Michelle Henke

Vice Admiral Lady Gloria Michelle "Mike" Samantha Evelyn Henke, Countess Gold Peak, Vice Admiral of the Red is a fictional character in the Honorverse, a series of military science fiction novels written by David Weber. She is an officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy and a titled peer of the Manticoran aristocracy.

Mike is Queen Elizabeth III's first cousin through their mutual grandmother, Queen Samantha II, and therefore a member of a Cadet Branch of the House of Winton. Mike roomed with Honor Harrington at Saganami Naval Academy and helped her pass higher-dimensional mathematics. Later, she served as Honor's executive officer on the battlecruiser Nike. Paul Tankersley was another of her cousins, albeit on her father's side.

Henke was a Commander when introduced in The Short Victorious War. She was promoted to Captain (Junior Grade) in Field of Dishonor. She was a Captain of the List by Echoes of Honor. She became Countess Gold Peak at the conclusion of Ashes of Victory when her father, Earl Gold Peak, and her older brother, Calvin, are killed during the Masadan assassination attempt on Benjamin Mayhew and Queen Elizabeth. At the beginning of At All Costs she is a Rear Admiral assigned to Eighth Fleet as Commander, Battlecruiser Squadron 81. Her flagship, HMS Ajax, was severely damaged at the Battle of Solon and could not escape to hyper with the rest of the fleet. She was captured and later released as President Pritchart's messenger to Queen Elizabeth.

As a condition of her parole, she could no longer serve with units engaging or supporting actions against the Republic of Haven, i.e. Eighth Fleet. Prior to the Battle of Solon, Henke had been selected for promotion to vice admiral. The promotion was put on hold when she was presumed lost at Solon and eventually listed as a POW. Upon her return to Manticore, the promotion was reinstated. She was subsequently assigned to the Talbott Quadrant where she initially commanded the 106th Battlecrusier Squadron and as Commander, 10th Fleet-Designate. 10th Fleet was officially activated with the arrival of Commodore Aivars Terekov's squadron and accompanying destroyer flotillas. Her current fleet flagship is the HMS Achilles.

Mike has held two hypercapable commands the HMS Agni (a light cruiser) and HMS Edward Saganami (a heavy cruiser) in various books. She is the main character of the book Storm from the Shadows, the sequel to The Shadow of Saganami, which was published in March 2009. In the book she is assigned a command in the newly annexed Talbott Quadrant, due to the parole she gave to not command forces against the Republic of Haven. She opposes the efforts of Mesa to undermine the Star Kingdom of Manticore's position in the cluster. Also, in the same book, she wins the Second battle of New Tuscany, against a Solarian League battlecruiser squadron commanded by Admiral Josef Byng - with no losses to her force, and the destruction of Admiral Byng's flagship as the only Solarian casualty. This leads, in the book Mission of Honor, to an even more impressive victory in the Battle of Spindle, in which she deploys a supply of 'Apollo' missile pods to force the surrender of a task force of over seventy Solarian superdreadnoughts commanded by Admiral Sandra Crandall - to a 10th Fleet which still had no larger ships in its order of battle than her original battlecruiser squadron. Crandall's refusal to surrender resulted in the destruction nearly a third of the Solarian force, again, with no Manticoran losses.