if they could hit us, and we couldn't reach them."
"The whole situation on Paradise was precarious; the Kristang still held the high ground."
"The only thing we have left out here is our humanity, and I'm not giving that up."
"I wasn't only a publicity stunt, I was a real colonel in the US Army."
"I didn't do squat, Olafson. There was a team of soldiers who defended the Launcher."
"Nothing in my training had prepared me for this fucked up situation."
"We volunteered to come here, and now that we're here, we have to make the best of it."
"I did what I thought was the right thing."
"The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time."
"A soldier in battle needs to know he can count on his comrades."
"I'm not showing off, if that's what you're asking."
"The ability to accept new information, new concepts, to not run away screaming or become paralyzed when confronted with shocking changes, is unfortunately too rare among intelligent species."
"You think I need to hack into the lizard's computer to screw with their jump drive? No way, dude! I'm going to distort spacetime at the last picosecond, so their jump drive field skews off course."
"I've been watching you, and listening to you, through your zPhone. I've been monitoring every human, hamster and lizard on or near this planet."
"Skippy, come on, I need time to think about this."
"We can't have that. What assets do they have on and around Earth?"
"Affirmative, I have cancelled the jump away countdown."
"Holy shit." I had thought satellites would be wimpy things.
"Oh, very naughty! Two of the satellites are preparing to fire on a city called Mumbai."
"I pounded my fist down on the Big Red Button in anger."
"We need to keep that troop ship, but that damned frigate I'd like to jump into the Sun."
"Done." Skippy announced. "Kristang population is now seven hundred twenty one."
"Right now, I imagine they are too busy pissing in their pants to think about doing anything else."
"And over a thousand Kristang dead, on the planet."
"If what we'd heard about the situation on Earth, what the lizards had been doing to people and the biosphere was true, then the lizards' whole species could go fuck itself."
"Madame President, this is colonel, I mean, sergeant, Joe Bishop."
"Unfortunately, your colleagues think you are also one of the great assholes of the twenty first century."
"You rub everyone you work with the wrong way."
"People on this mission must not only be among the best in their field, they also must get along with other people, in close quarters."
"Your only qualification for the mission is that you're, meh, slightly smarter than the average monkey."
"I’ll make sure to send you a postcard. It will say ‘Having a great time, glad you’re not here.'"
"American arrogance is astonishing. Your country is not a super power in space, yet you act as if-"
"Joe is the only one of your under-developed species who treats me as a being, as a person, right from the start."
"Joe gave me a name. I've only ever had a designation before."
"A machine can't be an asshole, only a person can."
"The only difference between Joe and you, is that Joe is like the dog looking through the windshield, and you’re the dog hanging your head out the window."
"Joe is the only one... who treats me as a person, as an equal."
"It's not whether we are likely to get home again, it's whether it's possible at all."
"I need to do this, you understand? I need to know who I am, where I came from."
"Everything's fine, Joe, no problems with the ship."