She said, “I figured that already. I don’t mind. Whatever you say is good enough.”
I said, “That’s another thing. I want you to be the same cheery, wild, and untamed woman that I first met. I want our love and marriage to be full of pleasant surprises.”
“I’ll try. Honest. You really liked me like that?” she asked.
I answered, “Most of the time, especially after I got to know you. Anyway, you were partly that way on the Rust Bucket, again. That’s how I was able to realize that I do love you. I had something to prod me then into clearing up my mind and reaching a decision.”
We had a simple ceremony a few weeks later with her father and our friends in attendance. Then Marsha took over the Rust Bucket while Annie and I went on a honeymoon where no one could find us. While our home was being constructed on the island in the middle of the lake, Annie and I hid out in her cavern behind the waterfall where we made love to our heart’s content when we weren’t supervising the construction of our home. The honeymoon ended and I reported back for duty as Captain of the Thurman while Annie went about furnishing our home and getting part of it ready for a new arrival to our family.
Four months later, Annie gave birth to a healthy son whom we named after her father and myself as William David Oden. It was right after his birth when I discovered Annie and our son were invisible. There wasn’t any mention of her or our son in the directory under their names nor mine. Once again, my curiosity was straining at the leash to know what was happening. That time, I got a partial answer that would have to suffice for the time being. As soon as I realized that Annie and William were invisible, I went back to see Sarge. That time I wasn’t going to be put off from some kind of answer. I guess he saw it in my face and eyes when he saw me approach.
I said, “Sarge, we need to talk.”
“I can see that we do. You have a hover?” he asked.
I answered, “Yes.”
Sarge replied, “Fine. We’ll go for a ride. Then I’ll give you something but not much. You’ll have to be satisfied with what I can tell you.”
“Okay.”
We left the Academy after he checked out. Once we were in the hover and on a highway far away from everyone else, he explained, “It’s this way. You and I are both public heroes. We can’t be hidden. Your wife and child are invisible as well as your home address to protect them. They’re being protected because of what you and I do. You may not know everything you’re doing, but that, too, is for your safety, just as it is for mine. Mind you, neither of us is doing anything illegal or immoral, but we are involved with things important to our interplanetary nation. For that reason, certain protections are in effect for us. If you weren’t a publicly known hero, you’d be as invisible as Annie and Bill, or do you call him William?”
I answered, “William, for now, to distinguish him from his grandfather.”
He said, “Yes, of course. You made that man very happy.”
I replied, “I thought so, too, on the day I asked for his approval, before I proposed to Annie.”
He said, “Good move on your part. Anyway, I’ll bet you a credit to a fraction that you’ll feel better knowing that no pirate can ever get access to where your family is by looking in a directory.”
I answered, “I hadn’t thought of it like that. You’re right. I do feel better knowing that they’re a little less accessible to that element.”
He said, “Exactly. You and I have both fought pirates. You’ve also fought the Apeoids directly, while I fought them in a different way. We’re both well-known so there’s no way to hide us, but our families are important. This is for their protection. Now that’s all I can really say about the whole affair. Yes, I do know more, but I can’t tell you anything further. I hope you never get into my position where you know something and can’t tell. Now, unless there’s something else on your mind, you can take me to supper and we’ll swap war stories.”
I replied, “Fine. I’ll gladly take you to dinner. I also hope you and your family come to visit us someday for dinner and relaxation on our lake.”
“Wouldn’t the food get soggy?” he asked slyly.
It took me a moment to catch his joke and realize what I’d said. Then we both laughed about it together before we found a restaurant and had dinner. As the Sarge promised, we swapped war stories where we told the truth about some of them we had each heard exaggerated versions about.
Chapter 22
It was nice to know that I had resolved either wholly or partly, two of my concerns. I had a partial solution to the mystery I uncovered and I had resolved completely my relationship with Annie. That left only one other pre-occupation for me to solve that I devoted a little time to each day with casual reading of historical battles. Even though it was a naval type conflict, I also read about air and ground battles to see if one of them held the solution to the predicament I felt the Navy would soon be facing inside the next five years.
As it turned out, there were countless instances throughout the history of combat where one force had a significant advantage over another. There were also several ways to blunt the advantage. Some of them were too costly in lives and material. Others were inappropriate. A few, however, were adaptable. Those were the ones that I concentrated on as I wrote a treatise on how to defeat an enemy holding a significant advantage over our current naval forces. The treatise took me almost nine months to write. For once, I had an idea of what a pregnancy felt like as I struggled to make the evidence give birth to the solution I saw. I could make that comparison easily because Annie became pregnant with our first daughter, Angelica. After I wrote it, I realized that I needed to get it published and seen by the military as well as the people who might control their funds, if they could understand it.
I went to see the Sarge, since he was my closest friend and my mentor. He looked at a disk copy of the treatise after I presented it to him and promised to read it. Then he said that he would get back to me with his advice. He did far more.
The call came over the lightbeam radio. “Dave, Sergeant Clark. I finished reading your treatise. Very interesting. I found it well-balanced and founded. I passed the copy on to someone who will start circulating copies around the military to the right people. You made a lot of friends when you were in the Navy fighting the Ape-oids. A number of them remember you fondly if only because you saved their lives or careers. They’re going to bat for you. Now, as far as getting it published, what you need to do next is…”
I listened intently as the Sarge outlined what I had to do with another copy of the treatise. Finally, he got off the lightbeam and hung up. I went to work immediately to fix up another copy into proper publishing format and send it in. Hopefully, it would see the light of day and someone would use it.
Already, the war clouds Sarge warned of were starting to roll in again. Already, the Ape-oids were making incursions into sectors of space that were off-limits to them. They were making threatening moves at ships moving through those sectors. So far, they hadn’t made an outright attack, but the more I heard about the situation, the more I realized that Sarge was right about another war and it wasn’t far away.
Meanwhile, I continued to escort Pennyweight freighters on their runs to Adriena, Gabriel, and sometimes to the Blues on Leuion. The Edmund and Theodore were also kept busy, but, more and more, they were carrying special, small cargoes on solo runs because they were faster than the freighters and armed.