Quotessence
Home / Authors / G.S. Jennsen

G.S. Jennsen Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

Famous G.S. Jennsen Quotes

“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.”

“Solum invoked a sensation akin to lingering déjà vu in the wake of a dream. It was not Earth. Its city-planet architectural stylings hid the outline of continents that might have otherwise been recognizable and altered the vibrant blue-and-green color palette enough to erase any familiarity in its silhouette. Yet if you tilted your head just so and let your gaze unfocus a little, you could almost see Earth. Its echo, its memory.”

“We can assume that by now the Rasu have captured and analyzed zettabytes of government data from Namino. There’s zero chance they don’t possess the locations of every Dominion world. Why haven’t they attacked us somewhere else yet?” An uneasy silence answered Maris. Nika was reluctant to break it, but hiding from the truth did them no good. “Because the Rasu don’t fear us.” Dashiel frowned at her. “But we destroyed their entire presence in this galaxy.” “We did. And by now, they realize that we accomplished it using smoke and mirrors and are unlikely to be able to replicate the feat anytime soon. They don’t fear us, which means they can afford to take their time, methodically dismantling our civilization block by block, then planet by planet.” Lance arched an eyebrow. “Then we need to make them fear us again.”

“Chaos that closely resembled panic awaited. Shuttles raced to the presumed safety of the planet below while fighters crisscrossed the perimeter of the station. Platoon-sized formations of frigates and several cruisers formed up and accelerated away. To where the approaching attackers were located? She didn’t give a damn what her mother said in public. This was a bona fide insurrection.”

“Nisi flashed his charismatic, mysterious smile. “Now, with this in mind, are you ready to take the next step?” Despite Caleb’s attempts at caution—at circumspection and even suspicion—the man’s words stirred his blood. They teased the possibilities of the power within his reach, real power extending far beyond parlor tricks and personal protection to a place where the course of life itself could be changed. “I am.”

“The Anadens have a somewhat different perspective on death.” “On account of not having to deal with it, sure. Personally, I think their little immortality contrivance has destroyed the value of life for them.” “It brought you back.” “Thus I reserve the right to be hypocritical on this particular topic.”

“The ceiling shattered, and the vacuum created yanked her into the air. Her face grazed a shard of the ceiling as it broke off. Then she was in space. Her left hand unlatched the breather mask and slid it on while her right felt for the helmet trigger. Her finger slipped past it, fumbled back for it. Found it. Pressed it.”

“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.”

“The woman’s gaze sent chills racing down his spine. The diabolical, aberrantly predatory arch of her lips curdled his blood. Seriously, his blood must be curdling back at the lab right now. “Nice illusion. I’m definitely feeling the evil vibe here.” She stood and rounded the desk with perfect grace. “There is no illusion. Explain yourself quickly now, before I grow bored by your presence and dispense with it.”

“She skidded around a corner, slamming her shoulder into the wall and bouncing off of it without slowing. Caleb? Silence. Forty-six meters. A long stretch of hallway. She pushed faster, harder. Twenty meters. She burst into the room in unison with a deafening crash of metal shearing metal.”

“No matter what comes, we will persevere. It’s not over until we win.” Oh, how she wanted to believe him. How she wanted to believe that her father not only had all the answers, but the power to make everything okay. Once upon a time she had believed it; then he hadn’t come home. “Why are you so sure?” “Because I didn’t cross universes to return to life, simply to die again.”

“The progeny will be lost and adrift. Without the integrals reinforcing their focus and purpose, they will begin to question both.” “Sator, this is not a bad thing. Humans spend years struggling to figure out what they want to do with their lives, then often revisit the question at multiple points in the course of living it. It’s in our nature.” “Commandant, I’m sure I need not remind you that we are not Human.” “No. But perhaps when this is over, you will become a bit more so.”

“The Idoni Primor’s gaze fell on Eren immediately. Her head tilted in idle curiosity while a fingertip dipped into a crystal bowl beside her. “I know your face, anarch.” She brought her fingertip to her mouth and sucked it dry of gods only feared what hypnol. “You have been a most troublesome little asi of late. Have you come here to repent, to fall to your knees and beg to be allowed to return to the fold? Fair warning—you’ll be on those knees for a while.”

“I’ll gloss right over the implication in what you said that the Reor are sentient entities—for now. Dare I ask why they gave you a copy of their universal decryption key?” Alex and Caleb shared a look, and she shrugged. “We can only speculate, but it’s possible they want us to win.” Miriam dropped her elbows on the table. “Hmm. Okay. In that case, I welcome the minerals to our side of the fight.”

“Coordinates streamed into her mind while she yanked on her environment suit, foregoing every safety check she’d ever learned. ‘Alex, we will try to help him together, but it is far too dangerous—’ She grabbed the module she used to access the circuitry of the ship, bypassed Valkyrie and fired up the Caeles Prism. ‘Alex—’ She opened a wormhole in the middle of the cabin, set its exit point at the coordinates Valkyrie had provided, and ran through it.”

“We have a very short window in which to accomplish a great deal, one measured in minutes rather than hours. “We succeed, and we will have freed dozens of galaxies and species from tyranny. We succeed, and we will have saved our home, our friends and our loved ones from the looming threat of annihilation. We succeed, and everyone has a future. So let’s get it done.”

“I’ll ask you to look at the ships arrayed against you and consider what weaponry they might possess. Weaponry strong enough to crack your hulls? I know what weaponry you bring to bear, and I assure you it will not crack ours. “Are you willing to risk the lives of thousands under your command to find out? Are you willing to risk your own life?” The silence hung across space like a shroud. “This is not over, Admiral Solovy.” “That is the first true thing you’ve said today.”

“She’d never been on board a ship like this one. A real starship worthy of the name, where everything from the reinforced hull to the sophisticated instrumentation created a sense of presence, of consequentiality. When a vessel of this ilk cut a swath through the void, the void noticed. But Nicolette Hinotori had once commanded a generation ship, which meant buried in Nika’s core operating system was knowledge about the operation of such vessels. She stood in the center of the bridge, closed her eyes and asked herself a question. Results flooded her mind, and she hurriedly initiated a sort-and-prioritize algorithm to impose order on them. Then she gazed around the bridge with new eyes.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Her head dropped into her hands. Dammit! She’d spent months preparing for the challenges of a war against an immortal enemy wielding vastly superior numbers. She’d spent years preparing for the challenges of leading an assemblage of disparate fleets headed by disparate personalities. But it had never occurred to her to prepare for the challenges of her dead husband walking back into her life in the middle of both. She had no idea what to do, but she was fairly certain she was doing it wrong.”

“Children are turning themselves into monsters and, quite frankly, it is your fault. You initiated the creation of this technology, then you allowed it to slip through your fingers.” Miriam’s jaw tightened. “I disagree, but now is the least optimal time imaginable for assigning blame. People are dying, and I will not stand around debating semantics with you while they are.”

“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.”

“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.”