L OMBRE DE SAGANAMI 1 L UNIVERS D HONOR HARRINGTON (S F ET FANTASTIQUE)

Du nom d’un héros historique de la Flotte, l’académie de Saganami forme les officiers de Sa Majesté. À peine les aspirants ont-ils quitté l’école qu’ils se retrouvent plongés dans la réalité de la guerre : les hostilités ont repris contre la République de Havre. Certains font pourtant exception, ceux affectés au HMS Hexapuma, dépêché vers l’amas de Talbot, un ensemble de systèmes stellaires que l’exploitation d’un nouveau terminal du nœud de trou de ver de Manticore a soudain rapprochés politiquement et stratégiquement. Car les peuples du Talbot ont demandé leur annexion par le Royaume. Est-ce donc une mission de tout repos qui attend l’ Hexapuma loin du front ? Non : certaines firmes interstellaires sans scrupule ont décidé de faire obstacle à l’annexion par tous les moyens. Face à l’adversité, le capitaine Terekhov, son équipage et ses jeunes aspirants devront faire appel à l’esprit de Saganami; il arrive que le devoir d’un officier soit d’affronter un défi impossible... et de mourir au combat. The Star Kingdom of Manticore is once again at war with the Republic of Haven after a stunning sneak attack. The graduating class from Saganami Island, the Royal Manticoran Navy's academy, are going straight from the classroom to the blazing reality of all-out war. Except for the midshipmen assigned to the heavy cruiser HMS *Hexapuma*, that is. *They're* being assigned to the Talbott Cluster, an out of the way backwater, far from the battle front. The most they can look forward to is the capture of the occasional pirate cruiser and the boring duty ofd supporting the Cluster's peaceful integration with the Star Kingdom at the freely expressed will of eighty percent of the Cluster's citizens. With a captain who may have seen too much of war and a station commander who isn't precisely noted for his brilliant and insightful command style, it isn't exactly what the students of Honor Harrington, the "Salamander," expected. But things aren't as simple - or tranquil - as they appear. The "pirates" they encounter aren't what they seem, and the "peaceful integration" they expected turns into something very different. A powerful alliance of corrupt Solarian League bureaucrats and ruthless interstellar corporations is determined to prevent the Cluster's annexation by the Star Kingdom... by any means necessary. Pirates, terrorists, genetic slavers, smuggled weapons, long-standing personal hatreds, and a vicious alliance of corporate greed, bureaucratic arrogance, and a corrupt local star nation with a powerful fleet, and all coming together, and only *Hexapuma*, her war-weary captain, and Honor Harrington's students stand in the path. They have only one thing to support and guide them: the tradition of Saganami. The tradition that sometimes a Queen's officer's duty is to face impossible odds... and die fighting. A peaceful integration of the Cluster with the Star Kingdom turns violent when corrupt Solarian League bureaucrats attempt to prevent the annexation, with only Honor Harrington's newly graduated midshipmen in their way