“In Fire Forged” is the fifth anthology in the Honorverse, containing three short stories and another technical writing. We see the return of two favorite co-authors: Jane Lindskold bringing us the short story “Ruthless” and Timothy Zahn who hits us hard with his short story “An Act of War”. David Weber brings us the third short story entitled “Let’s Dance”, which is really a novella disguised as a short story. Then he brings us home with the technical essay “An Introduction to Modern Starship Armor Design”, brought to us through the character Hegel DiLutorio, a retired officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy.

This 311-page collection was first published by Baen in February 2011.

The first story is Ruthless by Jane Lindskold.

Jane brings us back to the story of Judith, a Masadan refugee rescued by Michael Winton when he was a midshipman. We promised you’d see more of Judith in the future, and here the promise is delivered. Time has passed, Michael is now a young commissioned officer in the RMN, he and Judith are married and have a young daughter named Ruth. There’s a plot afoot by George and Alice Ramsbottom, staunch Manticoran isolationists who object to the alliance Manticore formed with Grayson. In an attempt to disrupt this new alliance, they kidnap Ruth with the intent to return her to her Masadan father. They hope that Grayson will question their decision to enter an alliance with Manticore based on an assumption that if Manticore can’t even protect one child, they’re not a Star Kingdom worth allying with for broader and more significant defense issues. As a bonus, if Michael will act rashly, this may also embarrass the Star Kingdom’s reputation broadly. The events in this story take place in 1889 PD, two to three years after the events captured in Jane Lindskold’s short story “Promised Land”.

Your hosts all gave this one a “thumbs-up”.

Next we discussed Timothy Zahn’s short story An Act of War.

This story takes place around the time as Honor escapes from Hades (approximately 1914 PD). We saw those events in the novel “Ashes of Victory”. When Honor’s escape becomes known, this story gives us a glimpse into an arms dealer named Charles who at the same time was trying to sell cloaking technology to Haven. Events unfold when Oscar St. Just is convinced to install this equipment on a ship and for that ship to be used in an unorthodox manner to hopefully fuel a war between Manticore and the Andermani Empire. This would be a good thing from the Havenite perspective. Risky deeds are attempted and things get pretty tense, pretty fast!

This one received three “thumbs-up” from your hosts as well!

The third story is Let’s Dance, written by David Weber.

As mentioned, this is more of a novella than a short story. It takes us back to Commander Honor Harrington’s first hyper-capable command as she captains the destroyer HMS Hawking (sometime prior to 1900 PD). We see events related to the Manticoran efforts to normalize relationships with Silesia, which have been somewhat tense. She’s conducting anti-piracy operations in Silesian territory, intervenes and captures a vessel conducting piracy and in a good-faith gesture, turns the ship and crew over to the local Silesian system governor.

A short time later she learns two unsavory things. First, the ship and crew she handed to the Silesians has mysteriously disappeared. Honor has no doubt they were released rather than prosecuted. Second, she learns about a significant Mesan (Manpower, Inc.) slave-trading station through an interesting and unproven source. That source quickly builds credibility by revealing a knowledge of Honor’s Beowulfian family and a shared hatred of the slave trade. He quietly discloses he's also a member of the Audubon Ballroom,