In Enemy Hands recap

Honor returns to Grayson as a commodore, establishes a treecat colony, and takes command of an incomplete cruiser squadron. While McQueen seeks to reform the People's Navy, Tourville proves its new missile-pod tactics by destroying the Adler picket. Honor's convoy enters the trap, and Prince Adrian sacrifices its freedom so the merchant ships can escape. Ransom secretly removes Honor and selected prisoners from normal protections, abuses them, and sends them to Hades for a filmed execution. Harkness stages a defection to penetrate the prison ship Tepes, then enables a breakout led by McKeon. Honor is rescued, Whitman is killed, and the escapees destroy Tepes with Ransom aboard. Tourville and Foraker hide signs of their survival. Honor awakens on Hades missing her left arm, with permanent facial and eye injuries. Nimitz is also injured but alive. Presumed dead elsewhere, Honor assumes command of the concealed survivors and prepares to act against the prison world's larger garrison.

Previously: Honor Harrington entered this volume as both a Manticoran naval officer and a Grayson admiral and steadholder. Her influence therefore spans two allied services and Grayson's civil order. Nimitz, the treecat bonded to her, shares an empathic connection through which Honor can sense his emotions.

So far this book: Honor returns to Grayson as an RMN commodore awaiting a possible Eighth Fleet assignment. She brings Nimitz, Samantha, their kittens, and other treecats to establish a colony at Harrington Steading. Farragut immediately adopts Miranda LaFollet. White Haven, the future fleet commander, briefs Honor on her orders and the war. Honor warns that Haven's construction and weapons are improving, then reveals that she wrote the recommendations for a new Manticoran program centered on missile pods, carriers, light attack craft, and advanced missiles. White Haven recognizes that his opposition was colored by his view of Sonja Hemphill. Honor also confronts a private problem: she senses a mutual attraction to White Haven, but he is married and her superior. She leaves Grayson early to take command of the incomplete 18th Cruiser Squadron. Meanwhile, Theisman receives reinforcements at Barnett and plans diversionary raids under the political pressure created by Ransom's arrival. Honor's available cruisers are assigned to escort a major military transport convoy, giving the new squadron an operational mission before Eighth Fleet is ready.

So far this book: McQueen persuades Pierre and Saint-Just that State Security's intimidation has crippled the People's Navy. Pierre makes her provisional Secretary of War and authorizes work on reforms, though the regime continues to distrust her popularity. At Barnett, Tourville prepares a reconnaissance force around stealthy approaches, extra scouting support, and missile pods. Honor plans her convoy route through Adler with Prince Adrian in the exposed forward position. Tourville reaches Adler first and launches a surprise pod-supported strike that destroys the local Alliance task group, demonstrating that Haven can now use improved weapons and tactics to overcome the old technological gap. On Grayson, Honor's mother Allison begins leading the genetic clinic her daughter founded. Honor later transfers to Prince Adrian to confer with McKeon and remains aboard as the convoy nears the captured system. Ransom, meanwhile, reaches Barnett under the stated purpose of producing public material about the command, while Theisman treats her presence as a serious political danger.

So far this book: Prince Adrian enters Adler ahead of convoy JNMTC-76 and discovers the hidden enemy force. Honor cannot evade without leaving the arriving merchant ships exposed, so she orders McKeon to draw the attackers away while sending an FTL warning. Greentree obeys her direct order and takes the convoy back into hyperspace. Prince Adrian then faces converging enemies, including a cruiser towing missile pods. An eighty-four-missile salvo overwhelms its defenses, destroys its ability to maneuver, and inflicts heavy damage and casualties. With more fire incoming, Honor orders surrender. Tourville learns that Honor and McKeon are among the captives and initially extends military courtesies, proper treatment, and permission for Nimitz to remain with Honor. The outside Alliance has only evidence that Prince Adrian is overdue after saving the convoy. A formal review clears Greentree, while Honor's household and White Haven receive news that she is presumed lost. Ransom intervenes before the captives enter the ordinary prisoner system and directs that Honor and selected senior personnel be brought to Barnett.

So far this book: Theisman learns that Ransom has concealed Honor's capture from Manticore, outside inspectors, and much of the People's Navy. He preserves the general prisoner policy but cannot protect Honor from being treated as a secret exception. At Barnett, State Security separates Honor and selected senior captives from the larger group. Ransom invokes Honor's prior conviction, removes her from prisoner-of-war protection, and orders her taken aboard Tepes to Camp Charon for execution. When Ransom orders Nimitz killed, Honor and the prisoners resist and are beaten. Foraker and Dr. Montoya convince Ransom that Nimitz must live if Honor is to survive until the execution. Ransom assigns Caslet to act as the captives' military contact. On Tepes, Ransom offers the captives a chance to defect, and Senior Chief Harkness apparently accepts. Honor is isolated and systematically abused, while her artificial eye and facial nerves are damaged. The Committee recognizes the strategic cost of killing her but refuses to reverse Ransom's public decision. Harkness's betrayal is then exposed as a deception: he has used his supposed defection to map and alter Tepes's systems in preparation for an undisclosed operation.

So far this book: As Tepes approaches Hades, Harkness turns his hidden access into an armed breakout. He kills guards, disrupts ship security, releases the military prisoners, and supplies them with weapons and system control. McKeon takes command of the escape. Caslet joins them because State Security will regard his aid to the captives as complicity. The group divides between securing Boat Bay 4 and reaching Honor's isolated brig. Clinkscales uses a stolen uniform and Harkness's sabotage program to clear the bay. The rescue party reaches Honor through a lift shaft, defeats the guards, and extracts her with Andrew LaFollet and Venizelos. Whitman is killed during the rescue, and another armsman remains behind to cover the withdrawal. Tremaine modifies a pinnace to activate its impeller wedge inside the bay after the assault shuttles launch. The device destroys Tepes and kills Ransom. Tourville and Foraker detect evidence that wreckage may be descending toward Hades, but erase it and report that there could be no survivors. Honor awakens on the planet with Nimitz and learns that her left arm was amputated. Badly injured and presumed dead beyond Hades, she assumes command of the concealed survivors and their limited supplies against the prison world's much larger garrison.

Honor, Nimitz, McKeon, Andrew LaFollet, Venizelos, Clinkscales, Tremaine, Caslet, and the other survivors land secretly on Hades after destroying Tepes. Ransom dies aboard the ship, and Tourville and Foraker erase the evidence that anyone may have escaped. Honor has lost her left arm and retains severe facial and eye damage. Nimitz also survives with lasting injuries. Outside the prison system, Honor and her companions are expected to be dead. White Haven continues his duties without knowing she lives, while her household on Grayson has only the apparent-loss reports. Honor takes command of eighteen survivors, plus Caslet and Nimitz. They possess armed assault shuttles, recovered equipment, supplies, and months of food, but remain concealed on a heavily defended prison world against a much larger garrison. The military threat from Haven's reforms and missile-pod tactics also remains unresolved.