Sharkbait Down Under Ch. 71-80

I looked at Nicholas, who just nodded. "We're not just going to LOOK at the water, Vicki," he said. "I'm sure you can dive off this yacht too."

"I want it," I said. Ian called back, saying his brother and his mate would do it, and I made one more call. "Linda, it's Vicki. What's your plan after Matt retires?" Nicholas and I had tickets to Perth tonight. We would film me diving and training with Matt's unit, and then we'd stick around for his retirement ceremony.

"I have to go back to Los Angeles to close out my apartment and prepare my stuff for shipping," she said. "We'll do some traveling, I hope."

"Do you know where you're going?"

"Adelaide area," she said. "Matt's open to anywhere, and I figure Sharkbait Productions is moving there soon."

She was right. "Have I got a deal for you," I told her. They'd have a stateroom on my yacht, get to travel, and there was plenty of room for her stuff. She could even set her editing equipment up and keep working on the episodes in between ports.

"We'll do it," Matt said. "I commanded a Minesweeper years ago, and I can handle myself on a bridge. With three of us to split the bridge time, it will be easy."

"OOOH!" Linda was practically bouncing in her seat. "What if you talked to Admiral Kirk and your SEAL team friends in Coronado and got us permission to film a day there with the other girls? We could make a whole episode showing you with the Aussies and the twins and Amy with the Americans!"

It was genius, and we made it happen.

Linda taped a day in Perth at HMAS Stirling as I spent a day with the dive team. We started with calisthenics and a beach run. For some reason, they insisted I run in front of the group with the Commander and Master Chief. After that, we boarded a rigid-hull inflatable and headed out to a training exercise just offshore. Linda and some volunteers filmed me as we walked through disarming a mine on the seafloor. In the next dive, we used rebreathers (think scuba without bubbles) to infiltrate the harbor and plant a limpet charge on the keel of a warship. It was fun, as was the retirement party on the beach they threw for Commander Rooney. The next day he was relieved of command, and they started the multi-flight trip to Los Angeles a few hours later.

Nicholas and I returned to the resort overlooking our new beach and didn't come out for three days.

Ch. 75

After our 'retreat,' it was back to work. I'd continued the morning calls with Leo, Adrienne, Mom, and Dad because there was so much going on, and my family was involved in the Sharkbait Foundation and other activities. My current frustrations dealt with mating meetups. "There's no way to make the Scratch 'n Sniff into an international meetup, is there," I said as I looked at the camera.

"It won't happen at the North American Alpha Summit," Leo said. "I tried, but it's too late."

Adrienne slowly nodded. "The Council Chairman is dead, the Midwest Chairman is retiring, and the Pacific Northwest chairman's term is up. No one is willing to change anything until a new Council gets voted in, Vicki. That won't happen until the Summit."

"Who is going to replace Chairman Wolfe in your region? Unky?"

He just laughed. "Can you imagine Volkov School of Diplomacy in the Council?" We all laughed; he'd be a bull in a china shop. "No, I've been lobbying for Larry Winters."

"Good choice," I said. Larry and Donna were former Alphas, turning over the Winona Pack to Doug and Jenny Winters two decades ago. Larry had been Leo's father-in-law after his first mating, and the Winona Pack remained close allies to the Miesville Pack. "How'd you get him to agree to come out of retirement?" Regional chairs were not allowed to be active Alphas, so the pool of candidates was small.

"Given the alternative, he agreed to be drafted."

That didn't sound good. "Who else has a hat in the ring?"

"Carl Owens," Leo said. I shivered; Alpha Owens tried to get control of me twice when I was five, once at the Mall of America and once at the Alpha Summit. He'd also been the one filing charges against Leo that got him arrested, and me silvered, when we arrived for the Summit. "They have an heir that is of age now, and he's a power-hungry bastard."

He never got his mantle, but he did mate an Alpha-blooded widow and adopted her ten-year-old son shortly after he failed with me. "That would be bad. He'd set our kind back a century."

"Agreed," Adrienne said. "There is a divide in our people between the traditionalists and the modernists. The reformers are the ones willing to consider working with vampires and recognizing the Australian Council. The Alphas are split, so a lot depends on how the Council shakes out after the new votes."

"And who the new Council Chairman is." It was a lot of political maneuvering, a game Leo and I didn't like, but Adrienne excelled. Luna did well pairing those two as second-chance mates. "How is Dorothy doing?"

"Settling in. Dorothy hasn't met her mate yet, and since she's an Omega, she can't attend the Scratch 'n Sniff," Mom said. "It will be the four of us since no new Betas have come of age."

"I don't understand why the Alphas don't bring ALL their unmated along. It's not efficient," Nicholas said.

"Tradition," Adrienne answered. "In the old days, it was expensive and hazardous to travel to the Summit, so they focused on the Pack leaders."

I rolled my eyes. "It didn't take much money or time to bring the Mermaids together, and it was a big success. They are doing another meetup in Florida over spring break, and a dozen Aussies are flying up for it. You don't have to look past the number of unmated to figure out how inefficient the current practice is."

Leo nodded. "There's a selfish reason, Vicki. In almost all cases, the female goes to the male's Pack and often a lower rank. Some Packs have fewer males than females, based on wars or other factors. Alphas hate losing members, so some prefer their members stay in-house, so to speak, with choice mates. The best way to get that is to let them go years without finding their true mate."

"I guess I'll need to push this on my own then," I said. "I'll get the European Council on board and ask them to host. The Australian and European Councils can extend the invitation to the North American Alphas next week at the Summit."

"The Council may not approve it," Leo said.

"The Council cannot prevent interested wolves from traveling," I replied. "Look, I've got a population of DOZENS of unmated wolves who have never attended a meetup. Add in those newly freed after choice matings, and we'll have multiple second-chance mates available. I can't afford to send my people on a tour of America. You guys slap some sense into them because our people NEED this."

"I almost wish you were still in the North American Council. You said it better than I could," Leo replied.

I wasn't going to their meeting; I was on the Australian Council, and we declared independence from the North American Council. We finished our call, and I called up Lars Svensson, the European Council Chairman. I explained the issue and asked if he would co-sponsor the meetup there. He readily agreed, and after some discussion, we decided to hold it in Dublin, Ireland. The location worked for Lars because there was a major airport and two Packs nearby, and for me because I wanted Philip Corcoran's descendants to see where they came from in the Wicklow Mountains. Checking my schedule for the Sea Scout filming, we picked a week in June between filming sessions.

I checked in with Linda; they had closed out her apartment and packed most of her stuff onto the Good Times. She brought her editing equipment along but shipped her other gear to New Orleans and the Sea Scout. They'd be leaving for Australia tomorrow, stopping in Hawaii, French Polynesia, Fiji, New Zealand, and Tasmania.

My next call was to the Sea Scout Captain Lynette Dauntless and Engineer Patty Holmes. We caught up on readiness for the first two scientific cruises the Scout would be taking. Our Foundation needed to keep the Scout busy, but we weren't planning to start filming until mid-March, so the girls and I wouldn't be along.

When the Sharkbait Foundation publicized the Sea Scout's availability for short-term research cruises at minimal cost, we got a lot of interest. The ones featuring female scientists and sharks got scheduled with our film crew, while other expeditions filled in around it. The combination kept the Scout's staff employed and was in keeping with the Foundation's research focus. It also would shake down the ship before adding the pressures of reality television. Captain Lynette was on top of everything, and I looked forward to her updates.

Nicholas cooked me breakfast while I was on the phone. When we finished eating, we dressed in work clothes and waited for our guests to arrive. We weren't waiting long. Three vehicles arrived right on time, pulling into parking spaces at our home in the former resort. "Jennifer," I said as I smiled at our architect. Another six people got out, one being our General Contractor, Zach Perkins. Mrs. Hawthorne introduced us to the five-member Coastal Zoning Commission.

She'd been working overtime to get drawings ready, and last week we'd presented it and our variance requests to the Commission. Due to the complexity of the plans and the variances requested, the Commission wanted a site visit. "This doesn't fit in at all," one Commissioner said as she looked at the former resort and its spaceship-like outbuilding.

"Not at all," I said. I walked the group to the edge of the cliffs in front of our home. Looking back, they could see the buildings we promised to demolish, restoring the land to its original condition. They could look across to the point on the other side of the cove that was our building site. Zach had laid out the outline of the home and attached pool and cottage using stakes and orange tape; wooden poles and yellow rope showed the height of the walls and roof. "That's a dominating building," one of the commissioners complained.

"Only when viewed from either side, both of which are private land," Jennifer replied. "With the shape of the point, the building is long and thin. From out on the ocean, it isn't as conspicuous as the building beside us. It also helps that the point is at a lower elevation than this section or the adjacent. You'll see that the surrounding topography reduces the visual impact, especially with our use of native stones that will blend in with the cliffs." One design decision had been to use the same type of rock on visible portions of the home that made up the bedrock underneath us.

We walked around the cove and onto the point, spending time looking at the layout. "This is a big home, almost a castle," another said.

"It will be worthy of the land it is on," I promised. "The property and land will have significant tax valuation when finished, roughly double what it is now. Building in a manner that is historically correct yet modern inside is not cheap." The architect and general contractor answered questions about construction methods, water storage, solar panels, utilities, and other concerns. You wouldn't see them from the water because of their placement behind the building or natural features.

We spent thirty minutes at the site as they took pictures and made notes, then we looked from the other side before I led them down to the inlet. We loaded onto a waiting boat that took us out into the Southern Ocean. As we traveled back and forth parallel to the coast at different distances, Jennifer had them go between their eyes and the computer drawings showing the eventual look. I want to think we convinced them that the building would add to the scenery, but we wouldn't know for another week.

The Commission granted our variances after we agreed to several conditions. The spaceship removal must happen within three months, and this was fine. They wanted two easements on the north side of our property at different elevations through the reserve, allowing them to put in multiple trails. Since there would be no camping overnight, we agreed. Finally, the Commission rearranged our proposed property lines so the coastline on either side of our home would be part of the Sharkbait Foundation nature preserve. Our road would move further up from the coast, and the change would prevent us from building additional homes on the ocean.

The Commission did approve ten single-home subdivisions for future construction, all on five to ten-acre sites. Half were on the western side along the road and had no special restrictions. The sites reaching up the valley from our home had to be single-story and use the same exterior stone. We also got permission for the airstrip and hangar building on the far west end, along with additional home sites. I was thrilled about this, as it would let us build homes for Pack members who wanted to live on Pack land.

We had our deal, and I'd get my dream home. Excavation would begin next week.

Ch. 76

Luna Adrienne Volkov's POV
Friday, February 11^th, 2034

"How are we going to handle things," I asked as we drove onto the grounds of the Atchafalaya Pack in Louisiana for the annual Alpha Summit.

"You do the handshakes and conversations, and I'll stand around looking intimidating?" I laughed, and Leo chuckled. "Hey, it's what I'm good at."

"You're impossible," I said. "I need your help lobbying the other Midwestern Alphas for Larry Winters. I'll be busy dealing with the Vampire issue with the Council, and there are a lot of Alphas nervous right now that I need to calm the fuck down." I wasn't kidding; Vicki's abduction and the fake-at-first-but-then-actual death of the Council Chairmen had the Alphas nervous. Add in the formation of a Council containing previous enemies like mermaids and vampires, and tensions were high. I was briefing the Alphas on the situation tomorrow morning, right after the regional Council elections. Alphas could submit nominees for Chairman until ten, but the Alpha voting wouldn't happen until that evening.

"I've got the easy job, then."

"No shit, Sherlock." Vicki's work with Vampires and Mermaids would be easier to take if it was just the Southern Cross Pack in a different Council. I had gone to Master Cyprian and engaged the other species, bringing the dangers right to the North American Alphas. I had to defend our actions plus show everyone what Vicki had accomplished in Australia.

And if I couldn't get them to understand, the votes would go against us, and we'd be closer to war than peace.

"You'll do fine, Adrienne. There's no one I'd rather have speaking to this than you." He took my hand, his thumb lightly rubbing the back of my fingers to calm me down.

"It would be easier if we had some Aussie Betas with us," Liv said from the back seat.

"I can't believe the Council wouldn't let them come," Brent added. "Why would you take away opportunities for the scratch 'n sniff?"

"The Southern Cross Pack isn't part of the North American Council," Leo said. "If they invited Vicki's people, they'd have to invite the Europeans. Sure, it would make sense, but that's why we can't do it. Petty politics by people who should be above that crap."

"I'm glad Vicki asked me to present the invitation to the Alphas," Olivia said as she sat back. "The European Council recognizes her as a peer, and our Council needs to. Without a mutual treaty, she may not be able to return home." Within a Council, the Alphas granted permission to enter each other's lands. If you wanted to go to another Council territory, you were supposed to go through the respective Council. "What would we do if they decide Vicki can't return to film her shows or do her modeling?"

"We can't let it get to that," I said. We pulled up in front of the plantation house, and Omegas ran forward to get our luggage and get the doors. We stepped out and were greeted by the Atchafalaya Pack Alphas, then shown to our assigned trailer.

The scratch 'n sniff went off without issues, though only one couple found each other. I spent a lot of time socializing and prepping, answering questions, and talking informally about what happened in Mexico. We were up late into the night at the cocktail party.

The next morning after breakfast, the Midwest Council Alphas met to elect their new chair. After speeches by both candidates, a secret ballot elected Larry Winters as our next Chairman. "Congratulations," I told Larry and Donna as we reached the front of the line. The Pacific Northwest election didn't go our way, with a traditionalist taking the spot.

After the new Regional Chairs were seated, the next business was nominations for Council Chairman. Four Alphas gave short speeches nominating three serving Regional Chairs and one former Regional Chair before Alpha Steven Dauntless stood up. "The person I nominate is uniquely qualified for the position. Universally respected, possessing a keen intellect, even temperament, great personal courage, and a vision for a better future. I proudly nominate Luna Adrienne Volkov of the Miesville Pack for Council Chairman."

There was a short period of silence as the room processed what was just said before it exploded into shouting. I turned to glare at Leo, but he was just as shocked as I was. Steven had said nothing before dropping this turd in the punchbowl, and he was grinning at me in triumph.

"SILENCE!" Kurt Markingham slammed his fist on the table, shocking the room into compliance. The Western Canada chair was the oldest member of the Council and interim Chair. "If you have an objection, raise it properly and be recognized."

"I object," one of the Idaho Alphas said. "Luna Adrienne is female and is the current Luna of the Miesville Pack. She is not eligible for the position."

"Alpha Steven?"

"I have the relevant section of Council law, sir. 'Eligibility for Alpha Council positions. Any person over forty who is a previous Pack Alpha. If serving as Pack Alpha when elected, the person must relinquish control over the Pack before taking the Council position.' Notice that there is no requirement for the person to be male, and without asking a lady her age, Luna Adrienne meets that requirement."

"She's a LUNA, not an Alpha," the Idaho Alpha objected.

"She was an Alpha of her Pack for months after her first mate died before she turned the Pack over to her son. And thank you for making my second point; she is a Pack Luna, NOT an Alpha. Alpha Leo is and remains Alpha of the Miesville Pack, so Luna Adrienne can serve without changing the head of the Miesville Pack." I glared at Steven; he was enjoying this.

"Do it," Leo said. "Our people need your leadership, and you are the only one who can rally the Alphas to change."

"I need this like a hole in the head," I replied.

"Objection overruled. Luna Adrienne's name will be on the ballot," Chairman Kurt said with a sly grin. "Any other nominations?" There were none. "Ten-minute break, then we continue with Council business."

I made a beeline for Alpha Steven as others gathered around me. "You could have warned me," I told him.

"You might have said no," he answered with a grin. "I've had a gutful of people who hunger for the power of the job; it's about time we had the right person reluctantly agree to take it."

I rolled my eyes, but he slipped away as others talked to me or congratulated me. The Lunas were in my corner; they knew what this could mean. "I'll get my mate to support you," was the common refrain.

The next order of business was my presentation. I spoke for over an hour to the assembled Alphas. I started with Vicki's meeting with Master Alexander, through Timothy and Tracy's rescue from his Coven, and the events in Mexico. I finished with an update on the Australian Council and the Southern Cross Pack, emphasizing the mateless Beta-ranked wolves and the inter-species cooperation. "Our experiences in the last two months show the value of such an alliance, and there is a path to lasting peace if we are willing to travel it. Thank you."