Broken Bow by Diane Carey p.10 The Suliban weapons spat bitter fire at Klaang as he ran. The alien countryside lit up in vast expanses. Ridiculously, he tilted toward each shot; escape would be preferred, but if there was no escape, he wanted to die boldly. He was running to save the mission, after all, not himself. His conscience and his duty were in conflict. But to die with Suliban disruption in the back--who would tell how it really had been for him? Why he died with wounds in his back? Could he run backward? p.14-15 "Well, Trip, ol' boy, it's an unwritten law in these parts that every starship's got to have a country boy on board or it ain't going to fly right." "You're making fun of me," Engineer Charles Tucker noted. "Darn right I am, pardner." Captain Jonathan Archer smiled, completely content in the moment. "If I didn't take it out on you, I'd probably go ballistic in the face of some Vulcan dignitary or an admiral or a ship's cook or somebody important." "Are you saying I'm not important?" "Why would I say that? You're the country boy." "Can an engineer tell a captain to shut the heck up?" "Sure. 'Shut the heck up--'" "Sir!" they finished together. p.15 The new ship hovered above them in Spacedock, as comfortable as an eagle in its aerie, being tended, coddled, and preened by devoted minions in extravehicular suits, none quite as consumed with wonder as the proud captain himself. p.25 "Ready for what?" Archer asked, even though he knew. Hell, everybody knew, but he wanted to make her say it. "To look beyond your provincial attitudes and volatile nature." The elegant female had a firmness in her eyes. She was playing his game. She darn well comprehended the triteness of her own declaration. Maybe she was waiting to see how far Archer could be pushed. "Volatile?" Archer mocked her with a little lilt. "You have no idea how much I'm restraining myself from knocking you on your ass." Eyebrow raised, she looked at him in near enjoyment--was that right? There was a glint in her eye, despite her mosaic stillness. He got the idea she might not like what she heard, but liked hearing it. Very few humans talked back to Vulcans...yet. I think I'll start doing seminars. "How to Talk Back to a Vulcan and Spit in an Admirals' Eye 101. You, too, can learn this in ten easy lessons." p.26 Oh--there they went. The renowned ultrasophisticated civilized nonprimitive Vulcan turn-and-stalk-in-a-huff. Archer almost smiled, but managed to bury it. Score one for the amoebas. p.65 Archer just nodded, annoyed that everyone seemed to be taking classes in etiquette from the Vulcan Institute of Creative Condescension. p.70-71 "You humans claim to be enlightened," she said, "yet you still consume the flesh of animals." Archer caught Tucker's annoyed glance, but got the idea the engineer was enjoying something about this predicament. "Grandma taught me never to judge a species by its eating habits," Tucker mentioned. Ah, yes, infinite diversity, Vulcan style. p.148-149 "The idea of time travel is, on its face, illogical. Isn't it?" "No," Tucker seized. "she'd have to agree with me on that one. The illogical doesn't exist in science. There is something we don't yet understand that allows time travel to take place." Archer troubled to understand what Tucker had just said, and for a moment forgot about T'Pol. Instead, he found himself remembering Sarin. "If travel backward in time can take place, then causality doesn't exist. If causality doesn't exist, where is logic? 'A' plus 'B' causes 'C.'" "But causality does take a beating at a level of quantum physics. Are we discussing whether or not time travel is possible?" Tucker asked. "Or why anybody would be stupid enough to try it?" "Both," Archer said. "First, is it possible, and second, why would anybody do it, because you can go back and destroy yourself very easily. If I go back and stop an Austrian farmer in the mid-1800s and ask him directions while he's on his way to the market, he gets to the market five minutes later, and misses meeting the woman he was supposed to marry. She passes by. Because they never met, Adolf Hitler was never born. World War II never happens, or happens later for other reasons, and the technological rush of the mid-20th century is delayed thirty or forty years...Zephram Cochrane doesn't have the infrastructure he needs to invent warp drive, and we never meet the Vulcans." "Instead of meeting the Vulcans," Tucker piped up, "we meet the Klingons instead. By now, the Klingons are dominant on Earth and using Earth as a toehold in this whole section of the galaxy." "A butterfly flaps its wings in Africa," Archer murmured, "and there's a typhoon in China the next spring." p.166 "Ah--our new weapons?" "They're called 'phase pistols,'" Reed introduced. "They have two settings. Stun and kill. It would be best not to confuse them." p.184-185 Twisting viciously, he managed to pin the Suliban to the floor and lean on his opponent's wrists. It seemed to work, until the Suliban dislocated his own shoulder and wrist in a grotesque rotation and found a way to reach for the pistol, and got it. Archer certainly couldn't use human moves against something like this--so he punched the Suliban in the nose. That had to work all over the galaxy. It did. The Suliban writhed and went momentarily limp. Archer shoved off him and bolted the door. p.193 ChugDah hegh...volcha vay. = Klingon = ???
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