- Helen Zilwicki
Ensign Helen Zilwicki is a
fictional officer in theRoyal Manticoran Navy , inDavid Weber 'sHonorverse .She is the daughter of Captain
Anton Zilwicki and the late Captain Helen Zilwicki. Her adopted siblings are Berry Zilwicki and Larens ("Lars") Zilwicki. Her de facto stepmother isCatherine Montaigne , former Countess of the Tor.Helen's first appearance was as a 4-year old girl in "
The Short Victorious War ", when her mother sacrificed herself and her ship to protect the convoy Helen and Anton were escaping in. Helen Sr was posthumously awarded the Parliamentary Medal of Valor (the Manticoran equivalent of aVictoria Cross or theMedal of Honor ).She subsequently appeared at age 14 in "From the Highlands". She was kidnapped and held for ransom by slavers in the catacombs under Chicago. An expert in
Neue-Stil Handgemenge , she killed three men barehanded after escaping, and saved the lives of Berry and Lars.Helen also appeared in "
War of Honor " where she was attending theSaganami Naval Academy .She had a brief appearance in "
Crown of Slaves ", a book which mostly concerned Anton and Berry's adventures on Erewhon and Torch."
The Shadow of Saganami " had Helen as a major character. She served as a Midshipwoman (an Honorverse variant ofMidshipman ) aboard the heavy cruiser HMS "Hexapuma", under the command of CaptainAivars Terekhov . Her Officer Candidate Training Officer wasLieutenant (junior grade) Abigail Hearns .She developed a romantic interest in the form of Paulo d'Arezzo, a fellow midshipman.She is effectively Crown Princess (Heiress Presumptive) of Torch according to the Torch constitution. She is the oldest sibling of her sister Queen Berry, who currently has no children.
References
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.