Free Revelations by Paul Anthony Jones Page A

seemed to grasp the implications that even a single hungover member of their crew could be disastrous when there were already so few of them to go around. Even so, Emily was sure that on more than one occasion a sailor had had a little more than their assigned bottle, either substituted in from a friend or maybe from some secret stash they had managed to smuggle onboard.
    On the third day Emily had become tired of the smell of undercooked bacon and overcooked eggs that the crew seemed to relish so much and nominated herself as the de facto cook for the rest of the trip to Point Loma.
    “Do not get used to this,” she told the smiling line of sailors as she ladled out beef stew on her first night. Inevitably, they did and Emily found herself falling willingly into the comforting routine provided by the need to feed so many hungry mouths. It surely was not any kind of step forward for the cause of feminism, but it made her feel useful in an environment where she was out of her depth and felt herself to be more of a distraction than a help.
    Compared to the preceding weeks, life aboard the Vengeance was the equivalent of a cruise around the Caribbean, but that nagging fear still chewed at her when she was alone.
    But as time passed onboard, Emily felt the numbness begin to dissipate. She found herself smiling more, and the restless, ever-present need to keep moving, so long ingrained in her as she travelled across the country, began to be replaced by something new: not quite peace, but a sense of calm that she had not felt in a very long time. And there was something else too. Something she hadn’t thought she would ever experience again: a sense of belonging.
    And then there was MacAlister. The more time she spent in the company of the Scot, the more she found herself looking forward to the next time. On more than one occasion over the past two days, as she pounded through the corridors, she had found herself casually plotting ways to run into him.
    “Don’t be such a damn fool,” she said aloud one evening as she sat in her bunk thinking about him.
    “What?” said Rhiannon. “I didn’t do anything.”
    “Oh, no, not you sweetheart. Sorry,” Emily apologized, feeling her face blush in embarrassment.
    The truth was she suspected he might be doing the same. Every night, despite his almost constant requirement to be present in the command room, she would find him waiting in line for food and they would spend a half hour just shooting the breeze while they ate their food together. Nothing specific, nothing heavy, just talking about where they grew up, favorite foods, old friends, and the little gems that mark the trail of a person’s walk through life.
    Or of course, he could just be hungry, she supposed.
    “He likes you too,” said Rhiannon.
    This time it was Emily’s turn to say, “What? Who?” while trying to give Rhiannon her best I-have-absolutely-no-idea-who-or-what-you’re-talking-about face, only to be met by a knowing smile. “Jesus! Is it that obvious?” she admitted.
    “Umm hmmm! I see him looking at you when he sees you’re not looking,” Rhiannon said, adding a “He’s so dreamy” that ended in a huge flamboyant sigh and flutter of her eyelashes before she promptly cracked up into one of her patented fits of evil cackling.
    “Hey! Don’t make me come over there,” Emily warned in an equally playful voice. After a long pause she added, “But he is kind of cute, isn’t he?”

The Vengeance burst through the ocean surface; first the conning tower appeared, the huge fin-shaped tower slicing through the water, seconds later the sleek, matt-black body emerged, water roaring from its deck, sunlight glistening off the ribbons of spray cascading from the hull.
    In the belly of the submarine, Emily waited with Rhiannon for the Vengeance to stabilize. When the rocking finally stopped, she rolled off her cot and opened the door. In the corridor sailors were already making their way toward the upper