"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."
"You're wrong, Fritz," she said, resting her hand lightly on the 'cat's head. "The real good news is that he's alive, and I owe you and Shannon Foraker for that, don't I?"
"Foraker more than me," Montoya half disagreed. He opened his mouth to say something more, then shut it again as someone pulled the curtains back.
Honor turned her head, and her right eyebrow rose in fresh surprise as she recognized the hazel-eyed man in Peep uniform standing beside Alistair McKeon. Warner Caslet grinned crookedly at her and shrugged.
"I didn't expect to meet under conditions like these, Milady," he told her wryly. "Given the alternative—for both of us—however, I'm delighted to have the opportunity."
"Warner," she said wonderingly, then looked at McKeon. The broad-shouldered captain looked almost as worn as she felt, and there were gaps in his teeth when he smiled, but his eyes were bright as he took the hand she held out to him.
"Long way from Basilisk Station, isn't it?" he said, and Honor surprised herself with a chuckle.
"I suppose it is," she agreed, and looked past him at Horace Harkness. The senior chief looked almost bashful, as if he wanted to shuffle his feet while he stared down at his toes, and she looked back at McKeon and raised her eyebrow once more.
"I've got a feeling Sergeant-Major Babcock is going to be proud of her husband when we get him home," the captain said with a grin. "He's the one who got us all out."
"So I understand." Honor turned her gaze on Harkness once more, and this time the senior chief did look down at his toes.
"Yes, Ma'am. He sort of, um, convinced the Peeps he'd gone over to them, got access to one of their minicomputers—I'll let him give you the details later—and hacked into their main system. He set up the entire breakout... and just as an encore, he managed to arrange things so the Peeps think we're all dead."
"I don't—" Honor began, then stopped. There was too much going on here, and she wasn't in shape to assimilate all of it. That would have to come later, and she suspected it was going to take quite a while for them to tell her everything, but for now...
"I want to hear all about it when I'm in shape to understand it all," she told her subordinates. "But for now, what I really need is a status report."
"Yes, Ma'am," McKeon said, and rubbed his eyebrow for a moment, as if marshaling his thoughts. "Basically, Ma'am, we're on the surface of the planet Hades. Thanks to the fact that Harkness here is probably the most devious hacker outside a maximum security prison—excuse me; outside any other maximum security prison—we managed to get off Tepes once she was in planetary orbit. More than that, he blew the whole ship the hell up, and the Peeps think we went with her."