Temeraire/Awesome

• The climax of His Majesty's Dragon has two. Napoleon Bonaparte deserves one for having the sense to bypass the British command of the Channel outright via dragon-borne troop carriers while drawing off the experienced formations of the Aerial Corps down to Spain. As a result of it young Temeraire and his captain Laurence end up fighting a battle to fend off the landing that they cannot hope to win... then the former's breath weapon, the aptly named Divine Wind emerges.
• Laurence also gets one a little bit earlier when Hollin informs him Levitas is dying. Laurence goes down to the officers' club, frog-marches Rankin out the door, telling the admiral and other captains that "Captain Rankin begs to be excused", and orders Rankin to give Levitas every bit of praise he's ever deserved before he dies. Then, to cap it all off, he goes to Lenton and tells him he'd rather see a dragon dead than in Rankin's hands, and secures the new captaincy for Hollin, the former harness-tender.
• Admiral Jane Roland's entrance into the war council in Victory of Eagles, covered in blood after she broke her sword into a French officer's chest.
  • And Jane again in the same book, bitching out Laurence for committing treason when all he had to do was slip the antidote to one of the French officers, instead of barging into Loch Laggan, stealing it, and landing Temeraire smack in the middle of the French lines.
• Emily Roland holding off an advancing wave of Bunyips while Temeraire is trapped in quicksand and as the hardened convicts and older aviators scatter and run, armed with only a flintlock pistol and a saber.
• "My ancestors were scholars in China when yours were slaves in pits."
• Lien deserves one in Victory of Eagles for taking out Nelson's entire fleet with one Divine Wind. Not awesome for the British, but badass all the same.
• “I thought myself remarkably clever for the notion until I found myself crossing two continents with them; after the journey we have had, I am inclined to think it an act of grace that we have arrived.” Nice understatement, bucko.