At All Costs characters

Also known as Duchess Harrington, Steadholder Harrington

Appears from the start

A Manticoran admiral and Grayson steadholder designated to command the reactivated Eighth Fleet. She faces renewed war while keeping vigil beside her dying regent, Howard Clinkscales, whose relationship to her is both official and deeply personal.

Also known as Faith

Appears from the start

Honor's designated heir at the opening of the book. Grayson's leaders warn that Faith's expected succession would be displaced if Honor later had a biological child, making Honor's family decisions a matter of public inheritance as well as private life.

Appears from the start

Honor's gravely ill regent and a quasi-paternal figure in her life. After years administering Harrington Stedding, he lies comatose at Protector's Palace with his death expected, leaving Honor to prepare both for bereavement and for the succession to his office.

Also known as Benjamin

Appears from the start

Protector of Grayson and a political ally of Honor. He supports her command and family, but warns that the succession cannot be treated as purely private because a future biological child would displace Faith after she has been raised as heir.

First appears in chapter 2

The dominant Mesa Manpower leader directing a broad covert strategy against Manticore and Haven. He regards peace between them and Manticore's expansion into Talbott as threats, and authorizes destabilization, clandestine operations, and preparations for coercive assassinations.

First appears in chapter 2

A Mesa operative assigned to help derail Manticore's Talbott annexation. She reports on earlier efforts to keep Manticore and Haven fighting and becomes one of Detweiler's principal contacts for the next stage of the Talbott operation.

First appears in chapter 2

A Mesa operative tasked with destabilizing Talbott alongside Anisimovna. Detweiler also directs her to prepare Operation Rat Poison, a contingency connected to the struggle over Congo and the risk that Manticore and Haven might unite against Manpower.

First appears in chapter 3

The member of the Clinkscales family prepared over several years to succeed Howard as Honor's regent. Honor considers him capable despite his lesser experience, and Howard's funeral binds his clan and the Harrington line through a formal obligation of mutual protection.

First appears in chapter 3

Honor Harrington's father.

First appears in chapter 3

Honor Harrington's mother, identified with Honor's family during the funeral and succession events on Grayson.

Also known as Lady White Haven

First appears in chapter 4

Hamish Alexander's wife and Honor's close confidante. She relies on a life-support chair because of severe earlier injuries, and she and Honor speak candidly about the difficult emotional position created by their shared bond with Hamish.

First appears in chapter 4

The Grayson armsman who leads Honor's close-protection detail and accompanies her between official engagements.

First appears in chapter 4

Honor's chief of staff, serving in that post by choice even though it requires her to forgo promotion. She brings Honor the first operational report on Haven's probing raids and helps assess the pressure they place on Manticore's alliances and limited defenses.

First appears in chapter 4

One of Honor's personal Grayson armsmen and a member of the close-protection detail led by LaFollet.

Also known as Earl White Haven, White Haven

First appears in chapter 4

Emily Alexander's husband and a senior Manticoran leader. His relationship with Honor is the difficult personal subject Emily and Honor discuss during Honor's visit to White Haven.

First appears in chapter 6

Haven's secretary of state and the official concealing alterations to the diplomatic correspondence behind the renewed war. He orders evidence changed, a former diplomat killed, and a false trail constructed so the dead man will appear to have acted alone.

First appears in chapter 7

Honor's bonded treecat and the mate of Samantha, Hamish's treecat. Nimitz shares an empathic connection with Honor and remains strongly attached to Samantha, making separation difficult even while each treecat stays with the human partner they adopted.

First appears in chapter 7

Hamish Alexander's bonded treecat and Nimitz's mate. Their separation causes both treecats distress, and Samantha helps open a conference about relations between humans and treecats.

Also known as Elizabeth

First appears in chapter 8

Manticore's queen, confronting a renewed war in which her navy may be badly outnumbered. She honors Honor with the captaincy of HMS Unconquered and values her as both a commander and a public symbol of the Alliance's recent success.

First appears in chapter 8

Manticore's First Spacelord, responsible for presenting the Admiralty's readiness assessment. He must allocate too few wall ships across home defense and vulnerable allies while Haven's hidden construction program may be producing a much larger fleet.

First appears in chapter 8

Manticore's intelligence chief. She reports major gaps in knowledge about Haven's fleet, including the unknown location and capacity of its concealed shipbuilding complex, and warns that the Republic's pod-layer strength may greatly exceed current estimates.

First appears in chapter 8

A Manticoran weapons developer working on systems intended to multiply the effectiveness of a navy facing superior numbers. Her projects are part of the Admiralty's effort to regain strategic flexibility while new ships and allied refits remain incomplete.

First appears in chapter 9

A Republic of Haven rear admiral commanding the task group sent to probe Zanzibar's defenses from RHNS William T. Sherman.

First appears in chapter 9

The Manticoran commander of the battle squadron at Zanzibar. She proposes using inner-system forces to repel Haven's probe without exposing the outer defenses, then formally dissents when the system-defense commander rejects her plan.

First appears in chapter 11

Honor's operations officer in Eighth Fleet.

First appears in chapter 11

Honor's flag lieutenant and a trusted member of the staff retained for the new Eighth Fleet. He serves aboard Imperator as the undermanned command prepares for dispersed raids deep into Haven's rear areas.

First appears in chapter 11

Honor's returning flag captain, assigned to command the new Invictus-class Imperator. He is one of the experienced officers around whom Honor builds Eighth Fleet despite its shortage of capital ships and the urgency of beginning offensive operations.

First appears in chapter 11

The commander of Eighth Fleet's initial wall of battle, which consists of only six superdreadnoughts. His ships form the heavy core of Honor's new command as it prepares to raid Haven while remaining available to reinforce Third Fleet.

First appears in chapter 15

Director of Haven's Federal Investigative Agency. He privately suspects that Haven officials, rather than Manticore, falsified the diplomatic traffic that restarted the war and authorizes an unofficial inquiry kept outside normal channels.

First appears in chapter 15

A Haven Special Senior Inspector trusted by Kevin Usher. A former resistance member, she is selected to conduct the off-books investigation into whether Giancola had access to the compromised authentication material used in the diplomatic fraud.

First appears in chapter 16

Commander of Eighth Fleet's powerful pod-laying battlecruiser squadron. She challenges Honor over whether friendship secured the post, and accepts Honor's assurance that she was chosen on merit while resolving to prove herself worthy of the command.

First appears in chapter 16

A senior Eighth Fleet officer commanding its carrier force and one of its carrier squadrons. The fleet's dispersed-raiding doctrine gives officers such as Truman unusual independence because there is too little time for extensive joint training before operations begin.

First appears in chapter 18

President of Haven, confronted with evidence that her own government may have manufactured the diplomatic basis for war. She authorizes a constitutionally dangerous covert inquiry while insisting that any proven responsibility must eventually be acknowledged.

Also known as Theisman

First appears in chapter 22

Haven's senior naval leader. He reports the damage caused by Honor's raids and joins Pritchart and Usher in assessing the suspected falsification of diplomatic correspondence.

First appears in chapter 26

A senior Grayson religious authority who rejects an attempt to deny Honor's unborn child the Harrington inheritance, ruling that her obligations were met and the succession remains valid.

First appears in chapter 27

The Haven naval commander at Chantilly. Warned by Manticoran reconnaissance, she activates a concealed defense plan that keeps ships, LACs, missile pods, and decoys hidden until the approaching raiders are committed to the system.

First appears in chapter 30

A Haven admiral selected by Theisman to organize Operation Gobi. The planned response to Manticore's raids is meant to use stronger, partly new formations to test improved doctrine and inflict a conspicuous defeat without prematurely committing to a general offensive.

Also known as Raoul

First appears in chapter 50

The newborn son of Honor and Hamish, welcomed by Emily as part of their shared family. Delivered from an artificial womb, he is publicly recognized as Honor's heir, baptized in Manticoran and Grayson traditions, and entrusted to LaFollet as sworn guardian.

First appears in chapter 52

A treecat bonded to Torch bodyguard Judson Van Hale and serving as part of the palace security presence. He senses the immediate danger posed by a commercial visitor's concealed devices, but the triggered neurotoxin attack unfolds too quickly to prevent.

First appears in chapter 52

A former genetic slave and one of Tandy Palan's Amazons guarding Torch's palace. When a neurotoxin attack begins in the throne room, she carries the queen toward safety and passes her through the closing doorway to Saburo.

First appears in chapter 52

Lara's partner in the Torch palace defense. He closes the door against the neurotoxin and escapes with the queen and Princess Ruth after Lara passes the queen to him.

First appears in chapter 52

Torch's security chief and a former Audubon Ballroom assassin, responsible for protecting the royal household during preparations for the peace summit. He is in the throne room when a compelled visitor activates the concealed neurotoxin devices.

First appears in chapter 52

A Torch bodyguard bonded to the treecat Genghis. He serves within the throne-room security detail when Genghis senses danger from a visitor carrying disguised dispensers, moments before the devices combine into a lethal neurotoxin attack.

First appears in chapter 54

Head of Haven's foreign intelligence service. He connects the attacks on Honor, Manticore's ambassador, Torch, and an earlier incident through perpetrators driven to self-destructive acts without coherent motives, and proposes a common outside manipulator.

First appears in chapter 55

A Haven admiral proposed to command the main force in Operation Beatrice, a massive assault on Manticore and Sphinx. The plan would place Tourville beneath him and commit forty-two battle squadrons to breaking the home defenses and destroying shipbuilding capacity.

First appears in chapter 56

A senior Haven intelligence officer who comes aboard Honor's flagship under a concealed suicide safeguard. He argues that Haven did not order the Torch attack and joins Zilwicki in identifying Mesa or Manpower as a plausible culprit, although neither has proof.

First appears in chapter 56

An anti-slavery investigator and ally of Honor who brings Victor Cachat's warning to Eighth Fleet. He argues that the Torch massacre was contrary to Haven's interests and begins pursuing evidence that Mesa or Manpower engineered the attack.

First appears in chapter 58

The Grayson commander of Task Force 82. During the Lovett operation, his force appears behind Giscard's interceptors and closes the trap that allows Honor to demonstrate Apollo's long-range control against a fleet caught inside the hyper-limit.

First appears in chapter 60

The infant daughter of Hamish and Emily and a member of the household they share with Honor. Honor returns from Lovett determined to see Emily and Catherine before attending public ceremonies, placing reunion with her family ahead of official acclaim.

First appears in chapter 62

Honor's confidential contact for Zilwicki's investigation. She reports that Zilwicki and an associate may have a path to evidence supporting their theory, but that they must travel secretly and cannot yet provide anything capable of changing Manticoran policy.

First appears in chapter 63

Commander of Manticore's Home Fleet. New Junction fortresses allow him to move the fleet to Sphinx orbit, improving protection of the inner Manticore system while accepting greater exposure elsewhere.