Courageous (The Lost Fleet, #3)

by Jack Campbell

certainly do, Chief,” Geary agreed, recalling many of the “improvements” to ship systems that had bedeviled him a hundred years ago by creating new problems with equipment that had worked perfectly well before being upgraded into temperamental, buggy pieces of junk.

You’d think somebody would have asked before this why the regrettable but necessary measures haven’t actually produced the promised results.

But then what about war has anything to do with making sense?

“Some politicians are worse than others, which means some must be better than others. And bad as politicians may be, there are worse professions.” “Are there? Well, sure, like lawyers.” “Yes, sir,” Desjani agreed. “Or literary agents. I might have become one.”

I wonder of Campbell was making a point about his agent.

She smiled in reply, her tone half-mocking, half-serious. “There wouldn’t be any fingerprints or DNA on the knife, John Geary. Not if I did it.”

I can easily lose by trying to play it safe, but I can’t win unless I throw the dice.”

What happens to a wounded stag, John Geary?” The vision that brought up wasn’t comfortable, but he recognized the truth of her words. “It becomes an attractive target for wolves, who gather, attack, and pull it down.”