“And how many people do you think you can pluck off the streets before people start noticing?”
“Approximately 350.”
Chef’s dad: It stood above us looking down with these big red eyes…
Chef’s mom: Oh it was so scary!
Chef’s dad: And I yelled, I said “What do you want from us monster?!”
And the monster bent down and said “I need about treefiddy.”
Five thousand quatloos that the newcomers will have to be destroyed.
The National Guard has been called out, fully armed. to repel the invader. This is full-scale war against a terrible enemy… such as modern man has never before faced. Ordinary bullets have no effect… and a method of destroying the awesome creature… has not yet been formulated.
The Invaders: alien beings from a dying planet. Their destination: the Earth. Their purpose: to make it their world. David Vincent has seen them. For him, it began one lost night on a lonely country road, looking for a shortcut that he never found. It began with a closed deserted diner, and a man too long without sleep to continue his journey. It began with the landing of a craft from another galaxy. Now, David Vincent knows that the Invaders are here, that they have taken human form.
There’s an international treaty saying that no country can lay claim to anything that’s not on Earth. By another treaty if you’re not in any country’s territory, maritime law applies. So, Mars is international waters. Now, NASA is an American non-military organization, it owns the Hab. But the second I walk outside I’m in international waters. So here’s the cool part. I’m about to leave for the Schiaparelli Crater where I’m going to commandeer the Ares IV lander. Nobody explicitly gave me permission to do this, and they can’t until I’m on board the Ares IV. So, I’m going to be taking a craft over in international waters without permission, which by definition makes me a pirate. Mark Watney: Space Pirate.
On Earth, they’re calling you a hero.
“If you want to reward people who truly demonstrated valor above and beyond the call of duty, you ought to be giving any medals to Horace Harkness. Unlike myself, he faced only incarceration, not execution, when we reached Hell, and he knew it. But he also chose, entirely without orders, to pretend to defect. He knowingly risked virtually certain execution if he was caught in order to break into the central computers of Cordelia Ransom’s flagship, arrange all the critical details of our escape to the planetary surface, and completely destroy Tepes to cover our escape. I submit to you, Your Grace, that if you and Her Majesty want to award a PMV to anyone, Harkness is the most deserving individual you could possibly find.”
Captain Jack Harkness, shame on you! Stand at attention!
Some prudent part of Miles’ mind took notice of what she looked like when she was really angry, for future reference.
“He needed Gustav Adolf here to squelch the admiral, who was making loud noises by then about reducing the rest of Copenhagen to rubble if his lieutenant wasn’t goddamit produced on his flagship right fucking now. Even then, Gustav had to do some truly imperial squelching before the admiral shut up.”
“Belgium” is the rudest word in the universe, which is completely banned in all parts of the Galaxy, except in one part, where they could not possibly know what it means.
What the yotz?
Still, when one of the other Flarehawks in the squadron blew up, my first instinct was to screech various words I hoped the Colonel wasn’t listening to while I hauled blindly on the control yoke.
“What?” he demanded.
“Those three shuttles from Charon just blew the hell up, Sir,” she said quietly.
“What do you mean?” Bogdanovich demanded from behind Tourville.
“I mean they’re gone, Sir. Their drive strengths peaked, and then they blew.”
Every flying machine has four basic controls: Roll, pitch, yaw, and thrust. If you can figure those out, you can fly.
We tried it once your way, Khan, are you game for a rematch? Khan? I’m laughing at the superior intellect!
He robbed from the rich and he gave to the poor.
Stood up for the man and he gave them what for.
Our love for him now ain’t hard to explain:
The Hero of Canton, the man they call Jayne!
Wait a minute, does he have the right to give us away? He just stole us from his dead uncle.
You don’t just give up. You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand! You say no! You have the guts to do what’s right, even when everyone else just runs away.