A Rising Thunder – Snippet 22
“Try this scenario. The Navy wants our assistance in carrying out its attack on Manticore. Maybe they want the BSDF to participate actively, or maybe they just want to use the Junction to threaten Manticore from the rear and expect us to help with the necessary ship movements. Anyway, whatever they want, they tell us about it, and we turn them down. Under Article Five of the Constitution, we can refuse to place the System-Defense Force under federal control unless the League’s formally at war, and the Beowulf Terminus of the Junction is outside the twelve-minute limit, which means it’s not ‘our’ property to dispose of, anyway. They might not want to buy that interpretation, especially given our treaty with Manticore, but technically Beowulf Astro Control is a chartered private company, not an official organ of our government, and it leases the terminus from its Manticoran discoverers. So we’ve got plenty of wiggle room to keep the lawyers happy for the odd decade or two if they try to push it. Which means that if we do turn them down, refuse to cooperate, we can legitimately argue we’re within our rights under the Constitution.
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Dog And Dragon – Snippet 01
Dog And Dragon
Dave Freer
CHARACTERS
PRINCIPAL
Meb/Scrap/Anghared The heroine of Dragon’s Ring, transported back to Lyonesse. A mage of power but no experience.
Finn/Fionn The black dragon, planomancer and trouble.
Díleas A black and white sheepdog of great intelligence and vast loyalty, whose name means “faithful.”
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The Road Of Danger – Snippet 62
CHAPTER 17: Above Sunbright
“Extracting in five seconds…,” Daniel shouted. Everybody was in the cabin, but he wanted to be sure that Edmonson and Blemberg could hear him even though they were wearing the hard suits.
He mashed the button with both thumbs, a habit dating back to his first real insertion on the training vessel Ganges. He had been worried that the execute button would stick–as every cable and antenna in the ancient battleship’s rigging seemed to–and was determined not to allow that to go wrong. “Extracting!”
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A Rising Thunder – Snippet 21
Although his official title was simply Secretary of the Planetary Board of Directors, the red-haired, blue-eyed Pinder-Swun was actually the Vice Chairman and CEO of the system government. He was a little unusual for someone of his exalted political position in that he’d come late to politics, and then through the Chamber of Professions, rather than the Chamber of Shareholders. One of Beowulf’s leading physicists before his “temporary” election to the Chamber of Professions some twenty T-years before, he still cherished the illusion that he would someday be allowed to return to his beloved research. Everyone else knew that wasn’t going to happen.
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The Road Of Danger – Snippet 61
He looked up at the ship owner. “Nothing against you, mum,” he said, “but I might not’ve made the run this time without Petrov promised us a bonus if we’d….”
He must have been very tired to have said that, Daniel thought as West stopped speaking with his mouth open. He seemed frozen, afraid to turn his head for fear of seeing either Daniel or Hogg.
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A Rising Thunder – Snippet 20
Chapter Seven
“Excuse me, Sir, but an Admiral Simpson is on the com. She’s asking for a priority appointment with you.”
“Admiral Simpson?”
Gabriel Caddell-Markham, the Director of Defense for the Beowulf Planetary Board of Directors, arched an eyebrow at Timothy Sung, his personal aide, whose holo image floated above the director’s desktop com. It had taken Caddell-Markham years to master the art of moving only one eyebrow while the other remained motionless. Despite his wife Joanna’s more or less tolerant amusement at the affectation (the acquisition of which she ascribed to his many, many years in starship commands with no useful skills to spend his time mastering), he’d actually found it quite handy since he’d resigned from the Beowulf System Defense Force to pursue a political career.
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The Road Of Danger – Snippet 60
“I have shares in two or three,” Osorio said casually, “but the real profit comes from blockade running if you have enough capital to buy merchandize. And to accept the occasional run of bad luck.”
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The Road Of Danger – Snippet 59
Lindstrom, though, frowned and said, “Look, Pensett, we’re not RCN, you know, even if you are. I’m not sure–”
“What I’m not sure about, mistress,” Daniel said, “is what these yobbos on the Estremadura are going to do if they find an ex-RCN officer on a blockade runner. I don’t worry about a trip to Westerbeke, but instead it just might be a dive out an airlock without a suit. And if they space me, well–”
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A Rising Thunder – Snippet 19
Which meant, as her listeners understood perfectly well, the tribute extracted from OFS’s empire of protectorate star systems. That particular revenue stream was scarcely what anyone might have called enormous compared to the League’s overall economy, but it was stupendous in absolute terms, and it belonged entirely to the League’s bureaucracies. That was one reason — indeed, the reason, really — Frontier Security had been allowed to build its empire in the first place. And, of course, it was also the primary reason nothing could be permitted to undermine the League’s grip on the protectorates, which had been the entire reason for the belligerent policy which had gotten them into this mess in the first place.
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The Road Of Danger – Snippet 58
Her smile slipped. She did very much want to lift off. If the Princess Cecile had been ready to lift when the cruiser made for Daniel, Adele would have done so immediately, regardless of her cover as Principal Hrynko. As it was, all she could do at the moment was to determine what had happened. Later she would right it, if possible.
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