Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

equipment and setting up for casualties. At his station Jacob triple-checked the supply of morphine, sulfa powder and local anesthetics. The scream of a diving plane drew everyone's eyes up toward the decking overhead for a moment. There was a jolt and the rumble of a blast, and they glanced at each other. The PA speaker squawked and then called for damage control to a fire in turret number three. Jacob gritted his teeth. Daniel's battle station wasn't far from there. Still no reason the man had to be in danger from the fire. None at all.
    Then the first casualties appeared in the doorway. Jacob looked over and swallowed hard. A man was screaming and cursing in a hoarse voice, barely staggering on two feet. The two men beside him half carried him in. Jacob's stomach heaved sympathetically. Then Doc called for morphine, his voice sharp and clear. Jacob stopped thinking. There was only room for the Doc's steady directions, and the corpsmen's competent hands. Don't look, don't think too hard. Jesus, don't smell things. Draw up syringes and hand over vials and sprinkle sulfa and don't think about it. Just do what you're told.
    Two hours later he came back to himself. The explosions and jolting had stopped, and the deck guns had fallen silent. The sickbay was littered with men, some struck by fragments of metal, some with broken bones from being tossed around in the aftermath of explosions. The worst were four crewmen burned when a bomb struck the third turret and set off some of the powder. They lay in a morphine-induced stupor, clothing stripped off to expose oozing and blackened flesh and red blistered skin. As Jacob watched, Doc shook his head over the nearest and pushed another dose of morphine into a vein in the man's ankle. That was probably the only unburned few inches of skin on the man's body. Jacob's stomach heaved and he forced his nausea down with an effort. There was no time to be sick.
    Doc waved at Jacob and he hurried over with more supplies. The work went on. Medics and corpsmen cleaned and bandaged wounds, straightened and splinted limbs, held down and reassured the men moaning in pain until the blessed relief of morphine could take effect. The worst of the burned men died an hour later. Jacob could only think it was for the best. He paused looking at the man's face, unrecognizable beneath the scarifying effect of the flames. Unrecognizable, but not Daniel. There had been just that first moment of agonized fear, but Jacob had known right away. Not Daniel.
    Didn't mean that Daniel was all right though. The news from above decks washed through sickbay, garbled by third hand reports. There was no doubt that there were more deaths than that one burned man. Calm was returning to the ship. PA calls for fire-fighting and damage control and medical assistance slowed and then ceased. The Gageway steamed along, rolling no more than her usual in the ocean swells. With an intensity that scared him, Jacob suddenly wanted to see Daniel. Just see him, for a minute, and know that Daniel had come through unharmed.
    Jacob clenched a fist on the edge of the counter and breathed though his nose. Surely Daniel was fine. It was a big ship. Reports said eight dead topside. Or ten or maybe twelve. But out of a crew this size the odds were still good. Great, even. This sensible realization didn't keep the thought of a fire a hundred yards from Daniel's station from hovering in Jacob's mind through the rest of the long night.
    It was dawn before Doc told Jacob to go find his sack and get some rest. Gratefully he left the sickbay and its smells and its groaning men and stepped out into the passageway. Good sense would have sent him to his berth and sleep. He had abandoned good sense somewhere, because no way in hell he could go there yet. Anxiety and need would have sent him to Daniel's berth, but that would have been unforgivable. So he wandered the ship, staying out of the way of anyone moving purposefully in the early light. He ended up at his favorite spot on the port-side rail, looking out over the water. The sky was clear, with just a line of gold to the east marking the rising sun still below the edge of the waters. The limpid blue and lavender sky looked as if it could never harbor death and destruction.
    When someone came to lean on the rail beside him, he didn't need to move or turn. Every inch of him knew who it was. He said, "I figured you'd be in the sack by now."
    "I was waiting for you."
    Daniel's voice was low and