Now We Are No Longer Strangers

"Hello, Wally."

"Admiral Fulton! Boss, what are you doing here?"

"I'm down for a conference at MacDill concerning the new patrol craft design the Surface Warfare Center is developing. We'd like to take the needs of the Special Ops community into account before we finalize it if we can, but not at the expense of her primary mission. Tell you about it later." The line moved ahead, and Wally and Trisha found themselves facing her parents. Trisha squealed with delight and threw her arms around her father's neck; he harrumphed, but looked pleased. Her redheaded mother spotted the diamond solitaire on her finger and subjected Wally to a swift but intense scrutiny, obviously thinking, "Are you good enough for my little girl?"

After Trisha unwound herself from her father, Admiral Corcoran extended his hand to Wally. "Pleased to meet you. Find yourself a drink and enjoy the party. I'll see you later." Wally interpreted this to mean, "I don't have the faintest idea who you are; but as you're here with my daughter, I will be polite." Obviously he had not noticed the engagement ring on her finger. Wally and Trisha moved away toward the buffet set up on the verandah overlooking the patio.

The two of them got drinks from the bar under a white canopy and wandered into the back garden. Befitting a house upwards of 70 years old, the trees and plantings were fully mature and blooming; the garden was an oasis of color populated by an ocean of officers in dress whites and women in bright dresses that competed with the flowers in loveliness. Trisha introduced Wally to a few officers, aviators all, who she knew from her father's past assignments. Most of the party guests were senior officers stationed at Jax, but two comparative juniors saw them and headed their way.

"Hello, little sister," said the two-striper, picking her up and spinning her around as she laughed happily. He had the same red hair she did; unlike her, he was tanned and freckled, looking like he had once been a linebacker or maybe a hockey forward. Wally took note of the Special Warfare eagle, anchor, trident and pistol on his uniform above the double row of ribbons he wore; this must be Trisha's brother Billy.

The other, a tall, thin three-striper commander sporting aviator's wings and three rows of ribbons headed by the Distinguished Flying Cross, a Command-at-Sea star above his right pocket, darker red hair graying at the temples, and an aviator's pencil mustache looked with faint disapproval at his siblings before offering Wally his hand.

"As Trisha seems to be caught up in the moment and Billy seems to have forgotten his manners, allow me to introduce myself. I'm John Corcoran, Jr. I have command of VF-41 at the moment."

"How do you do, sir? I'm Wallace Michaels, first lieutenant of the Isaac Hull. We're refitting at Mayport at present."

Johnny looked at the obviously new two and a half stripe shoulder boards on Wally's shoulders, the four-plus rows of ribbons that numbered fourteen in all, the Surface Warfare Officer and Small Craft badges, and reached a conclusion.

"You don't look old enough for the rank you're wearing. Are you attempting to dazzle my sister with a display of ribbons and badges you picked up in a surplus store?"

That got both Billy and Trisha's attention. Wally looked Johnny in the eye and said icily, "I am wearing no rank, badge or decoration I did not earn ... sir. I would expect a squadron commander to have better manners than to call a fellow officer's decorations into question when they have barely met. There is the natural arrogance of the Naval Aviator; and then there's the arrogance of the Golden Boy who thinks all around him are his lessers. Which are you displaying, Commander?"

"Johnny! How dare you?" snapped Trisha. "Yes, Wally's only been in the Navy seven years, but they have been a busy seven years. He's one of those officers who is sent where the action is. He's paid for his rank and his medals with blood and superior performance in combat, combat that you haven't seen.

"You were a self-righteous prick when we were children, and you haven't mellowed with age. I feel sorry for your pilots, and God help your airedales! You must be impossible to work for!"

Billy had been looking at Wally's ribbons. "Michaels ... Michaels. Have you by any chance spent time in Brazil?"

"My last assignment before the Hull. I did a tour with their riverine force in the Amazon."

The SEAL offered his hand. "Now I know who you are! You're Wally Gator, Commodore of the Gator Navy. You wrote the report on the drug war in the Amazon that suggested SEALs be sent to train the Brazilian riverine warfare battalion. You're responsible for my troop being sent to school their Marine river rats in the fine arts of underwater infiltration and enemy base-raiding for fun and profit. The flotilla officers told me about you and that Stenka you used to drive."

"I didn't do it; I was somewhere else at the time, and I have witnesses to prove it," Wally chuckled, taking Billy's hand. "Weren't you stationed at Little Creek a few years back? When I was working with the SEALs as a fresh-caught ensign, I heard stories about Boots Corcoran and his band of merry pirates. I sure could have used you in Brazil when I was down there."

"Well, I got there in the end; just got back a few months ago. You taught them well, my boys fit right in. Lean, mean, and hungry, your gators are. An enjoyable assignment, that was ... and not just because we were working with good men." He gave Wally a slow, knowing wink and a grin.

Trisha was still glaring at her older brother. "John, you owe Wally an apology. And you owe me one as well. Do you think I'd get engaged to a phony that would stoop to wearing fake ribbons to impress a girl? I'm insulted."

John looked at the three of them, Trisha's simmering anger barely contained; and Wally and Billy, instant comrades, clearly wondering if they could drag him behind the garage and beat the shit out of him without anyone noticing. He rapidly reassessed his position.

"I jumped to conclusions that weren't warranted. Commander Michaels, you have my apology for questioning your integrity. I should have known a poseur would never fool my sister. But did I hear you say 'engaged?' When did this happen, and why wasn't I told?"

"I could ask you the same thing, Trisha," said a deep voice behind them. The four turned to see Admiral Corcoran and his wife. "When did this happen?"

"Not long ago, Daddy. I was planning to bring Wally to meet you and Mom soon anyway; your birthday party seemed like a good time." She took Wally's arm, and he laid a hand on hers, a gesture that did not pass unnoticed by Amanda Corcoran.

"Trish honey, I think what your father and I are saying is that we'd have liked the chance to get to know your young man before you jumped into something as serious as an engagement. It's a big step, after all," she said.

"Meaning no disrespect, ma'am, but while we may not have known each other as long as you might prefer, Trisha knows her own mind. She knows what being a Navy wife is all about, having been raised in the Navy and with your good example to follow. I may not be your idea of the perfect son-in-law, being neither an Annapolis man nor a pilot, but while we would very much like your blessing on our union, yours and her father's, we're prepared to elope if we must.

"Trisha is a grown woman who knows what she wants. It feels to us as if our lives up to now have only been prologue, with the story yet to come. When we're together, we complete each other."

"Mother, for a long time there has been a void in my heart, an emptiness that needed the right man to fill it. I've dated all sorts of guys, including some young officers you set me up with, but it never felt right; that emptiness was always there. They didn't have what I need. Wally does. His love fills the hole in my heart. He is my other half; it's as simple as that.

"No one could have been more surprised than we were when we realized that and we bonded so quickly and completely, Daddy. But you taught me that when something is right, and you know it's right, to act on it no matter what others might think. Wally and I are right for each other. And as Wally said, we'd very much like to have your blessing, but we're planning to get married with or without it."

"I can say many things about my sister, Dad," said Billy, "but one thing I've never been able to say is that she doesn't know what she is doing. If Wally Gator here is the man she wants, she'll have him if she has to fight her way across Hell to get him. For his part, if he has to blast a new road through Hell and ride roughshod down it to get her, he will."

Johnny put in, "Father, if you were my commanding officer and I was required to advise you, I'd strongly advise you not to stand in the path of the jet on the catapult. These are two tigers whose tails you don't want to grab."

"Honey, do you really want this handsome stud?" Amanda asked, her choice of words startling her husband and her two sons, and causing Wally to blush. Trisha nodded, not trusting her voice. "Then have him, with our blessing. As Billy said, you always know what you're doing, and you always get what you want because you're willing to pay the price for it. Welcome to the family, Wally." She leaned in and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

Waiters were beginning to circulate with trays of champagne flutes. The Admiral waved one over and they each took a glass. When they all had one, he ordered, "All of you, follow me." He led them up the steps onto the verandah. Turning to face the people in the garden below, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a pocketknife. Tapping the flute and making it ring, the conversation below him died out and everyone looked at him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you for coming to pay your respects to me on my birthday." Polite applause greeted this statement. The Admiral continued, "However, we have more than one reason to celebrate today. Today, Amanda and I have the pleasure to announce the engagement of my daughter Patricia to Lieutenant Commander Wally Michaels of the USS Isaac Hull!" The crowd in the garden applauded with substantially more enthusiasm as he motioned Trisha and Wally forward. He kissed his daughter on the cheek as Amanda kissed Wally again, and an impromptu receiving line formed as the officers and their ladies gathered to congratulate the Corcorans and the new fiancé.

The party livened considerably. The ladies took Trisha aside to get all the details of her romance and offer suggestions for the nuptials and reception. Johnny gathered Wally and Billy by eye and led them into the living room.

"Father usually hides out with his cronies in his study when he throws an official party," he explained to Wally as he took three cut crystal glasses from the living room bar. "Scotch, bourbon, vodka, or brandy?"

"Scotch," said Wally. Johnny poured two, neat, and without being told filled Billy's glass with bourbon and handed them out.

"Here's to us," he said, holding up his tumbler.

"What's like us?" Wally continued.

"Damn few," Billy responded."

"And they're all dead," finished Wally. They clinked their glasses and drank before moving across the room to the couch and an armchair.

Settling down, they did what Navy officers getting to know each other usually do: tell sea stories. Johnny started the bull session with a story from his days as a "new nugget," a freshly qualified naval aviator, about the time when through an incredible series of screw-ups a Hornet was launched off the Constellation with its wings locked up in the storage position. Billy carried on with a tale about how his troop of SEALs, tasked with taking out the battalion HQ of an Army Reserve unit in a war game, had gotten the job done by stealing Army fatigues, brazenly walking into the headquarters during a staff meeting and popping the entire staff with silenced pistols, then walking out and vanishing into the dark before the reservists realized what had happened. In his turn, Wally told one from his tour with the Gator Navy in Brazil, of landing the crews of his flotilla's gunboats below a village the drug gangsters had taken over to use as a base after killing all the men and keeping the women to use as sex slaves. Wally's gators had slipped through the jungle, infiltrated the town, and played Sicilian Vespers on the thugs, rescuing the captive women and capturing quantities of crack cocaine and piles of guns.

"What did you do with the bodies?" asked Billy curiously.

Wally swirled the whiskey in his glass before taking a healthy swallow. "None of us liked druggies, and we wanted to send the cartels a message. Let's just say the alligators in that stretch of the Amazon ate well that night." Johnny blanched. Wally looked at him and said, "In case you hadn't noticed, Junior, war on the surface isn't as neat and clean as a missile hit at 35,000 feet or a bomb drop from 8 miles up. It can get right personal at times, and more than a little messy." Billy nodded agreement. They looked up as three more officers walked into the room, Admiral Corcoran, Admiral Fulton, and Admiral Rothernberg, commander of the logistics group whose headquarters was at NAS Jacksonville.

"Is this a private party, or can any bull-thrower join in?" asked Corcoran.

"I suppose you know where the booze is," riposted Wally. "Pull up a chair." The flag officers chuckled appreciatively and sat down while Billy refreshed their drinks. After some small talk, Admiral Fulton turned the conversation to Wally's future.

"Have you thought about your next assignment after the Hull, Wally?"

"The Old Man recommended me for command of the next available Cyclone on my fitness report, Boss. But he did say something about talking to BuPers and maybe sending me back to the Surface Warfare Center because of my work on Project Sword."

Fulton looked at the other two flag officers. "Nobody ever said Dan Vincent was stupid. Project Sword was an idea I came up with back when I had the gunboat squadron at Little Creek.

"The Navy's always been a blue-water service. The only long term brown-water fighting we've ever done was Farragut's Mississippi River campaign during the Civil War, and Zumwalt's work in the Mekong Delta during Vietnam. I asked my officers to submit papers describing where they thought possible littoral or riverine combats were likely, and what would be the ideal craft with which to fight them.

"Most of them made only a pro forma effort; they saw their service in the Cyclones as a diversion from their careers on the deep blue in destroyers or cruisers. Michaels here didn't see it that way. He gave me what amounted to a small book advocating specialized riverine and coastal craft.

"He traced the evolution of riverine warfare from the deep strikes of the Vikings, through the 19^th Century British river campaigns in the Far East, to the activities of the Yangtze River Patrol, and brought in the small craft campaigns of World War II in North Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific, pointing out that under the right conditions patrol craft can have an impact disproportionate to their size. He discussed Zumwalt's riverine force quite dispassionately, pointing out what the Big Z did right -- and wrong; and why he could not be blamed for some of the wrong, given he was working on a shoestring with improvised craft.

"He also pointed out the threat posed by the Soviet Navy's small craft to the Sixth Fleet during the Cold War, something he thought we never took as seriously as we should have. He called the Russian Stenkas and Tarantals 'a poignard aimed to stab the Sixth Fleet to the heart.'

"He described his Zen patrol craft with clarity, explaining his reasoning behind the weapons and propulsion systems he wanted; and advocated the use of carbon fiber and Kevlar for skinning the hull and upper works, mixing the same microscopic iron balls used in radar-absorbent paint into the polymer matrix used with the carbon fiber to make the ship stealthy, something no one had ever suggested before. He pointed out the compromises that would have to be made to have one ship fulfill its two proposed missions, riverine and littoral; and proposed solutions.

"It was a remarkable piece of work for someone who'd been in the Navy just about two years. Then I discovered he was licensed to captain offshore fishing boats, and understood he was writing from practical small craft experience, not armchair seamanship. When I got my flag and the assignment to Sea System Command at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, I took him with me. Parts of his 'book' evolved into the guidelines for Project Sword, designing the next generation of patrol craft." Fulton shifted his attention to Wally.

"Now that you've been a department head in a destroyer in addition to your combat experience in the Philippines and Brazil, plus having reached command rank, the ring-knockers on the design team will take you seriously, which they really didn't do back when you were a newly promoted j.g. So, would you like to come back and work for me again?"

"I wouldn't be trapped behind a desk, would I, Boss?" asked Wally.

"No," chuckled Fulton. "One reason I want you is there are too many boffins on the team -- officer and civilian scientist types," he explained when he saw the blank looks of his fellow admirals. "They don't have enough sea time between them to command a toy boat in a bathtub. I need someone practical there, who won't lose sight of the fact that real people have to use what the boffins come up with, someone to keep them pointed in the right direction and see this project through from the test basin phase to construction of the prototype. That's you, Wally, if you want the job. Interested?"

"If you want me, you've got me. And when the prototype is ready for her acceptance tests, she's going to need a skipper." Wally cocked an eyebrow at Fulton, who smiled at him.

"You can't say Wally Gator is dumb. If you can nurse her from the test basin to salt water, yes, she'll be yours. It's going to be an interesting challenge."

"I agree," said Admiral Corcoran. "As far as I know, the biggest pieces ever to be made of carbon fiber are fuselage sections of the Boeing Dreamliner. If you're planning on making the hull out of that stuff, you're boldly going where no naval architect has gone before."

Wally was about to reply when a commotion in the front hall interrupted the conversation.

"Listen, you twerp! I know that Trisha Corcoran is here, and I want to see her! Let me by or I'll have you busted down to seaman recruit before you can say boo!"

"What on earth?" wondered Admiral Corcoran. He turned for the door but stopped as Wally laid a hand on his arm.

"With respect, sir, I recognize the voice. It's a junior officer thing. Leave it to me."

"To us," corrected Johnny, motioning to Billy to fall in with him and Wally. The three of them went to the hallway, closing the living room door behind them. On the front porch, Joe Brackett was attempting to force his way past two sailors on the Admiral's personal staff.

"I've got this, Petty Officer," Wally said. "Go see to the guests, if you would." The two sailors gratefully yielded their places to the three officers. Wally confronted the determinedly irate supply officer.

"Brackett, what are you doing here? This is a private party to which you weren't invited. You're causing a scene. If you're smart, you'll put about and go home before someone has to take official notice of you."

"Don't you talk to me, you jumped-up Merchant Marine shitbird!" snarled Brackett. "You goddamned girlfriend-stealing poacher! I don't know how you did it, but you stole Trisha from me, you Reserve hack, and I will have her back!" He waved a hand with a Naval Academy ring on one finger at Wally.