open/close all folders
Earth Hive
- Wilks breaking Billie out of the mental hospital in Earth Hive. One veteran marine with an illegally-modified stunner, a computer hacker who owes him a favor, and a plan against the hospital's orderlies and security, and he wins. Easily.
- Mitch shows Billie a display-model pulse rifle, rattling off its technical specs then stating how it actually performs in practice, before offering her to hold it, saying "It won't bite." Billie, suppressing a smirk, performs a flawless training drill she learned from Wilks ten years ago on Rim, and demonstrates exceptional skill at the safe handling of a firearm. She verifies the magazine is empty, clears the chamber three times, pumps the grenade launcher three time to verify it's empty, then sights and dry-fires the weapon at a wall. She brings it about to present-arms, and tosses it to Bueller, who nearly fumbles catching it from surprise.Billie: Trigger's stiff and it's got some creep. You should have your armorer run a diagnostic.
- Mitch and his squad defeating a wave of twelve Aliens in five seconds. Special award to Bueller for firing a pulse rifle one-handed, chopping Aliens off at the legs while Dual Wielding a pistol and giving the Aliens Boom, Headshot!. . . in their mouths, since the pistol's rounds won't penetrate their armor. And he's completely casual about this display of unspeakable badassery.
- Wilks obliterating what he thinks is the Alien homeworld with a series of chain-linked nuclear devices (not mention sneaking the bombs past Stephens in the first place). This is his act of revenge against the Aliens for wiping out his squad and leaving him to live with an acid-scarred face and PTSD for ten years. Disproportionate Retribution? Yes. Awesome? FUCK yeah!
Nightmare Asylum
- Wilks has been nearly cut in half by a closing pressure door, and Bueller was torn in half in the last book, so the only one who can go outside and deal with the Alien on the hull of the spaceship is Billie. Who has never gone EVA before. Armed with a pulse rifle with only four shots. She panics a bit when the Alien pounces at her, but she wounds it evades thanks to the recoil, watching it float off into infinity. Then she spots a tiny stream of something heading back towards the ship, and finds a second Alien crouched in one of the aft thrusters. Quick thinking and zero-G maneuvering get her clear, and Bueller invokes Weaponized Exhaust.
- Wilks and Billie running a fast one on Spears, getting him to give them an escape pod and let them go when all he had to do was wait for them to run out of air. They do this by bluffing that they left timed grenades at critical points on the ship transporting Spears' "tame" Aliens, and barter their location for safe passage. Spears even acknowledges it, telling them that someday it'll mean something when they say they went up against General Spears and lived.
- He may have been a generally unpleasant person, but Spears decapitates an Alien with a sword. The sword was ruined, of course (and Spears himself shortly followed), but how many people who don't have fluorescent green blood can make that claim?
