History Awesome / HonorHarrington

* Adam Gerrick. [[PunctuatedForEmphasis "We...are...engineers!"]] A [[DomedHometown dome]] he was building for a local middle school collapsed and killed a number of children who would have attended it. He doesn't know how that's possible, but he's bloody well going to build a mathematically sound computer model and find out.

* While everything listed above for this book is a [[MomentofAwesome Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for the Grand Alliance...it also is one for the Mesan Alignment.

** Throughout the book, Alistair has struggled with an inability to connect to Honor, a resentment toward her that he knows is irrational, and the self-hatred of knowing he's not behaving like a professional and that he's not the XO she deserves even as he wishes he was in command of ''Fearless'' instead. But the instant Klaus Hauptman verbally abuses and threatens ''his captain,'' everything instantly [[TrueCompanions clicks into place]]--and lets him realize that Honor ''is'' his captain, and he's capable of the loyalty he's been struggling to feel after all.

* While everything listed above for this book is a CrowningMomentofAwesome for the Grand Alliance...it also is one for the Mesan Alignment.
** Despite all of their setbacks, their loss of Dr. Herlander Simões, the eradication of both Manpower Incorporated and the Jessyk Combine, the war against the Solarian League leading to reforms instead of a collapse, the liberation of Mesa...the Alignment is still around, and even more concealed than before. No more links can trace them back to Darius, they have purged themselves of their more militant elements, they have started the Renaissance Factor (albeit on a smaller scale than planned), and the entire galaxy believes them to be eradicated once and for all.

[[AC: ''To End In Fire'']]
* The Grand Alliance is able to track the Mesan Alignment back to their [[spoiler: decoy]] home star system of Galton. Honor contacts the system commander and explains what her plan is if they do not surrender: She will methodically destroy every space station, starship, and platform capable of offering resistance until the Alignment surrenders or there is nobody left to fight her. Adebayo has one last question for Honor, and she doesn't like the answer:
-->'''Adebayo''': And what do you think the forces under my command will be doing while you do that, Admiral?
-->'''Alexander-Harrington''': [[BadassBoast Dying.]]
* In response to Honor's demand for her surrender, Adebayo launches a wave of stealth attack drones which manage to get dangerously close to the GA fleet before they are spotted, managing to overwhelm their defenses and cause greater losses on the GA forces in a single salvo than the Sollies managed to throughout their entire war with the Alliance. But even taken by surprise, the Alliance forces are battle-hardened with decades of experience driving their defense doctrine: Their losses amount to less than a half-dozen superdreadnoughts and one carrier.
* Honor contacts Adebayo again, in order to put it on the record that Adebayo understands that by refusing the offer of surrender, she can't legally expect Honor to make the offer again.
-->'''Alexander-Harrington''': And at least now I won't have to second guess myself after I blow every single one of your forts to hell. [[TranquilFury Enjoy the ride, Generalfeldmarshall.]]

-->And what do you think the forces under my command will be doing while you do that, Admiral?
-->[[BadassBoast Dying.]]

* Admiral Thomas Theisman puts an end to the tyranny of State Security with two simple sentences: "I think we've had quite enough of those sorts of trials. Goodbye, Citizen Chairman." Made even more awesome by the fact that those are the last words in the book.

* The Battle of Hypatia. A Solarian fleet has appeared in Hypatia, which has just voted to leave the Solarian League, and given them thirty six hours to evacuate all the space industrial stations and habitats, an impossible task that will still leave close to twenty million people in those stations when the Solarians open fire, in direct defiance of their own edicts. The only Manticoran presence there is a small detachment of five ships led by Admiral Kotouč, which is overwhemingly surpassed in number and tonnage by the Solarians. What does he do? He leads four ships into the quagmire as the deadline approaches and destroys half of the Solarian fleet with precision strikes before getting pounded himself with close to [[NoKillLikeOverkill 120,000 missiles]]. Then, the last ship's captain, Commander Petersen, when she sees that the Solarians have not only launched another salvo at the now defenceless ships (which is another war crime) but that they are also planning to continue with the attack, she proceeds to attack the leading ship and bluffs the second in command into leaving with the ships that still can do so, lest she destroy him and ask the same question of the next in the line of command. And, finally, just by pure luck, one of the Hypatian rescue ships manages to find Admiral Kotouč still alive.

* Honor's light cruiser as sole protection for an entire star system, with an crippled armament mix, creates and maintains order in the system anyway, and finally fights off a [[spoiler:Q ship that outguns her ship by a ridiculous margin.]]

* Before the final battle, Honor sees that there are ''two'' ships in a position to [[spoiler:summon the Havenite invasion force]] and, knowing that she can only chase one, lays in a course ''by eye'' to disable the other by slicing past her target at a bare ''two kilometer'' distance (from a range of a hundred and fifty ''thousand'' kilometers) to burst its impeller nodes with her own wedge. And this from the girl who wouldn't have passed multi-dimensional mathematics without Michelle Henke's help!

* Nimitz shows his deadliness for the first time when he goes utterly berserk on a false security guard, [[spoiler:and thereby provides enough warning for himself, Honor, and the real security men to keep Protector Benjamin and his family alive through a very determined assassination attempt]].

** The same battle features a young Havenite destroyer skipper managing to get the drop on Honor's task force, crippling one of her cruisers. A young Havenite destroyer skipper who would become ''far'' more important in later books. A young Havenite destroyer skipper who happens to be named [[spoiler:''[[AscendedExtra Thomas]] [[ChekhovsGunman Theisman]]'']].

* After [[spoiler: her lover, Paul Tankersley]] is murdered, Honor kills the expert duelist who was hired to do the job while he mocks her inexperience in duels - and she does it the same way he was planning to do it to her, only she shoots ''from her hip''. Then she [[spoiler:kills the guy who hired him, longtime enemy Pavel Young]], with one shot in a duel, even though he [[spoiler:broke the law to fire on (and hit) her first.]]

* Honor, having been put on half-pay by the Royal Manticoran Navy, has been living on Grayson for nine months at the start of the book. While plenty of Graysons are in awe of her prior defense of their world, she still has to deal with numerous protesters lining up outside of her house, a preacher calling her the "Harlot of Satan", and [[spoiler: the loss of her lover, Paul Tankersley]]. Unfortunately, the Grayson Navy needs experienced captains, having very few of their own, and Honor reluctantly accepts a commission. While discussing her new command, [[MightyGlacier a superdreadnought]], Honor comments that it's a big step up for her, as the largest ship she had commanded before was a battlecruiser. High Admiral Matthews says that Honor doesn't quite understand... she's not becoming the Captain of a superdreadnought, she's becoming the [[spoiler: ''Admiral'' of a superdreadnought ''squadron''.]]
* Honor has: been called a whore for most of the book, blamed herself for an industrial accident which killed a group of schoolchildren, learned that the [[spoiler: "accident" was sabotage]], had her pinnace shot down, and saved from a point-blank assassination when [[spoiler:''Grayson's [[GoodShepherd spiritual leader]]'' [[HeroicSacrifice threw himself in front of her]]]], and generally [[Theatre/{{Hamlet}} suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.]] She finally gets to the Council Chamber, battered, bruised, limping and exhausted, presents her evidence, and names the man who's been orchestrating all of this... who promptly claims a [[SuddenlySignificantRule traditional form of justice]] and demands to face the Protector's Champion in [[TrialByCombat trial by sword combat]]. And guess who that is? The Protector, seeing that she's in no shape to fight, begins to back off from his proclamation (which will undermine his authority for all time), but she cuts him off:

** If that wasn't enough, as soon as she's done with that, [[spoiler:she has to defend the system from an invasion fleet which outnumbers and outguns hers]]... ''again''.

* Honor again: she recommends a huge shift in tactical and R&D thinking in coalition with the ''jeune ecole'', then gets captured [[spoiler:and apparently killed]] before it can be implemented. When it is implemented, it turns out she was right about pretty much everything. And [[spoiler: until she comes back]] about half of it gets named after her, much to her horror.

* Horace Harkness betrays the Star Kingdom of Manticore by defecting to the side of his Peep captors. Only [[spoiler:he's really planning an escape operation for his crewmates all along. When he finally springs the trap, he has singlehandedly reprogrammed every computer on board his captors' ship to do his bidding. And all he needed to get started was access to the video game library.]]
** [[spoiler: Harkness demonstrating, during the course of the aforementioned breakout, what happens if a pinnace activates its impeller wedges while still in its host ship's docking bays. Namely, the host ship in question blows up. And by "blows up" we mean "is reduced to metallic grit". This story is an InUniverse SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome as well, judging from the reactions every time this exploit is mentioned over the next couple of books]].

* After the [[spoiler:destruction of ''Tepes'']], Shannon Foraker goes to erase the recording of [[spoiler: Honor's shuttles escaping to the planet, as ''Count Tilly'' was the only ship to have seen it.]] Lester Tourville then stops her from erasing it, only to walk over, watch the recording, and erase it himself.

* The [[spoiler: subverted]] ToAbsentFriends speech delivered by Yanakov: "Your grace, my lords and ladies, ladies and gentlemen all, I give you Steadholder Harrington ... ''and damnation to the Peeps!''"
* Admiral Hamish Alexander, Earl White Haven, riding to the severely under-picketed Basilisk's rescue by basically bending the laws of physics just as far as he possibly can. It's [[spoiler:too little, too late to save the orbital installations]], but far more importantly, [[spoiler:he manages to hang on to the Basilisk wormhole terminus]].

* Publicly executed on video, [[spoiler: Honor reappears with a fleet of stolen warships filled with jury-rigged crews from the prison planet she just broke out of]].

* Honor putting her tiny little runabout directly between [[spoiler:''Grayson One'' and an oncoming missile, saving the lives of Protector Benjamin, Queen Elizabeth, and everyone aboard]]. She may have avoided the Parliamentary Medal of Valor after Hades, but she couldn't avoid it after ''that'' little stunt.

* Shannon Foraker in ''Ashes of Victory'': Her Admiral, Lester Tourville, has just gotten a message from the State Security commander which is essentially his death sentence and that of Admiral Javier Giscard. [[spoiler:He gets half way through his message when State Security commander's ship, and ''the two full squadrons of ships'' with it, spontaneously vaporize]]... because of an innocent little data packet Foraker sent over the com net as he was talking. And what does she have to say about this? "[[BewareTheNiceOnes Oops.]]"
* [[spoiler:Admiral Thomas Theisman]] puts an end to the tyranny of State Security with two simple sentences: "[[spoiler:I think we've had quite enough of those sorts of trials. Goodbye, Citizen Chairman.]]" Made even more awesome by the fact that those are the last words in the book.
** For the record, yes, Thomas Theisman ''did'' just [[spoiler:topple a regime that had killed millions of its own people]], and yes, he ''did'' just [[spoiler:restore the Republic and its Constitution, which hadn't seen the light of day in two centuries]]. Granted, he had help, but still. That's... wow. Just... ''wow''.

* The Havenites manage to pivot from near total defeat four years ago to rebuild their fleets and reverse engineer the technology that gutted them to make ships that can very nearly go toe to toe with Manticoran ships, which they had always been at a tech disadvantage to. Even though their tech is still less sophisticated, less efficient, and less powerful than Mantie technology, the Havenites ''still'' manage to figure out how to beat the Manties with careful tactical thought. Even better, after [[spoiler:Operation Oyster Bay]], that tech would go on to [[spoiler:save the very people they reverse-engineered it from]] as Haven [[spoiler:rode to Manticore's defense against the Solarian League]], ending with [[spoiler:those two navies standing side by side against the very forces that manipulated them into war in the first place]]. ''Thank you, Shannon Foraker.''

* Everyone on both sides who was involved in the titanic battle at the end of ''At All Costs'', especially Honor's entry into the fight. Seriously, the Battle of Manticore was a cavalcade of [=CMOAs=] for both the RMN and the RHN. With the hindsight of ''Mission of Honor'' and ''A Rising Thunder'', it gets better: this is quite literally the single most titanic battle ever fought ''in the history of humanity'', and the people fighting it [[spoiler:eventually ''combine military forces'']].

* Queen Elizabeth and President Pritchart, when [[spoiler:they not only sign a peace treaty but a '''military alliance''' against the Solarian League. With hundreds of Havenite Superdreadnoughts ready to defend Manticore from an imminent Solarian attack. All you can think of is: Mesa and the SLN are so incredibly ''FUCKED''.]]

* Queen Elizabeth's speech to her fellow Manticorans, in which she outlines all the primary events between ''At All Costs'' and ''Mission of Honor'', ending with the Yawata Strike and how it took them ''completely'' by surprise. She goes into detail about how badly they've been wounded, and how the [[spoiler:Solarian League]] is getting ready to try and pound them. Then she proceeds to assure them they ''will not'' succeed in doing so, that Manticore ''will'' stand tall, and ''will'' show the [[spoiler:League]] that they are not to be trifled with.
** It's basically a free fusion of the Allies leaders' speeches as their nations joined UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Somewhat subverted in that the Allies ''dwarfed'' Axis in terms of industrial and military might (and it still took them six years and fifty-odd millions dead to win), but even [[spoiler: the Grand Alliance]] is ''tiny'' compared to [[spoiler: the League]].

* Eloise Pritchart [[spoiler:turns up in Manticoran space, almost ''immediately'' after their home system has been catastrophically attacked, screens Queen Elizabeth in the middle of the night,]] and within three days has [[spoiler:not only cleared up every single diplomatic misunderstanding between the two star nations going back nearly fifty years, but been genuine enough, truthful enough, and convincing enough to end up signing a military alliance against the Mesan Alignment ''and'' the Solarian League]]. It's RefugeInAudacity the likes of which has rarely, if ''ever'', been seen in the Honorverse up until this point, but she did it anyway because [[spoiler:she was sick and tired of fighting people she respected, liked, and didn't want to hurt any more]]. And she was able to see past the fact that [[spoiler:the very same star nation she is allying with was responsible for killing the love of her life, however unintended and however much they regret it]]. Just... the whole damn book is one triumph after another for the Republic's President.
* When you include [[spoiler: Mesa's interference to continue the Manticore-Haven War]] the Official We Are So Going To Stomp Mesa List will include Manticore's queen, who takes such things ''very'' personally; Harrington herself; Thomas Theisman, who ''Honor'' is afraid of on the battlefield; Eloise Pritchart and the rest of the Haven government who survived in the dictatorship, pulled off their coup, and restored a democracy. You'd think that if they had any GenreSavvy at all, Mesa would realize they were utterly doomed.

* The result of the aforementioned meeting between Elizabeth and Pritchart, and how over the next few weeks the result of Honor Harrington commanding [[spoiler:the newly formed Grand Fleet, with Lester Tourville commanding its subdivision Second Fleet, Thomas Theisman ''sharing her command deck'', and the combined forces of Haven, Grayson, and Manticore allied in force]] results in the single greatest complete CurbStompBattle in human history. Also a rather tragic one as it should have ended without a shot being fired.

* A small Manticoran task force encounters a much heavier Solarian battlegroup and [[spoiler: ''intentionally'' causes their first wave of missiles to miss. With the warning that the next round will be "Firing for effect" unless the Sollies get the hell out of Dodge. The Sollies get the hell out of Dodge.]]

* Towards the end of the book, the League Senate holds a vote on whether or not they should censure the League world of Beowulf for conspiring with the Manticorans. The League's senate is horribly corrupt, and the vote is essentially a kangaroo court... and a full quarter of them ''still'' vote in favor of Beowulf. The Mandarins fully understand the implications of that. [[spoiler: And then the Beowulfian delegation announces their intent to withdraw from the Solarian League.]]

* Thomas Theisman verbally [[QuitYourWhining smacks Honor right out of her self-pity party]] after she's [[spoiler:forced to destroy most of SLN Admiral Filareta's 400-odd-strong fleet of superdreadnoughts because the Mesans nanoprogrammed one of the officers to fire even against overwhelming odds when Filareta had been ready to surrender]]. He reminds her forcefully that her responsibility is to the people under her ''own'' command, and that if she hadn't fired back, she'd have been justifiably removed from command and possibly dishonorably discharged, no matter how high the casualties were on the other side. In that moment, ''no one'' understands Honor better -- not even her own husband! -- and it is starkly apparent just how much she and Theisman have in common, and why they are such a formidable team.

* The Battle of Hypatia. [[spoiler: A Solarian fleet has appeared in Hypatia, which has just voted to leave the Solarian League, and given them thirty six hours to evacuate all the space industrial stations and habitats, an impossible task that will still leave close to twenty million people in those stations when the Solarians open fire, in direct defiance of their own edicts. The only Manticoran presence there is a small detachment of five ships led by Admiral Kotouč, which is overwhemingly surpassed in number and tonnage by the Solarians. What does he do? He leads four ships into the quagmire as the deadline approaches and destroys half of the Solarian fleet with precision strikes before getting pounded himself with close to [[NoKillLikeOverkill 120,000 missiles]]. Then, the last ship's captain, Commander Petersen, when she sees that the Solarians have not only launched another salvo at the now defenceless ships (which is another war crime) but that they are also planning to continue with the attack, she proceeds to attack the leading ship and bluffs the second in command into leaving with the ships that still can do so, lest she destroy him and ask the same question of the next in the line of command. And, finally, just by pure luck, one of the Hypatian rescue ships manages to find Admiral Kotouč still alive.]]

* The climax: [[spoiler:Honor leads the Grand Fleet on a direct assault on Sol itself. Her demonstration attacks are enough to compel the SLN to surrender (and Admiral Kingford to launch a coup), and she proceeds to destroy not only the entire SLN presence in Sol, but every piece of space-based industry apart from habitats and power collectors, and dictate surrender terms to the Solarian League. Honor Harrington becomes the first commander in ''history'' to conquer Sol, to take control of Old Earth's own orbitals... and not a single Manticoran, Grayson, or Havenite life is lost in the process.]]
* Throughout the climax Honor is in a state of TranquilFury. The whole situation comes as retaliation after [[spoiler:a Solarian attack on Beowulf that was then exploited by the Mesans to kill millions, civilian and military alike, with Honor's husband Earl White Haven as one of the casualties]]. After all that, Honor is ''through'' with putting up with the Sollies' B.S. As a result, she is very matter-of-fact about why she is there, what she's demanding, and what she will do if those demands are not met: Namely kill anybody stupid enough to reject them. Every officer that personally interacts with Honor, ally and enemy alike, and even a few who only see recordings of her demands, recognize that Honor is not only ''not'' bluffing, she practically ''wants'' the Solarians to give her a reason to wipe them from the universe, and the only reason she ''hasn't'' done anything yet is because nobody has given her that pretext. Part of the reason the affair goes as well as it does for the Grand Fleet is that the Solarians are too legitimately intimidated by Honor to seriously consider resistance.

** It gets better. All of the curb stomping was [[WeNeedADistraction the diversion.]] [[spoiler: The station's staff ([[TheDogBitesBack not Solarians]]) gave Hearns detailed engineers' schematics of the station, allowing her to send another team to take the brig by surprise from the rear.]]

** [[spoiler:Mesa knows how thoroughly screwed they are the moment the Grand Alliance arrives in system. The system fleet commander crunches the numbers and, knowing that Mesa has the biggest Navy in the Verge outside of the Solarian League, two of the Manticoran ships could probably kill their entire fleet and sustain minimal damage, and the League is [[CurbStompBattle having its own problems with the Alliance]] so no help is coming. Since the system command isn't run by Solarians, [[KnowWhenToFoldEm there isn't much of a battle]] but a "Which one of you do we surrender to?" conversation.]]
* On the Mesan side, the fact that [[spoiler: they succeed at evacuating most of their core Alignment members to Darius without anyone being the wiser, and [[MagnificentBastard even leave the Manticorans holding the bag for the collateral damage]]. One bit of hedge on this success is that the BigBad, Albrecht Detweiler, is unable to escape in time, and is nuked with the other remaining Alignment members on Mesa to cover their tracks.]]
** As a bit of extra icing on top, [[spoiler: Marinescu, the woman in charge of planning the mass-casualty attacks on both the remaining Alignment members and the innocent Mesan bystanders, is informed that she herself is [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness surplus to requirements]] while she's on her way to her evacuation ship, and receives her severance package, [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill in the form of a nuclear bomb concealed in her communicator.]]]]

* Victor Cachat [[spoiler: takes on the whole world of Mesa to find information necessary to stop the war. Well, he wasn't alone, and it was mostly just an undercover infiltration, but he's just awesome in that TOO.]]

** Hancock has been [[DeathFromAbove destroyed]], and Neue Rostock is on the verge of being overrun after weeks of bloody room to room combat. Several of the protagonists are dead, most of the rest badly wounded, and Thandi, Victor, and Dusek are preparing to take out as many of the Peacies as possible in a last defiant attack. General Drescher, on the verge of her final assault, calls Thandi and [[spoiler: asks for a ceasefire so she can withdraw her troops from Neue Rostock. [[BrickJoke The brick tossed in the air]] at the end of ''Shadow of Freedom'' has finally hit the ground as Admiral Mike Henke, Countess Gold Peak, has arrived in the Mesa system, entirely unaware that she was bringing TheCavalry.]]

* ''Ms Midshipwoman Harrington'': [[spoiler: takes over command of her ship while not even technically an officer yet because everyone else is dead, unconscious, or out of communication, and stern rakes]][[note]]the bow and stern of the warships are relatively unprotected, [[spoiler: until Manticore came up with bow and stern wall technology that can block weapons firing at the bow and stern, at first stopping movement while the system is up, then allowing movement via dual phase bow and stern wall technology.]] "rake": cross your (well protected, weapon heavy) broadside across their bow or stern, firing in sequence to that every weapon hits their vulnerable area.[[/note]][[spoiler: the attacking ship from ridiculously short range, destroying it.]]

** The climactic battle of the short story has Hearns and her landing party in a fighting retreat being pursued by a band of SpacePirates. This sequence shows several times the dangers of trying to ZergRush a defensive position when the defenders are equipped with body armor and automatic weapons, even when using superior numbers. Meanwhile, four Heavy Cruisers have arrived, forcing Oversteegen to withdraw, chased by three of the cruisers while the fourth stays in orbit. Several hours later, [[spoiler: the pirate cruiser that stayed behind is surprised and destroyed with a single salvo by a ''[[PapaWolf really pissed off]]'' Oversteegen, who has just returned from defeating the other SpacePirates [[NeverTellMeTheOdds in a 3:1 match]]]].
* ''Call To Arms'', by Timothy Zahn, has a small flotilla of Manticoran warships (a new light cruiser, a destroyer, and two corvettes) going up against a mercenary fleet of two battlecruisers, two cruisers, and several destroyers. The Manticorans are able to [[AwesomenessByAnalysis guess from analyzing the Mercenary ships' maneuvering]] that one of the cruisers [[AttackItsWeakPoint has a malfunctioning point defense system]], and focus their fire on it... [[spoiler: only to redirect their missiles at the last minute to avoid hitting the vulnerable cruiser, taking advantage of it's weak defenses to slip past it and land a cheap shot on one of the battlecruisers, knocking out half of it's forward armament.]]
** Towards the end of the battle, the Manticoran force has been scattered, and the flagship, HMS ''Casey'', is crippled and drifting into the middle of the enemy formation. [[spoiler: By using some of their practice missiles as a defensive screen, they are able to buy the fraction of a second they need to lay in a broadside on the other battlecruiser, leading to a stunningly one-sided victory for the ''Casey''. The other Mercenary ships are [[HeroicBSOD too spooked by what just happened to engage]], and ''Casey'' drifts past the rest of their formation without being attacked.]] It is only after that the narration reveals that this is not the famous historical battle between the RMN and an invading mercenary fleet that [[BackStory gets mentioned from time to time]], but merely an early skirmish leading up to it.

* ''Ms Midshipwoman Harrington'': [[spoiler: takes over command of her ship while not even technically an officer yet because everyone else is dead, unconscious, or out of communication, and stern rakes]][[note]]the bow and stern of the warships are relatively unprotected. "rake": cross your (well protected, weapon heavy) broadside across their bow or stern, firing in sequence to that every weapon hits their vulnerable area.[[/note]][[spoiler: the attacking ship from ridiculously short range, destroying it.]]

* Honor has: been called a whore for most of the book, blamed herself for an industrial accident which killed a group of schoolchildren, learned that the [[spoiler: "accident" was sabotage]], had her pinnace shot down, and saved from a point-blank assassination when [[spoiler:''Grayson's [[GoodShepherd spiritual leader]]'' [[HeroicSacrifice threw himself in front of her]]]], and generally [[Theatre/{{Hamlet}} suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.]] She finally gets to the Council Chamber, battered, bruised, limping and exhausted, presents her evidence, and names the man who's been orchestrating all of this... who promptly claims a traditional form of justice and demands to face the Protector's Champion in trial by sword combat. And guess who that is? The Protector, seeing that she's in no shape to fight, begins to back off from his proclamation (which will undermine his authority for all time), but she cuts him off:

** And her opponent learns the hard way that just because Honor's only been studying the ''sword'' for a few months, that doesn't mean that she hasn't been studying ''combat'' for decades.

** They then go to the next system they think the pirates will be at and find three of them attacking a merchant vessel. Despite the fact it's a Manticoran vessel, they elect to fight three-to-one odds to help it out. It turns out to be a Honor's Q-Ship and she, very regrettfully, takes them prisoner.