The Vela Quotes

“government people never felt useful unless they invented ways to make everything twice as much bother.”
― Yoon Ha Lee, The Vela

“Did she deserve this, Asala wondered? Did Ekrem? Did Cynwrig? Did Hafiz? The engineers who had first proposed the solar harvest? The politicians who favored whichever cause lined their pockets most? Did the flag-wavers, the finger-pointers, the us-versus-thems—did any of them, for all their greed and hate and folly, deserve punishment on this scale? Punishment in general, they deserved, herself included. A slap in the face, a knife to the throat. But not a whole world. Not every world. Their crimes, even in aggregate, did not warrant extinction. Even if it was their own fault.”
― Becky Chambers, The Vela

“I don’t understand. After all we’ve done to you. After all we’re still doing. We don’t deserve to be saved, Asala. My father—my father is guilty. My planet is guilty. We ruined this system, and the people who got hit by that mess first, we don’t care about them. We sit there in our painted halls, sipping water by the gallon and not caring if it spills, debating whether or not we should take in the people left homeless. Left homeless by our hand.” They raised their head despite the pain, echoing the conviction that had won them over from the start. “The Inner planets made this mess. We should have to sit there, first-row seats, and feel the hurt we spread to others. If we get a second chance, if we have the technology to bounce out whenever we want, we’ll just do it again, and again, using up every star like the galaxy’s a fucking buffet. So, save the innocents. Leave the guilty behind.”
― Becky Chambers, The Vela

“Asala looked over to Niko. They were struggling. They’d had training, but they hadn’t had this much time in the field before. She slapped her hand on their back. “Keep up.”

“I am keeping up,” they said.

“Are you?” Asala asked, and picked up her pace, almost doubling her speed. Icy wind flooded her lungs through her nostrils, which only drove her to push harder.

“I see why you usually work alone,” said Niko. “No fun getting bogged down by us mere mortals.”

For fun, Asala started jogging.”
― Rivers Solomon, The Vela

“Asala took the last of her bread and cleaned the sauce from her plate until it shined. “Are you armed, Niko?”

Niko was taken aback. “What?”

“Are you armed?”

“No, of course not. Why would I be armed?”

Asala began to clean up her spot. “You just shared a meal with two people who are.” The general’s pistol had been impossible to miss, but Niko hadn’t noticed a weapon on Asala, and they couldn’t see one now. Asala gathered her dishes and left the table. “In the future, that’s the kind of situation in which it pays not to piss anyone off.”
― Becky Chambers, The Vela

“So what's the problem? The Vela sweeps into the Inner Ring, you stage a few parades on Khayyam celebrating that we saved the last of their world. What's not to love?"

His face twisted. "It's gone missing."

"Oh," Asala said. "I suppose that does make a parade harder.”
― S.L. Huang, The Vela