Horace Harkness

Horace Harkness is a fictional character in the Honorverse, a series of military science fiction novels written by David Weber.

The weathered-looking, middle-aged chief warrant officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy has a habit of picking bar fights with Marines; the latter regard this as a compliment, making the correct assumption that he is looking for sufficiently tough opposition. Officially, he's a gunner's mate; unofficially, he's an expert smuggler and computer hacker. Although he cut back on his illegal activities after Commander Honor Harrington took command of the HMS Fearless, he continued to use his skills to choose his own assignments.

He is at least as tough as he looks but he also has a softer side: he mentored pilot Scotty Tremaine and young technician Aubrey Wanderman and eventually married Iris Babcock, a Marine. (According to Tremaine, Harkness has stopped fighting with Marines since his marriage to Babcock.) He remains attached to Tremaine and has hacked the Bureau of Personnel database multiple times to remain in a post close to him.

When the ship he was on was captured by the People's Republic of Haven, Harkness feigned defection and joined the People's Navy. As luck would have it, the two guards assigned to him were involved in the ship's gambling ring. They provided Harkness with a minicomputer so he could insert some illicit features into the games library. With this minicomp, Harkness was able to engineer a breakout, rescuing Commodore Harrington from execution, as well as his crewmates and a Havenite Citizen-Captain from indefinite imprisonment on a prison planet officially called Hades, but best known as Hell. For this, he received the Parliamentary Medal of Valor as well as a knighthood and promotion to Chief Warrant Officer.