David Weber - In Enemy Hands

Yes, I know what "duty" requires , he thought, and reached down past Shannon's shoulder to press his own finger firmly on the "ERASE" key. He heard Shannon inhale sharply, saw her head twitch, but she didn't say a word, and he turned away from her panel. He walked across to where Honeker and Bogdanovich stood, both still staring in awe at the visual imagery of the spreading pattern of wreckage relayed by Shannon's drone, and cleared his throat.

"Too bad," he said gravely, and the sound of his voice startled Honeker into turning to look at him. "There can't be any survivors," Tourville told his commissioner, and shook his head regretfully. "Too bad... Lady Harrington deserved better than that."

She woke slowly, and that was very unlike her. Thirty-five years of naval service had trained her to awaken quickly and cleanly, ready to face any emergency, but this time was different. It was hard to wake, and she didn't want to do it. There was too much pain and despair waiting for her, too much loss, and her sleeping brain cringed away from facing it.

But then something changed. A warm weight draped itself across her chest, vibrating with the strength of a deep, buzzing purr, gentle with love, that seemed to pluck at the very core of her.

"N-Nimitz?"

She scarcely recognized the wondering voice. It was cracked and hoarse, its enunciation slurred, yet it was hers, and her eyes fluttered open as a strong, wiry true-hand touched the right side of her face with infinite tenderness.

Her eyes widened, and she sucked in a shuddering breath as Nimitz leaned closer to touch his nose to hers. She stared at him with her one working eye, raising her right hand to caress his ears as if the simple act of touching him was the most precious gift in the universe. Her hand trembled, with weakness as much as emotion, and the 'cat folded down on her chest to rest his cheek against hers while the depth of his love rumbled into her bones with his purr.

"Oh, Nimitz! " she whispered into his soft fur, and all the remembered anguish, all the fear and despair she would have died before admitting to an enemy was in that whisper, for this was the other half of her own being, the beloved she had known she would never see again. Tears spilled over her gaunt cheeks, and she reached up to hug him close... and froze.

Her right arm moved naturally to clasp him tight, but her left—

Her head snapped over, her working eye wide, and her nostrils flared as shock punched her in the belly, for she had no left arm.

She stared at the bandaged stump, and disbelief was a strange sort of anesthesia. There was no pain, and her mind insisted she could feel the fingers on the hand she no longer had, that they still obeyed her, clenching into a fist when she willed them to. But those sensations were lies, and she lay frozen in that moment of stunned awareness while Nimitz pressed still harder against her and his purr burned still deeper and stronger.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am." Her head turned the other way, and she looked up into Fritz Montoya's face. The surgeon's eyes were shadowed, and she felt his mingled regret and sense of guilt as he sat beside her. "There was nothing else I could do," he told her. "There was too much damage, too much—" He stopped and inhaled, then looked her squarely in the eyes. "I didn't have the tools to save it, Ma'am, and if I hadn't amputated, we'd have lost you."

She stared at him, trapped between too many emotions for rational thought. Joy at her reunion with Nimitz, astonishment that she was alive at all, the shock of her mutilation, and behind all that the waking memories of friends who had died—who would never wake, as she, to find they had somehow survived after all—crushed down upon her, and she couldn't speak. She could only stare up into Montoya's careworn face while her right arm held Nimitz tight and her soul clung even more tightly to his.

She didn't know how long it lasted, but finally the right corner of her mouth trembled in a fragile, almost-smile, and she freed her hand from Nimitz to hold it out to Montoya.

"Fritz," she said softly, wonderingly. He took her hand and squeezed it fiercely, and her too-thin fingers returned his clasp.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, and she shook her head on the pillow.

"Why?" she asked gently. "For saving my life—again?"

"He did that, My Lady," another voice said, and Honor gasped. She tried to sit up, but her right hand still held Montoya's, and she hissed in sudden pain as she tried to rise on the left hand she no longer had and the bandaged stump pressed into the firm softness on which she lay.

Montoya started to stand, his face distressed, but someone else's arms reached out to support her. Nimitz spilled from her chest, lying beside her, and she pulled her right hand from Montoya's. Her arm went out, and the pain still rippling through her meant nothing at all as she hugged Andrew LaFollet with all the fierce strength in her wasted frame.

Her armsman returned her embrace, and she felt the terrible power of his own emotions echo and reecho deep within her . She tasted his own relief at having survived, his grief for those who had not—and his fierce pride in them. But over and above everything else, she felt his devotion—his love—for her and his joy that she was alive, and she clung to him as she had to Nimitz.

Such moments were too intense to last, and at last she drew a deep, quivering breath and relaxed her embrace. LaFollet eased his, as well, and started to step back. But she shook her head quickly and reached across her body to pat the side of the bed. The expression on the live side of her face was almost pleading, and he hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and sat beside her. She gazed at him, then at Montoya, and a different sort of disbelief filled her as she looked beyond the doctor and recognized the bulkhead and low overhead of a pinnace or shuttle. It wasn't a design she was familiar with, and someone had rigged curtains to screen in the folded down row of seats which had been turned into her bed, but whatever it was, it definitely was not the brig of PNS Tepes , and she turned wonderingly back to LaFollet.

"How?" she asked simply, and he smiled.

"We're still figuring that out ourselves, My Lady," he said wryly, "but we know who pulled it off."

He looked at Montoya, one eyebrow raised, and the doctor reached for Honor's wrist. He felt her pulse for several seconds, then looked into her natural eye and nodded.

"I think she's up for it," he said. "But you tell the captain that when I kick you all out, you stay kicked out."

"Yes, Sir," LaFollet said with a grin, and stood once more. He patted Honor's shoulder, then turned and pushed through the curtains, and Honor began wiggling determinedly up the bed. Montoya started to speak sharply to her, but then he sighed, shook his head, and helped her into a sitting position and propped her with pillows.

She smiled her thanks, but her attention was back on Nimitz as the 'cat moved to lie across her lap. She'd felt the flash of his pain, and her good eye darkened as she absorbed the lurching limp which had replaced his usual smooth gracefulness. She eased him down, settling him as comfortably as possible, and her fingers trembled as she stroked his twisted midshoulder and midlimb. She looked back up at Montoya, and the doctor returned her gaze levelly.

"I did my best with what I had, Skipper," he said, "but the bastards wouldn't give me much. The good news is that aside from the bone and joint damage, he seems to be fine—and if we can get him back home, any good Sphinx veterinary surgeon can repair the bone damage. The bad news is that he'll be in constant low-grade pain, and he won't be climbing any trees until we do get him to a surgeon."