Events in the more recent novels (and a few notes from the short story in House of Steel) have conspired to make this story slightly AU; when I started working on it (in late 2010) that was not the case, but I can't always guess where David Weber is going to go with the main plotline (and I've never been able to stick with writing one story long enough to just get something done) and in a few cases I decided that it was better to leave things alone (mostly) than to try and retrofit the story. I've tried to minimize the number of people holding an idiot ball in this story; all the fleet commanders I've created or appropriated from the main Honorverse are competent within the bounds of what they know – even the ones working for the Solarian League Navy.
All non-original characters are David Weber's, as is the Honorverse.
Prologue: Discovery
The Rivendell Navy survey ship Cordellia Naismith was conducting its mission in a star system that on the surface seemed to hold nothing of consequence, though it was only a day's journey from Rivendell itself. There were no planets that humans could live on outside of a sealed habitat, even with 20th-century Post Diaspora terraforming and bioengineering. Its asteroid belts had no minerals that were not more easily obtained in the Rivendell system or other nearby inhabited systems. And the initial surveys of the system – which the Rivendell Republic had commissioned as a matter of course centuries ago, since it was very near their star nation – had not shown any major astrophysical anomalies.
However, a series of recent discoveries had served to remind Rivendell's government that a lot had been learned since they first tried to look for wormholes in the systems they controlled or those nearby. Hence a new generation of surveys had been commissioned. And this time, the surveys had found something.
"Well, captain?" Dr. Kara Fey asked. "Are we ready to go through?" She was the Republic's second-leading expert on wormhole junctions. Since the Republic did not possess any wormhole junctions of its own – until now, anyway – that was a somewhat dubious honor by comparison to some parts of the galaxy, but she was well acquainted with the somewhat bizarre mathematics of hyperspace physics. Despite the lack of local wormholes, there were more than enough in other parts of the Solarian League for her to study, let alone things like the Manticoran Wormhole Junction, and she had.
"As ready as we'll ever be. Rig the ship for junction transit." Commander Price of the Rivendell Navy ordered. And they jumped blind.
A few hours later Dr. Fey and the ships' computers had figured out where they were. The system's designation – no one had bothered to give it a proper name – was a mostly meaningless string of numbers and letters. But the nearest inhabited system was Spindle – recent site of a confrontation between the Solarian League Navy and the Star Empire of Manticore.
"Well, I'm not sure if the Council is going to decide we're heroes or trouble-makers for this. Do we tell the locals on our own, or sit quietly here until we've got the path home charted and then let the political types decide what to do?" He didn't, everyone on board understood, even think of kicking that decision all the way back to Earth and the Chamber of Stars. Since referring the decision back to Old Earth would actually be leaving to the unelected bureaucrats who actually ran the Solarian League (because someone had to, and the Constitution's provisions made it all but impossible for the government to do it) and none of them had the slightest thought about what was good for Rivendell, there was no chance that option would be taken.
The League's assistance had been a gift from God when the Rivendell Navy had been trying to clear out the piracy that had been somewhat endemic in the region around where their colony ship arrived – the Rivendell Colony Trust had been able to prevent claim jumpers from stealing their planet out from under them – if the frigate Faramir that the Trust had commissioned had been a hair less well-armed, they might not have been able to do so – but that didn't prevent less than good neighbors from moving in nearby. Fortunately the Republic had been advanced enough that by the time the League was expanding into their part of the Shell, it had offered full membership and the League Navy's services in… discouraging bad actors.
But that didn't mean that the Republic was unaware of what was happening to the League. Indeed, they had spent decades quietly preparing against a collapse they hoped would never come. Lately, though, it seemed more and more likely that collapse would happen.
"You're the captain. But as much as I'd like to go on ahead, I think we have to report back with this." She said. And they did.