The Defense of the Commonwealth by John Spearman

Author:John Spearman [Spearman, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

21

After Saint John left, Perseverance went to the console in the common sitting area. First, she looked up Lieutenant Helen Showalter in the Bureau of Personnel (known as BuPers in the Royal Navy) database. Unfortunately, the file was inaccessible, citing “Killed in Action” as the reason. There was an ID picture, though.

Even from the terrible quality of an official ID picture, Perseverance could tell that Showalter was striking. The lieutenant was blonde, her hair cut in a style very similar to how Perseverance wore hers, with eyebrows that were hard to see in this awful picture. Her eyes were large. She had prominent cheekbones and a thin nose. The overall effect was dramatic, like that of a high-fashion model and not one of “girl next door” prettiness.

Her curiosity not satisfied, Perseverance began searching social media sites. Here, Perseverance found what she was looking for. Showalter had been a volleyball player in college at the University of New Boston. There were pictures of her in action, her hair long and in a braid. She was tall, broad-shouldered, and slender. From the pictures, it looked like a knee injury ended her volleyball career. There were pictures of her commissioning ceremony, her hair now cut shorter as in the ID picture. There were snapshots of her in various social settings, from the beach, to nightclubs, to what looked like being a bridesmaid at a wedding. Her smile was big and wide. Several of the pictures seemed to catch her laughing.

Finally, there was one picture of her with Saint John. It was taken by someone else aboard HMS Hunter. Saint John was looking straight ahead, with the awkward “I’m getting my picture taken” smile on his face. Showalter’s smile was more genuine. Her eyes were aimed off-center, in Saint John’s direction, as though she wanted to keep him in her peripheral vision.

Perseverance returned to the Royal Navy site, then scrubbed her searches from the console’s history. It would not do for Saint John to find out she’d been looking into his past like this. His story touched her. Losing a lover had to be horrible. To have your commanding officer possibly orchestrate it was even worse. Perseverance had never lost a lover. She lost her best friend, Ken Berger, but they were never lovers.

She entered her cabin and undressed for bed. Sliding between the sheets, she thought about her relationship with Ken. A few years before, she had been talking to Ken, crying on his shoulder (even though it was over a comm) about another failed relationship that she had just ended. During the conversation, she experienced a revelation.

About halfway through the call, she became aware that she wasn’t that upset about her recent break-up. She was crying because it was the usual and expected reaction in these circumstances, but she realized she was not sad. That stopped her tears quickly.

After ending the call, she conducted a self-examination to try to determine why she was not upset. She decided her lack of grief was because she still had her relationship with Ken.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.