Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse Book 8)

Growing older was a falling away of everything that didn’t matter. And a deepening appreciation of all the parts that were important enough to stay.

There are people I love. There are people who have loved me. I fought for what I believed, protected those I could, and stood my ground against the encroaching darkness. Good enough.

A hundred people, more or less, waiting for a tube car on a moon above a planet that circled a sun that hadn’t born them, and jockeying to be the first ones through the door so that they could get a good seat. Maybe the most human thing possible.

Hundreds of drive plumes arced in shallow curves or wide, spreading like dust in a high wind. The siege of Laconia had begun.

This was the problem with thousand-year Reichs. They came and they went like fireflies.

That’s the thing about autocracy. It looks pretty decent while it still looks pretty decent. Survivable, anyway. And it keeps looking like that right up until it doesn’t. That’s how you find out it’s too late.

Dreams were fragile things to build with. Titanium and ceramic lasted longer.

Wars never ended because one side was defeated. They ended because the enemies were reconciled. Anything else was just a postponement of the next round of violence.

In a fight like this, unless you’re willing to lose everything to win, you lose it all by losing.”