Helen Zilwicki

Ensign Helen Zilwicki is a fictional officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy, in David Weber's Honorverse.

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 is Catherine 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 a Victoria Cross).

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 martial artist, she killed two men barehanded after escaping, and saved the lives of Berry and Lars.

Helen also appeared in War of Honor where she was attending the Naval Academy at Saganami Island.

She had a brief appearance in Crown of Slaves, a book which mostly concerned Anton and Berry's adventures in Erewhon and Torch.

The Shadow of Saganami had Helen as a major character. She served as a Midshipwoman (an Honorverse variant of Midshipman) aboard the heavy cruiser HMS Hexapuma, under the command of Captain Aivars Terekhov. Her Officer Candidate Training Officer was Lieutenant (junior grade) Abigail Hearns. By the end of the book she had been brevetted to Ensign (a rank she presumably will keep; this simply means a few weeks or months' seniority over academy classmates). She developed a romantic interest in the form of Paulo d'Arezzo, a fellow midshipman.