In Enemy Hands

From Honorverse

In Enemy Hands is the seventh book of David Weber's series of novels and short stories chronicling the adventures of Honor Harrington. It was first published in 1997.

Timeframe: 1911 PD

[edit] Cover Summary

Honor Harrington's career has its ups and its downs. She's survived ship-to-ship battles, assassins, political vendettas, and duels. She's been shot at, shot down, and just plain shot, had starships blown out from under her, and made personal enemies who will stop at nothing to ruin her, and somehow she's survived it all.

But this time she's really in trouble.

The People's Republic of Haven has finally found an admiral who can win battles, and Honor's orders take her straight into an ambush. Outnumbered, outgunned, and unable to run, she has just two options: see the people under her command die in a hopeless, futile battle... or surrender them-and herself-to the People's Republic of Haven.

There can be only one choice, and at least the People's Navy promises to treat their prisoners honorably. But the Navy is overruled by the political authorities, and Honor finds herself bound for a prison planet aptly named "Hell" ... and her scheduled execution.

Put into solitary confinement, separated from her officers and her treecat Nimitz, and subjected to systematic humiliation by her gaolers, Honor's future has become both bleak and short. Yet bad as things look, they're about to get worse ... for the People's Republic of Haven.

[edit] Plot

Honor Harrington has been promoted to Commodore, a rank so high that she will never personally command a ship again. The promotion comes through as she returns to Harrington Steading on Grayson, after having spent the previous months advising and working with the Weapons Development Board.

Honor has not returned alone, however, as her treecat Nimitz has mated with Samantha, who has born 'kittens. The Bright Water Clan has also dispatched eight adult treecats to help raise the kittens and establish a treecat colony on Grayson. During a party in Harrington Steading, Honor and Admiral White Haven discuss the WDB's radical suggestions: as authored by Harrington, the final recommendations were to radically revise the fleet, by beginning the construction of a new class of superdreadnoughts with hollow cores, appropriate for releasing large numbers of missile pods which permit simultaneous launch of more missiles than a single ship could ever fire; other new developments are LAC carriers and a new generation of remotely-deployed EW drones. White Haven, in a knee-jerk response to anything smacking of the technological innovation, opposes the recommendations without examining the full report, and Honor forcefully refutes his opposition. As she argues for the recommendations, Honor suddenly realizes that the Admiral is in love with her -- and, even more shocking, that her feelings for him are strong as well. This is a dilemma, as White Haven is both married and her superior officer.

In an attempt to escape her own feelings, Honor goes with Alistair McKeon on a convoy escort mission to the Adler System, a small system near the front line. Unbeknownst to them, Adler has been the victim of a lightning sneak attack masterminded by Rear Admiral Lester Tourville of the People's Navy, under the orders of Thomas Theisman.

During the hyperspace transition, Honor boards McKeon's heavy cruiser HMS Prince Adrian for his birthday party, and is still aboard when the ship drops out of hyper well before the rest of the convoy as a point guard. Due to the absence of the expected system picket, Prince Adrian proceeds cautiously, detecting the Havenite ships waiting to ambush the convoy; the only possible course is to draw the ambushers away from the convoy. They hold off the enemy long enough for the transports to escape, then, out-matched and unable to escape, Honor orders McKeon to surrender his ship.

At first, Honor and her officers are treated respectfully by Tourville and Theisman, who remember Honor's treatment of Havenite prisoners such as Shannon Foraker, and the Havenite officers plan to inter Harrington and her officers in a Navy-run POW camp instead of turning her over to the Office of State Security. Unfortunately, Secretary of Public Information Cordelia Ransom happens to be in the system testing Theisman's political loyalty and developing propaganda. She demands that the Manticorans be surrendered to her. Unable to deny Ransom and her StateSec enforcers, Admiral Theisman does as ordered.

Honor, McKeon, and the rest of the crew are transferred to the modified battlecruiser PNS Tepes, which is run entirely by State Security as Ransom's personal flagship, bound for the secret prison planet Hades, where Ransom intends to execute the sentence the legislaturalists passed upon Honor for the First Battle of Basilisk. The rest of the prisoners are merely sentenced to lifetime imprisonment. The journey towards Hades is marked by Honor's torture at the hands of the StateSec personnel and the general mistreatment of the prisoners, except Horace Harkness, who defects to the dismay of his friend and admirer, Prescott Tremaine.

Back on Grayson, Allison Chou Harrington is attempting to cure genetic diseases by setting up a modern genetic clinic, and the treecats begin setting up their first off-planet colony. The Manticoran Admiralty is occupied defending against Esther McQueen's attacks and preparing their new weapons, hoping to deliver a knock-out blow to end the war.

Unbeknownst to StateSec, Horace Harkness has no intention of truly defecting, and after fooling his assigned watchdogs, hacks into Tepes' security and communication systems, eventually disabling them and causing massive explosions in the boat bays. He then breaks out his fellow Manticorans, and while a group rescues Honor, the rest fight their way through the ship. In the remaining undamaged boat bay, they jury-rig the four remaining small vessels: the first is programmed to go on an unmanned kamikaze ride through the minefields surrounding Hades, (the detonating nuclear mines blind the sensors of the escort vessels); the second and third assault shuttles are used to escape the ship; and the fourth is modified to bring up its impeller wedge inside the battlecruiser, causing a catastrophic explosion and killing all left aboard.

Despite their remarkable escape, the Manticorans find themselves injured, (among other injuries, Honor's left arm has to be amputated), and stranded on Hades, facing a well-provided for prison camp and unknown amounts of enemy forces.

[edit] References

[edit] Characters

[edit] Starships

[edit] Stations

Clairmont Station

[edit] Planets

[edit] Nations

[edit] Other

State Security Naval Forces

[edit] External links

In Enemy Hands in the Baen Free Library
In Enemy Hands on Wikpedia

Main Honor Harrington series
HH1	On Basilisk Station	HH7	In Enemy Hands
HH2	The Honor of the Queen	HH8	Echoes of Honor
HH3	The Short Victorious War	HH9	Ashes of Victory
HH4	Field of Dishonor	HH10	War of Honor
HH5	Flag in Exile	HH11	At All Costs
HH6	Honor Among Enemies	HH12	Mission of Honor
Spin off Series
Wages of Sin		Saganami Island
WS1	Crown of Slaves	SI1	The Shadow of Saganami
WS2	Torch of Freedom	SI2	Storm from the Shadows
Anthologies
HHA1	More Than Honor	HHA3	Changer of Worlds
HHA2	Worlds of Honor	HHA4	The Service of the Sword

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