For Captain Honor Harrington, it's sometimes hard to know who the enemy really is. Offered a chance to reclaim her career as an officer of the Royal Manticoran Navy, she is given command of a 'squadron' of jury-rigged merchantmen with crew drawn from the dregs of her service, and ordered to somehow stop the pirates who have taken advantage of the Havenite War to plunder the Star Kingdom's commerce. But the pirates are not all they seem - and neither are some of her 'friends'. For Honor has been carefully chosen for her mission - by two implacable and powerful enemies. The way they see it, either she stops the raiders or the raiders kill her - either way, they win.