In Enemy Hands

About In Enemy Hands

In Enemy Hands is a military science fiction novel, the seventh in the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, and was first published in 1996. Like most novels in the series, its text is available in the Baen Free Library.

As the story begins, Honor has just been promoted to Commodore for her actions in Honor Among Enemies, a rank so high that she will never personally command a military starship again. The promotion came through as she returned to her steading on Grayson, after having spent the previous few months advising and working with the "Weapons Development Board"; in the previous book, the WDB had assigned some early examples of the new generation of Manticoran naval technology to Honor, and wanted feedback as to the performance in actual combat.

Honor did not return alone, however, as her treecat Nimitz had mated with Samantha, who had born treekittens. Nimitz's clan also dispatched eight adult treecats to help raise the kittens and establish a treecat colony on Grayson. During a party in the Harrington Steading, Honor and Admiral Hamish Alexander 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 superdreadnaughts with hollow cores, appropriate for releasing large numbers of missile pods -- self-contained missile launchers which permit simultaneous launch of more missiles than a single ship typically can fire; new vessels analogous to aircraft carriers, which instead carry souped-up LACs (Light Attack Craft); and a new generation of remotely-deployed EW drones. Hamish, 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, Alexander realizes that he has feelings for her he can never express: the married admiral is her superior officer.