Marko Kloos Quotes

Keep in mind that without the law, we're not a military, just an armed gang that dresses alike.

think of Halley - the first time we met, on the first day of Basic, bunkmates by the luck of the alphabet - and I feel a profound gratitude for the interrupted, hectic, and strange relationship we've had, intense and exciting despite all the obstacles thrown into our path by an uncaring military. I think of Mom, and about the sadness she will feel at the loss of her only child, but I'm glad that we got to spend some time together just before I shipped out on this particular goat rope.

Science ... it works.

When your ship breaks, you're supposed to find a pod, launch away,

But whatever else they are, and whatever thoughts swirl around in those heads right now, they volunteered to be here, to join the thin green line that stands between us and extermination. "Here's

Even with the active efforts of my electronic gear to preserve my hearing, the explosion of the drop ship stabs my eardrums. I can feel the shock wave from the detonation radiating through me as it moves away from the source at the speed of sound, and it feels like someone has thrown me to the ground and then jumped on my chest. For a moment I think that the drop ship must have had some low-yield nuclear ordnance on one of its pylons, and I'm convinced that Sergeant Fallon has just blown up half the PRC, and us along with it. I'm vaguely aware that I'm prone on the ground all of a sudden, knocked off my feet by the impulse of the shock wave.

something important is broken

Can we just please stop killing shit tonight by flying into it?" I shout, and Sergeant Fallon laughs as she walks off.

rifle, you best grab one now," the XO tells the civilians. I have the rifle from the drop ship,

I may have faced him in battle before on some colony moon somewhere. He may have killed some of my friends, and I may have killed some of his. I am once again struck by how much alike we are - how similar the grunts on both sides really are - and I know that when this battle is over, I don't want to go on fighting him and his friends over dumb shit that could be settled at a table in one evening by half a dozen grunts from each side and a few bottles of booze between them.

that stick for ten hours straight is a bit of a bear." "How long has it been

Welcome to the end of the species," I say. "At least we have ringside seats.

Nobody's immune to physics. I don't care how big and tough they are." I

who coast through the system doing only the

The Commonwealth - humanity - is in deep shit, and we're the people with the shovels.

since the moment those photons left our own sun, I had been born, raised, educated, inducted into the Commonwealth Defense Corps, and trained to fly a drop ship, and I had still beaten the light to Fomalhaut by a few days.

I fight because it's the only way I have to control my destiny at least a little bit.

Is not Alliance training," he says. "I spend six months in military prison once. Other man in cell, he was boxer. Before military, he fight in underworld ring, for money. He teach me how to punch the color out of a man's hair. I go easy on you because I am guest here.

I've never been to the Far East, but the fake city looks just like the places I've seen in the news and war movies.

The alley is a hundred yards from the stranded drop ship. It takes our gaggle of armor-clad troopers and entourage thirty seconds to cover the distance. When we reach the mouth of the alley, I look back over my shoulder. Sergeant Fallon and Stratton are dashing out of the rear hatch, and I drop to one knee and exchange the MARS launcher for the rifle to cover their run. Next to me, Hansen crouches down, rifle pointed downrange. Beyond the drop ship, on the other side of the intersection, there's some movement in the shadows of the building overhangs as the local crowd advances on the drop ship again, more cautious than before.

No more generational feuds, no more ancient grudges, no more pointless revenge carried out against people who inherited some old guilt from their great-grandparents.

You can't read good-night stories to your bank account, or brush its hair, or teach it how to ride a bike for the first time.

bursts into his back just as he tries to bring his

It feels a bit like high school, only with guns and uniforms, and instead of learning trigonometry or North American history, we learn better ways to kill people and blow up their stuff.

Astrophysics. 'It's a super-long shot' is practically the motto of our profession.

Still, a part of me will never stop thinking of her as my sergeant. She's the toughest, most competent, and most evenhanded soldier I've known, and she runs her squad as a strict meritocracy. If only a tenth of the military consisted of people like Sergeant Fallon, we would have kicked the SRA off of every inhabited celestial body between Earth and Zeta Reticuli fifty years ago already. As things stand, we're weighed down by people like Major Unwerth, who coast through the system doing only the expected minimum. If a military is the reflection of the society it serves, it's amazing that the Commonwealth is still at the top of the food chain on Terra. Even with all the dead wood in our ranks, we have been able to hold the line against the SRA and the dozens of regional powers in the Middle East and the Pacific Rim that are short on resources and long on grievances with their neighbors.

We are so incredibly skilled at adapting to even the most hostile of environments, and so often we use those skills to be more efficient at killing each other.

I think of Mom, and about the sadness she will feel at the loss of her only child, but I'm glad that we got to spend some time together just before I shipped out on this particular goat rope. I conclude that I have no regrets, and that I'd do it all again, in exactly the same fashion, if I had the choice. If my life was short, at least I managed to live the last part of it on my own terms.

You've been in long enough, Grayson. Never assume malice if you can explain it with lack of planning.