These seem to follow Alicia DeVries around the galaxy. Let's see:
- Alley countersniping 49 enemy snipers on her first mission ever.
- Charging rifle-wielding enemies with just a pistol and force blade on Shallingsport...and kicking their asses.
- Alley wiping out a raiding party singlehandedly.
- Alley breaking out of a secured hospital, carjacking an aircar, ejecting from said aircar before the authorities blasted it to tiny bits, shuttlejacking a freaking Bengal-class assault shuttle, and finally starshipjacking one of the most advanced starships ever built and getting away scot-free!
- Alley chasing and killing a Fleet destroyer commanded by pirates before they even realized that she could engage them.
- Tisiphone rerouting Alley's brain functions around a nerve block in order to cancel an automated neurotoxin release and wipe the floor with Quintana's guards while sustaining what should be fatal disruptor hits while she rescues Ben Belkassem (who came to rescue her).
- Shallingsport is the CMOA for the entire Imperial Cadre. Two hundred seventy five Cadremen were lured into a trap designed to prove that the Cadre could be beaten. They faced twenty three hundred enemies, who were well-armed, well-entrenched, and knew exactly where they would be coming in, and three thousand terrorists overall on the planet. The Cadre took 97% casualties. They saved 97% of the hostages.
In the prequel book "Governor", Terrence Murphy is quickly proving to be the same kind of person.
- For starters, he begins the book as the hero of the Battle of Steelman's Star, which we find out from context was supposed to be a surefire League victory and turned it around into a total rout for the League fleet, and while he was officially assigned to Survey Command, no less.
- He then manages to do the same at the Battle of New Dublin, where he uses a former military-grade mass driver retrofitted for civilian cargo launches between two of the planets in the system to "deliver" an massive supply of missiles right in the middle of Admiral Xing's forces on a ballistic trajectory so she doesn't see the "delivery" until it's too late.
