Sailing To Survive

"We will do that. We have to go; our lunch is here."

"Enjoy." The line went dead. From the sounds I heard, I knew that he had been talking on a satellite phone.

"So the Gulf, huh?" I asked Emily.

"That's the closest ocean, so yes. Maybe we can do an exotic beach somewhere else someday, but for now the Gulf will do just fine."

"I need to get some new charts."

"I need to get a new computer or at least get a new monitor for this one. Oh and I looked around, we need to patch three bullet holes in the cabin."

"I'm glad the bastard was a lousy shot. A couple of feet higher and he would have put marks on your butt and I am the only one who is ever going to mark you butt."

"I think I will get a tattoo on my ass that says 'Stuart's Ass.'"

"No tattoo idiot is going to take a needle and mark up your perfect ass. That is final, woman."

"We'll see. Let's go see what this place has for us."

We didn't find much but I did get an up-to-date map of the river and some patches for the cabin. Emily couldn't find a computer shop but she did find a flat screen television in a thrift store that had a USB connection. For ten dollars, she bought it to see how it would work as a monitor. When we got back to the boat, I started the engine and Emily tried to hook up the television. Soon we were sailing past small towns and cultivated farm in central Louisiana. The northern part of the state looked very different from the southern areas which were mainly salt marshes and swamps again. The whole state could be underwater if a really big flood or hurricane came through.

Emily finally announced that the television worked as a monitor but that the image was a little distorted. It would do until we could find a better substitute. The main thing was that the data she had collected was safe. She had also replaced the radar cable and only needed to connect it to the radome when we parked for the night.

Five days later, we turned into the channel from the Gulf and into Galveston Bay. We were both well tanned with Emily being the most tanned because she developed a penchant for lying out on the deck naked during the morning and late afternoon sun. We stayed in the shade during mid day hours. We had made love on the deck, on the beach, in the salt water of the gulf and just about every place we possibly could. My desire for her only grew stronger and her desire seemed to be unquenchable. Even so, we actually went a full day on the trip without making love at least once.

The available docks on Galveston Island were expensive but were well worth it to be close to the Strand and the restaurant district. The beach on the Gulf side was over a mile and a taxi or a ride was preferable. A rental car would be required to get to the more remote beaches on the west end. Fortunately, Ray was there along with Sylvia and they had a car.

We met at the bar of a restaurant two hours after we docked. We had showered and dressed in civilian clothes for the evening. That meant that Emily wore a skirt and shoes with a cropped blouse and I wore my one pair of slacks and a sport shirt. When we met them, Ray stood and asked, "What did you do with my daughter? You must have picked up this island girl somewhere." That earned him a shot in the arm. "Oh, you just disguised her from me." Sylvia laughed and gave us each a warm hug.

For the next hour we talked and brought each other up to date while consuming a large pitcher of margaritas. We told them about our trip down the Red River and the Intercoastal until we got to Beaumont where we went offshore for the trip to Galveston. After that, Ray urged Sylvia to tell us her news. Sylvia blushed.

I prodded, "Come on Sylvia; you have always been a little shy but I can't think of anything that would cause you to blush this much."

"Well...I made a decision. Actually, I have been thinking about it for a long time but haven't done anything about it until Ray prodded me." She took a deep breath and said, "I have resigned and I am going back to graduate school to work on my doctorate."

"I think that is great. I could be happier for you." I said.

Emily eyed her more closely and with her evil grin, she asked, "You neglected to mention exactly where you are going and what you are going to be working on." Sylvia blushed more deeply and I picked up on what Emily was doing.

"Well, I...I found this university which has a program that I really like and the people there are great. I had a good interview with the faculty and they are eager for me to come there. The man who would be my advisor has already accepted my idea for a dissertation and..."

Emily said, "That's wonderful, Sylvia. Now where the hell are you going to go to school and who the hell is your advisor?"

Sylvia looked a Ray who was also grinning. She spit out the words as fast as she could get them out. "I am going to Mizzou in Columbia and your dad is my advisor and if you give me any more shit, I'll take you across my knee and paddle your ass."

"You will have to get permission from Stuart to do that. He says that he owns my ass now. We are going to talk about that later. You can redecorate any room in the house but mine. "

"What makes you think..."

"Sylvia, I can see it in your eyes and all over my grinning father's face over there that you won't be living in a dorm or a campus apartment. And I will be pleased to have you as my step mother as long as you can accept me and Stuart as your daughter and son-in-law. That might be hard for both of you since you each had the hots for each other but were too chicken to do anything about it."

Sylvia was dark red now and could only turn to Ray for support. He simply said, "I warned you that the slow and gentle way wouldn't work. It's all on the table now. You did fine."

Sylvia turned to me and I said, "I don't know if I can ever look at you and as my mother-in-law but Sylvia, you will always be my friend. And I'll do my best to keep a leash on your step daughter."

"Like hell you will, prick. My step mother and I are going to great friends and we will make both your and daddy's lives miserable; well at least some of the time. With luck, maybe we can be knocked up at the same time too."

Sylvia finally composed herself and said, "Girl friend, all of this is new to me. Family, kids, and all that. Be gentle with me. I will need time to adjust. I am used to a room full of Alpha males but a young woman like you scares me a little."

"Ok, I'll be my demure self around you until we can loosen you up. Carla will help too."

I added, "Ray told me to pay attention to what she does and not what she says. That is a pretty good barometer I have discovered."

"Hush you. She is fully capable of making her own friendships."

"Oh I can smell a spanking coming on." I replied.

"Bring your friends." She retorted. Everyone laughed at our banter.

Ray drove us to seafood place that they had found and we had a marvelous seafood dinner on a terrace out over the gulf. We talked more and discovered more about each other. Sylvia had been like me; an only child. She worked her way through college and got a job with the government and worked her way up. She had never dated much even though she had been a target of a lot of the Alpha males she worked with. She had earned her Master's Degree in Public Policy at Georgetown and was content if not happy in D.C. She had loved the move to Nashville and fell in love with country music but still loved classical music too. When she met Ray, she said that she felt like a teenage girl. He was so solid and mature. He was everything she felt that she wasn't. The rest was a rapid progression from meeting to lovers to soon-to-be partners. She had fallen in love with the campus and when Ray took her to a faculty party and she was eagerly welcomed, she was hooked. They seldom had a student with fifteen years of government experience at a fairly high level in their doctoral program and they were almost giddy at the prospect.

Ray had told them that he had to go to visit someone at NASA the next day and that we should come along and see the waterfront in Kemah and we could have dinner there after he was finished. No one could think of a reason not to, so we agreed to meet at their hotel at eight in the morning for breakfast. We went back to the harbor area and they pointed out their hotel which was only about fifty feet from the boat. We said our good nights and Emily and I made love to the rhythm of music filtering down from one of the nearby clubs.

The next day was one of revelations. We dropped Ray off at the main NASA building and spent the morning at the Museum next door and relived the days of the early space program. Then we drove over the Kemah Bridge and marveled at the line of sailboats both entering and leaving Clear Lake into Galveston Bay. Right below the bridge was the village of Kemah with its row of restaurants and shops right along the channel. We chose to eat lunch on the deck watching the parade of boats not twenty feet from us. After that, the girls did what girls like to do best; they went shopping. I tagged along until Ray called. I told them that I would go pick him up and meet them at a different restaurant a five.

I retraced our route and picked Ray up twenty minutes later. He seemed ebullient. "You look like you had a very successful day, Ray."

"I did; a very successful one. Let's go find a place to talk before we meet the girls. I need to discuss something with you."

We drove back to Kemah and went to the bar in the restaurant where we were going to meet in an hour. We each ordered a beer and a large shrimp cocktail to share as we sat alone near the railing on the channel.

Ray jumped right into it. "Stuart, I am going to ask you to do something that you probably don't want to do."

"Oh, what is it?"

"I have uncovered some information about that last mission you were on and I want to present it to a Naval panel. By itself the information is interesting and useful but I believe that it will mean a lot more along with your story. I know that you have ghosts about that time and I respect those but this could be very important. Would you consider doing that?"

"Ray, I have no idea what you have found or what could be so powerful about what I might say; but I guess if you wanted that, I could do it. I...it is and will be very hard for me to talk about that day. I can't guarantee that I won't make a total fool out of myself."

"I understand completely and I promise you that no one will make you look foolish. Your story along with this other information is really important. I will set things up and we will get it out in the open and then see what happens. Ah, here they come now and it looks like one of us is deeply in debt."

A dark cloud had settled over me for a moment from my talk with Ray but it lifted when Emily came up and kissed me and dropped a bag in my lap and said, "For you, my Captain." I opened it and found a full sized pirate's hat and vest. Ray asked, "What is that for?"

"He keeps kidnapping me and ravishing me like a pirate, so..."

"Ah, sorry I asked. There are some things a father doesn't need to know."

Sylvia said, "I understand completely. So you will understand why I got you these." She handed him a sack and he pulled out a Sherlock Holmes double ended hat, a curved pipe and a large magnifying glass. We all had a good laugh over that as Ray put the hat on and declared that he loved it. He even used the magnifying glass to inspect dinner before he ate it. The waitress thought he was drunk when he ordered his dinner with a bad British accent.

We enjoyed the dinner in Kemah and watched the boats that had left earlier returning now. It was almost magical to watch a long row of sailboats heading for the channel with their sails lit up. The drive back to Galveston was quiet as we all reflected on our recent adventures. Ray and Sylvia were flying back to St. Louis the next morning. She had taken her accumulated vacation days and they were working out the details of her move to Columbia while she was getting her paperwork processed at the university.

Emily and I decided to spend one more day reprovisioning and looking around the Strand and would leave the morning after that for our return trip to St. Louis. The day was one of buying things and carrying them back to the boat and then going again. We had fun and teased each other a lot. We ate in one of the local restaurants and over dinner, Emily turned serious.

"Stuart, what are you going to do when we get back?"

"I'm still thinking about that and I'm not sure. The first thing I want to do is find us our own place and then figure out what to do with myself. I think part of that might depend on what Tom found out. There might still be some hangover from before. What do you want me to do?"

"I want your demons to disappear and I want you to do whatever will make you the happiest."

"That will be when we get married."

"Then let's do that before school starts in the fall."

"Agreed."

The next morning, I backed the boat out of the slip and headed for the Intercoastal. We decided to return along it rather than off shore because there was the threat of some heavy weather later in the week. We made it to Lake Charles before the weather hit. There we tied up there for the day to let the storm pass. It was the Emily's twenty first birthday and we celebrated by taking her to her first casino. We ate, drank, and gambled for several hours before we retired to a hotel room for the night. She won a thousand dollars that night and felt like the luckiest woman alive. She wanted to bet it all on one last hand but I told her that lucky women always knew when to not push their luck. She grinned and said that I was right and we went to bed.

Ten days later, we pulled into the same marina in St. Louis that we departed from. This time, I rented a slip for the long term. I wasn't sure about keeping the boat because I wasn't sure how much we would use it during the school year; but for now, we still had summer left and there was lots of interesting river north of St. Louis.

We had let Tom and Carla know when we would arrive and they were waiting for us along with a surprise. They had rescued my new truck from the evidence barn in Tennessee and Carla, as my attorney, had taken possession of it. I decided that I would drive down to see Marquet and give him the one in storage there. We unloaded all of the food, beer and wine that was left and our personal things and drove to their house where we would stay until we got settled.

Ray and Sylvia were there and Sylvia was teaching Ray how to grill steaks outdoors. Somehow, Ray had never been inoculated with the grilling gene most guys have. He did the potatoes, salad and baked beans though. After dinner, Ray asked me if I was free next week to drive down to Nashville and bring some of Sylvia's things back. He was going to take Tom's truck and rent a trailer. They felt that they could bring everything back in one trip if there were two trucks. I agreed but added that I needed to take a side trip into Mississippi to take care of the other pickup. That proved to be a simple matter of timing as they would go and prepare everything and when we got there, we would just load and go.

Sylvia then dropped a gift in my lap. She said that the National Park office in Missouri had an opening for an experienced person to supervise the people in the state. Since I was still employed by the government, she had put my name in for consideration. I had an interview scheduled in two weeks. I had a few reservations about that until I found out more about the job. She assured me that I was perfect for the job. I said that we would see. Tom and Ray just grinned. Carla looked smug.

As we drank coffee and relaxed, Ray subtly said, "Stuart, I would like you to go with me to a meeting on Friday here in St. Louis. I think that you will find it interesting." For some reason, I had the feeling that something big was happening but I didn't know what. It didn't help that there was silence in the room and every eye was on me until I answered.

"Sure, I don't have anything on the calendar except to keep your daughter happy. Speaking of which, we want to get married before school starts. Does anyone have a suggestion of when everyone would be free?"

Carla answered, "August tenth. It is set in stone." Emily giggled and Carla laughed.

I felt that I setting myself up for something when I asked, "Why is that date set in stone?"

"Because that is Tom and my anniversary and it is also the day Ray and Sylvia are going to get married. If the two of you do that, then none of us will ever forget our anniversary. The four of you can decide if you want a joint wedding or separate ones with a joint reception."

Somehow the poetry and logic of this made perfect sense to me. I simply said, "Emily, is the tenth a good day for you?"

"It will be the best day of my life now." That settled that.

The next night, Tom had tickets to the Cardinal game and the three guys went to the ballgame while the women conspired against us. We drank enough beer and ate enough ballpark hot dogs that by the time we got back to the house, all we wanted to do was ravish our women and that idea met with no argument so we were spared the details of their plotting.

The next morning was Friday and I dressed in my slacks and sport shirt. Emily and I rode with Ray to a Federal office building downtown. It gave me a chill when we entered and I had to pass though the security gate. I felt for sure that a hand would reach out and grab me. But that didn't happen. What did happen was that Ray led us into a courtroom with a notice on the door that nothing was scheduled for the day. As we entered, Ray pulled me aside and said, "I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to tighten up. Today, just tell them your story and don't worry about the results. You are safe." Emily squeezed my hand and I knew that I had been primed for the past two days and set up for this morning. When I entered, I saw five of my teammates sitting together. They all waved and smiled as I entered but I was led to a table in front where Emily and I sat down next to each other. A few minutes later, Tom, Carla and Sylvia entered and sat behind us. Now I was beginning to feel nervous.

And then the hammer dropped. Four naval officers in full dress uniforms entered from the back of the bench. All four were full admirals and with them were four other naval officers. I hadn't been in the presence of this much brass since I went to the Army-Navy football game one year. The senior man wasted no time and started speaking. "Welcome. This is an unofficial hearing to see if the new information can significantly alter the existing record. The result of this hearing will only be to recommend that the record be reexamined. As a result, everyone in the room today is sworn to not reveal anything that is said here today. I recognize and know most of the people here today. Miss, who are you and what is your interest here today?"

"I am Emily Larson and Ray is my father and Stuart is my fiancé and I want to find out what goblins are freaking out my husband."

"I see. And Tom, are you here officially or unofficially?"

"Both. Stuart is going to become part of our family but there have also been some recent events that may be related to this hearing that involve both criminal and possible terrorist involvement. Carla, as our department legal advisor, and I are here to evaluate that potential."

"This is getting more interesting than I expected. And you, Miss; are you family too?"

"I will be next month. But right now, I am the guest of Dr. Larson as one of his graduate students. I am observing the review process as the start of my doctoral research in military review and reporting processes."