House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion (58 page)

Yanakov, Bernard (deceased)

High Admiral, Grayson Space Navy

Bernard Yanakov was the uniformed Commander-in-Chief of the GSN at the time of the Courvoisier Mission in 1902 PD. He forged a personal friendship with Admiral Raoul Courvoisier, took a leading role in the diplomatic negotiations with the Star Kingdom, and died commanding the Grayson-Manticoran combined fleet in the First Battle of Yeltsin.

Yanakov, Judah

Admiral, Grayson Space Navy

Judah Yanakov, the nephew of High Admiral Bernard Yanakov, continues his family tradition of service. As a rear admiral, he served as a divisional commander in the First Battle Squadron under Steadholder Harrington in 1907 PD. In 1913, promoted to admiral, he commanded the
Grayson
contingent of Eighth Fleet at the Second Battle of Basilisk. Since the resumption of hostilities, he has commanded Task Force 82, Eighth Fleet, under Admiral Harrington.

Yu, Alfredo

Admiral, Protector’s Own

Alfredo Yu was part of a covert “exchange program” between the PN and the planet of Masada, as a captain in the People’s Navy. As the commander of MNS
Thunder of God
, he attempted to prevent Masadan atrocities and resisted Masadan plans to use his ship to bombard the planet of Grayson. The Masadans, however, seized his ship and attempted to attack the planet. Yu managed to escape with a significant portion of his Havenite crew. Following the destruction of Thunder of God by HMS
Fearless
(CA-286), Yu requested and was granted political asylum by the Star Kingdom of Manticore. After intensive debriefing and service in support of the Royal Manticoran Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence and the Grayson Office of Shipbuilding, he requested Grayson citizenship and was subsequently granted a GSN commission and served as Steadholder Harrington’s flag captain aboard GNS
Terrible
in the First Battle Squadron at the Fourth Battle of Yeltsin. Upon Steadholder Harrington’s return from Cerberus and Protector Benjamin’s creation of the Protector’s Own in 1914 PD, Yu formally transferred from the GSN to the Protector’s Own as Steadholder Harrington’s second-in-command and
de facto
CO.

Treecats

A total of forty-two treecats now live full-time on Grayson. Those not bonded reside permanently in Harrington Steading, while those who have bonded accompany their adopted humans. Nimitz (Laughs Brightly of Bright Water Clan) is bonded with Steadholder Harrington and mated with Samantha (Golden Voice of the Sun Leaf Clan; bonded to Hamish Alexander-Harrington), with whom he has four treekittens: Jason, Cassandra, Achilles, and Andromeda. Eight other adult treecats from the Bright Water Clan originally immigrated to Grayson. Of the original immigrants, Farragut is bonded with Miranda LaFollet of Harrington Steading, and Hipper is bonded with Rachel Mayhew, daughter of Protector Mayhew.

Xenologists were originally divided on whether this move should be considered the first colonization of another world by the treecat species. Nimitz and others did participate in space travel and visit other worlds prior to the birth of Samantha’s litter and the immigration of the eight members of Bright Water Clan. However, the archives of the Xenology Institute of Sphinx, which makes a special study of treecats, had no prior instance of so many females leaving Sphinx together or of treekittens being raised outside of a Sphinxian treecat range.

After the communication breakthrough by Dr. Arif, the treecats themselves were able to answer the question definitively, and two follow-on groups have immigrated from Sphinx in the intervening years.

The Grayson Space Navy

While the GSN was officially founded in 1675 PD (3777 CE), it traces its origin to the founding of the Grayson Space Guard in 1386, making the GSN one of the galaxy’s older navies.

The GSG was envisioned more as a civilian law enforcement and SAR organization than as a military force, equipped with a modest force of small, lightly armed patrol craft and a handful of longer-ranged “cutters” (essentially, reaction-powered equivalents of what the rest of the galaxy now calls light attack craft). The GSG was never really big enough or sufficiently well-funded to perform its various missions over so vast a volume, yet it succeeded in doing so anyway, establishing a tradition of adaptive innovation and resourcefulness which was to serve it and the Grayson Space Navy extraordinarily well over the ensuing centuries.

After thirty-five years of police and SAR duties, the GSG’s first combat action occurred in 1422 PD, when it supported Benjamin the Great’s forces by launching kinetic strikes against the Army of the Faithful during the final years of the Civil War, but it came truly into its own in 1672, when it defeated the first Masadan attack on Yeltsin’s Star. Shortly thereafter, in recognition of its service to the Protectorate and as an acknowledgement of its future role, the GSG formally became the Grayson Space Navy.

For most of its history, the GSN has been at war or preparing for war with Masada, and during that time the Navy of the Faithful has cycled several times in capability, from barely space-worthy to a near-peer competitor with the GSN.

From the early days of converted ore haulers and GSG cutters, the GSN had grown into a small, but respectable force of cruisers, destroyers, and light attack craft by the time Grayson joined the Alliance. Since the Protectorate of Grayson’s admission to the Manticoran Alliance, it has become one of the largest, most modern, and most powerful navies in existence.

Organization

The GSN has historically been organized into a three-tier system. In the first tier are the Offices, roughly equivalent to the Bureaus of the RMN. Each office is run by an Admiral and is broken into divisions that focus on different aspects of its area of responsibility. The second tier consists of independent Commands, unique in that they report directly to the High Admiral, though they may work closely with one or more Office. Finally, in the third tier are the administrative units, smaller staffs that provide support in specialized areas.

This organizational scheme worked quite well when the GSN was a small system defense force with no more than a half-dozen hyper-capable ships in its order of battle. Scaling this organization to run one of the five most powerful navies in the galaxy has been difficult, though the Graysons, with their combination of stubborn adherence to tradition and flexible attitude towards change, appear to have made it work.

Office of the High Admiral

High Admiral Wesley Matthews

Every layer of the Navy has historically reported directly to the High Admiral, and the formal tables of organization still reflect this polite fiction. However, over almost two decades of explosive growth, the office of the High Admiral has grown to encompass a number of smaller administrative units as well as a staff to manage the day-to-day inputs from the Offices and Commands. Encompassed in the Office of the High Admiral are both the Chaplain Corps and Legal Services, tasked with caring for the Navy’s spiritual and secular well-being. These offices have traditionally dealt with sensitive issues requiring direct access to the High Admiral.

Office of Shipbuilding

Admiral Cornelius Browning

The Office of Shipbuilding is responsible for all aspects of starship construction, from stations and small craft to superdreadnoughts. While every part of the Navy has expanded since Grayson joined the Alliance, the Office of Shipbuilding has probably had the most growth, responsible for the design and construction of no fewer than twenty-two warship classes (both Grayson-designed and locally constructed RMN designs) in the twenty years since joining the Alliance.

Office of Intelligence

Admiral Austin Roberts

The Office of Intelligence coordinates all of the Naval/Military Intelligence-gathering activities into one cohesive whole. It works closely with Sword Intelligence and Manticore’s Bureau of Planning. This office has the distinction of being the oldest organizational unit of the GSN. It is descended from the group that controlled the original “Watcher” platforms built to monitor the status of the Masadan colony expeditions during the Exile. While the platforms themselves have been transferred to System Defense Command (SDC), the Office of Intelligence retains its original function and works closely with SDC to identify threats to the Yeltsin’s Star System in enough time to counter them.

Office of Supply

Rear Admiral Carlyle Jones

The Office of Supply encompasses the logistical side of the Navy as well as the Ordnance Command and is responsible for all munitions, drones and other expendables carried aboard warships. It works in tandem with the RMN Logistics Command to form the Joint Navy Military Transport Command, the fleet of fast commercial freighters that has been the core of rear-area logistics throughout the war. Armed fleet auxiliaries operating in conjunction with Grayon’s forward deployed wall of battle also report to the Office of Supply.

Office of Personnel

Vice Admiral Justin Ackroyd

The Office of Personnel is responsible for manning requirements as well as all administrative issues surrounding personnel management (payroll, benefits, promotions board, leave, etc.). It has worked heavily with Alliance partners to find homes for allied personnel in GSN service.

The Office of Personnel has also had the unenviable task of navigating the minefield of forming a gender-integrated Navy, with the introduction of female
Grayson
personnel into what has always been a male Navy. The GSN’s experience with female personnel “on loan” from the Royal Manticoran Navy has been a godsend in this respect, but the process of integrating even those experienced, trained women into their all-male service was not without problems. Integrating Grayson-born women has been even more challenging, given the Grayson tradition that women are to be protected rather than exposed to danger, and there has been considerable friction, especially in the early years of the process, but the GSN appears to be coping.

Office of Technology

Admiral William Gaffney

The Office of Technology grew out of the alliance with the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the need for the GSN to quickly incorporate the wealth of new technology and data coming into the system. Taking a page from the RMN, the Office of Technology works closely with corporate and shipping concerns both in Grayson and Manticoran space to gather technological news from across explored space.

By 1921 PD, the Office has moved into more of a pure R&D role, working closely with the R&D programs in Systems Command. Pressure to merge the two groups into a single office started when the Janacek Admiralty shut down all coordination between the navies in the interregnum between operational phases of the war, but bureaucratic inertia, present even in the GSN, has so far resisted the merge. During the locust years of the Janacek Admiralty, the Office of Technology began to form its own relationships with Alliance navies and had established robust channels of communication independent of the RMN by the time the war resumed.

System Defense Command

Admiral Leon Garret

System Defense Command (SDC) maintains the long-range detection arrays, border sensors, and several squadrons of quick reaction forces to identify and respond to possible threats. It is the oldest formally integrated organization in the GSN and is also in charge of the “fixed” defenses of the system, including orbital fortresses, missile pods and planetary defenses. In the event of an attack on the home system, the mobile force commander works closely with SDC.

Admiral Garret is one of the last of the original GSN admirals to survive the War, and he has been instrumental in organizing and coordinating the home system defenses for longer than much of the current crop of Grayson officers has been alive. He continues to work tirelessly despite his advanced age and calls from some quarters for his retirement. He runs his Command as a personal fiefdom but, despite any personnel management peculiarities, his results have kept him in charge. His style is seen by many as abrasive but this defect has been matched by the near total success of his defensive measures. Admiral Garret has publicly acknowledged the successful defense of the Yeltsin’s Star System as his personal Test and has been quoted in the ’faxes as saying, “God will let me know when it’s time for me to go. Probably when my heart stops beating.”

Doctrine and Training Command

Rear Admiral Michael Reston

Doctrine and Training Command (DTC) works closely with the Office of Personnel and has been instrumental in keeping pace with the rapidly evolving theory of warfare in the Alliance as a whole and GSN in particular.

For the first decade after Grayson joined the Manticoran Alliance, all GSN officers attended the RMN Academy on Saganami Island, and the majority of them continue to do so. In 1920, however, the revamped Isaiah Mackenzie Naval Academy, the traditional source of the GSN’s officer corps, reopened with a thoroughly modernized curriculum and up-to-date training facilities. DTC has been deeply involved with coursework design for Saganami Island from the very first, and was instrumental in designing the new Mackenzie curriculum and in recruiting visiting Manticoran professors. In addition, DTC bears primary responsibility for local enlisted personnel training, and it has also been instrumental in some of the changes in command and control structure on
Grayson
warships, rippling down from flag staff to individual bridge crews.

Systems Command

Vice Admiral Thomas Albert

Systems Command has been the Navy’s research and development shop since long before the Alliance. All of the home-grown technology updates the Navy had put into place before the first Masadan attack after the Exile were developed here. Systems Command provided the original work on the improved compensators and fission reactors and has worked very closely with the RMN’s Weapons Development Board on many aspects of Alliance technology.

The original intention was to replace Systems Command with the Office of Technology once the influx of new tech from Manticore grew from a trickle into a flood, but High Admiral Matthews, with the firm support of the Protector, overruled the decision. He argued that Grayson must not rely on foreign efforts to develop new technology and should continue its own development, incorporating but not slavishly following Manticoran tech and practice. Thus, Systems Command retains its research and development role while coordinating closely with the Office of Technology to screen for useful ideas from across the human galaxy.

Special Warfare Command

Lieutenant General Gerald White

Special Warfare Command (SpecWar) is the smallest Command in the GSN and also one of the older ones. The hyperdrive, and exposure to the rest of humanity, brought both the GSN and their Masadan opponents a limited ability to conduct covert operations in each other’s star systems. SpecWar was the organization that grew out of the Office of Intelligence unit tasked with covert operations in either star system. As such, it gathered a substantial amount of information for the Alliance forces that occupied Masada.

Protector’s Own Squadron

Protector Benjamin Mayhew IX established the Protector’s Own in 1914 PD, using as its core the warships and volunteers of the Elysian Space Navy. The crews of the Elysian Space Navy were former State Security prisoners of war who escaped the Cerberus System under the command of Admiral Harrington. Every member was offered a position in the Protector’s Own, and nearly one hundred sixty thousand accepted. Like service members in the Grayson Space Navy, members of the Protector’s Own are entitled to Grayson citizenship following six years of honorable service. While the initial service members of the Protector’s Own were foreign, and in some cases decades out of practice in the art and science of space combat, that core group and the Grayson-born members who have joined it have become the most skilled force in the already elite Grayson service.

The Protector’s Own is personally financed by the Protector of Grayson. The squadron’s new ships are built in Grayson Space Navy yards. The Protector’s Own Squadron, currently nearer to a fleet in size, generally shares doctrine, training, maintenance, and upkeep facilities with the GSN. Service members of the Protector’s Own are uniformed in the Mayhew gold and maroon. They are paid on a scale set by the Protector. As of 1921 PD, that rate is 115 percent of GSN pay for the same grade.

In recognition of Fleet Admiral Harrington, its commanding officer, the emblem of the Protector’s Own is a flame-enshrouded salamander. Because of her other duties, Admiral Harrington relies on her second-in-command, Admiral Alfredo Yu, to serve as the acting commanding officer in her absence. Though many of the members of the Protector’s Own are foreign born, service is open to all spacers (foreign or steaders) who meet the qualifications standards and choose to compete for a position. Most of these service members become Grayson citizens. Additional members of the Protector’s Own, as needed to maintain force strength, have been enlisted and commissioned from Grayson. Most maintain residences in Harrington Steading. All Protector’s Own officers and general spacers make their oath to the Protector, as do all members of the GSN, but the Protector’s Own has been established as a separate service branch, legally coequal to the Grayson Space Navy, the Grayson Army, and Grayson Planetary Security. A recruitment office run at the direction of the Protector on Mayhew Steading reviews applications and administers qualification testing quarterly.