Shadow of Freedom


Name:	Shadow of Freedom
Author:	David Weber
Publisher:	Baen Books
Publication Date:	March 5, 2013
Chapters:	36
ISBN:	978-1451638691
Series:	Saganami Island
Previous:	Storm from the Shadows
Next:	Shadow of Victory

Shadow of Freedom is the title of a novel in David Weber's Honor Harrington series. It was released on March 5, 2013.

It was originally written as part of A Rising Thunder, which was split up due to its unexpected length. It is currently marketed as a main series novel, with Honor Harrington on the cover, even though she does not appear in the novel and the plot is a continuation of the Saganami Island series. The book is marketed as part of the main series despite the plot being more of a continuation of the Saganami Island sequence. Apparently, these two series will be merged in the context of describing the large-scale conflict and wide-ranging plot.

Timeframe: February – August 1922 PD

Cover Summary

Wrong number? There are two sides to any quarrel . . . unless there are more.

Michelle Henke, Queen Elizabeth of Manticore's first cousin, Honor Harrington's best friend, and the commanding officer of Manticore's Tenth Fleet, is just a bit surprised when a messenger arrives from the Mobius System to inform her that the Mobius Liberation Front is prepared to rise in rebellion against the hated regime of President Svein Lombroso. She can understand why anyone would want to rebel against someone like Lombroso, but why tell her about it? After all, she has problems of her own, like the minor matter of a life-or-death war against the Solarian League.

Michelle has just handed the "invincible" Solarian League Navy the most humiliating, one-sided defeat in its entire almost thousand-year history in defense of the people of the Star Empire's Talbott Quadrant. But the League is the most powerful star nation in the history of humanity. Its navy is going to be back – and this time with thousands of superdreadnoughts.

Yet she also knows scores of other star systems — some independent, some controlled by puppet regimes, and some simply conquered outright by the Solarian Office of Frontier Security — lie in the League's grip along its frontier with the Talbott Quadrant. As combat spreads from the initial confrontation, the entire frontier has begun to seethe with unrest, and Michelle sympathizes with the oppressed populations wanting only to be free of their hated masters.

And that puts her in something of a quandary when the messenger from Mobius arrives, because someone's obviously gotten a wrong number. According to him, the Mobians’ uprising has been carefully planned to coordinate with a powerful outside ally: the Star Empire of Manticore. Only Manticore — and Mike Henke — have never even heard of the Mobius Liberation Front.

It's a set-up . . . and Michelle knows who's behind it. The shadowy Mesan Alignment has launched a bold move to destroy Manticore's reputation as the champion of freedom. And when the RMN doesn't arrive, when the MLF is brutally and bloodily crushed, no independent star system will ever trust Manticore again.

Mike Henke knows she has no orders from her government to assist any rebellions or liberation movements, that she has only so many ships, which can be in only so many places at a time . . . and that she can't possibly justify diverting any of her limited, outnumbered strength to missions of liberation the Star Empire never signed on for.

She knows that . . . and she doesn't care.

No one is going to send thousands of patriots to their deaths, trusting in Manticoran help that will never come.

Not on Mike Henke's watch.

Plot

As relations between the Star Empire of Manticore and the Solarian League degenerate, rebellion breaks out in numerous League protectorate and independent Verge systems suffering under the abuses of the Office of Frontier Security, exploitative Solarian interstellar corporations, and the local governments they collaborate with. These liberation movements receive arms and supplies through a group that represents itself as the Star Empire, but that in reality is the Mesan Alignment. The Alignment's goal is to ferment "Manticore"-sponsored uprisings that are later abandoned and crushed, thereby discrediting the Star Empire as an ally in the OFS protectorates and independent systems.

Meanwhile in the Talbott Quadrant, after her victory over the Solarian League Navy at the Battle of Spindle, Tenth Fleet commanding officer Michelle Henke, Admiral Gold Peak, is tasked with maintaining the Quadrant's security against the League threat. The first crisis she deals with is an illegal detention of Manticoran merchantmen by OFS Governor Damián Dueñas in the Saltash System; Henke dispatches Captain Jacob Zavala to recover the merchantmen and their crew. When Dueñas refuses to release the crew, Zavala engages and destroys the defending Solarian battlecruiser squadron. With the discreet assistance of the Saltash Space Service CO, a boarding party under Lieutenant Abigail Hearns is able to rescue the prisoners from the Gendarmes holding them aboard the orbiting Shona Station.

In the Mobius System, the massacre of two thousand civilian protesters by the Presidential Guard and the violent response by the Mobius Liberation Front causes local despot President Svein Lombroso to panic. Lombroso pressures the local OFS representative to request Frontier Fleet and Gendarmerie intervention from the Meyers System. MLF leader Michael Breitbach, upon learning of this, sends his own message to the Talbott Quadrant to ask Manticore for assistance.

Widespread public anger over the May Day massacre causes a surge in anti-government activity and prompts several MLF cells to begin independent operations against the Lombroso regime, peaking with a suicide attack by cell leader Kazuyoshi Brewster and associates on the Trifecta Corporation building that results in the death of the Trifecta systems operation manager and a regiment of Presidential Guardsmen. Realizing that attempting to restrain the rogue cells will simply result in the entire organization being picked off piecemeal by the Mobian security apparatus, Breitbach launches a full-scale insurrection against Lombroso's government, requesting aid from Manticore a second time.

Henke receives the messages, but has no knowledge of Manticoran sponsorship of rebellions in Verge systems; she and her staff surmise Mesa's involvement and motivations. Realizing what will happen if the MLF is left to be destroyed, she sends Commodore Aivars Terekhov to resolve the situation in Mobius. Terekhov arrives at the system to find that the OFS forces under Brigadier Francisca Yucel have already arrived and inflicted heavy losses on the MLF, with government and/or Gendarmerie forces committing atrocities such as mass executions and the use of kinetic strikes to destroy entire towns. He forces the SLN ships in orbit to scuttle and demands Yucel's surrender. She refuses and threatens to kill several thousand civilian hostages, whereupon Terekhov kills her with a kinetic strike on her headquarters and rescues the civilians.

The Verge rebellions, along with the capture or destruction of over 400 Solarian superdreadnaughts at the Second Battle of Manticore, lead Henke to move decisively against the League by invading the Meyers System and the Madras Sector. She captures the Frontier Fleet detachment under Commodore Francis Thurgood, along with OFS Commissioner Lorcan Verrochio and Vice Comissioner Junyan Hongbo. Examination of captured files and an interrogation of Hongbo strongly substantiate the involvement of the Mesan Alignment in events in the Quadrant, and Henke assembles Tenth Fleet for an invasion of Mesa.

Background

A first snippet of the novel was released online in late May 2011. The official electronic Advanced Reader Copy was offered for sale in early October 2012.

References

Characters

Starships

Royal Manticoran Navy

Solarian League Navy

Civilian Vessels

Stations

Meyers One | Parmley Station | Shona Station

Sectors

Madras Sector | Talbott Sector

Systems

Planets

Cities

Nations

Government

Grantville Government | Meyers Astro Control | Minister of Industry (Talbott Quadrant) | Minister of the Interior (Talbott Quadrant) | Office of Frontier Security

Military

Security Forces

Political Groups

Corporations

Astrography

Geography

Locations

Technology

Vehicles

air car | Scorpion (AFV) | sting ship

Flora

crab poplar | hickory | silver oak | sugar pine | white pine

Fauna

cockroach | hexapuma | prongbuck

Other

Notes

External links

Shadow of Freedom at Simon and Schuster
Shadow of Freedom on amazon.com
Shadow of Freedom at Baen

Main Honor Harrington series
HH1	On Basilisk Station	HH8	Echoes of Honor
HH2	The Honor of the Queen	HH9	Ashes of Victory
HH3	The Short Victorious War	HH10	War of Honor
HH4	Field of Dishonor	HH11	At All Costs
HH5	Flag in Exile	HH12	Mission of Honor
HH6	Honor Among Enemies	HH13	A Rising Thunder
HH7	In Enemy Hands	HH14	Uncompromising Honor
Spin off Series
Crown of Slaves		Star Kingdom
CS1	Crown of Slaves	SK1	A Beautiful Friendship
CS2	Torch of Freedom	SK2	Fire Season
CS3	Cauldron of Ghosts	SK3	Treecat Wars
CS4	To End In Fire	SK4	A New Clan
Saganami Island		Manticore Ascendant
SI1	The Shadow of Saganami	MA1	A Call to Duty
SI2	Storm from the Shadows	MA2	A Call to Arms
SI3	Shadow of Freedom	MA3	A Call to Vengeance
SI4	Shadow of Victory	MA4	A Call to Insurrection
Expanded Honorverse
EH1	Toll of Honor
Anthologies
HHA1	More Than Honor	HHA5	In Fire Forged
HHA2	Worlds of Honor	HHA6	Beginnings
HHA3	Changer of Worlds	HHA7	What Price Victory?
HHA4	The Service of the Sword
Tales of Honor Comic Series
TOH1	Tales of Honor #1	TOH4	Tales of Honor #4
TOH2	Tales of Honor #2	TOH5	Tales of Honor #5
TOH3	Tales of Honor #3	TOHV1	Tales of Honor Vol 1

Honorverse Non-Fiction
Book Companions		Ad Astra Companions
HOS	House of Steel Companion	SOTF	Ships of the Fleet Calendars
HOSH	House of Shadows Companion	SITS	Saganami Island Tactical Simulator
HOL	House of Lies Companion
Jayne's Intelligence Review		Jayne's Fighting Ships of the Galaxy
JIR1	The Royal Manticoran Navy	SB1	Ship Book 1: The Havenite Sector
JIR2	The Havenite Republican Navy	SB2	Ship Book 2: The Silesian Confederacy
JIR3	The Silesian Confederate Navy	SB3	Ship Book 3: The Short Victorious War