Sabre Dancing with the Dead Ch 30
Tokonosu, April 23 20xx
Day 20.
1435
Wolf stepped out of the club house, and looked around at the massive amount of activity going on. It was now a week since the Fujimi students had gone to see if they could find their parents. One mission led to a joyous reunion between the now shunned Rei, and her parents. The next day led only to sadness as Takashi found his mother, surrounded by her students, all of them dead.
Takashi and Saeko had seldom been seen for the first 3 days after that ill fated mission, appearing only for meals and then withdrawing to the boat they shared. When they returned to the compound on the 4th morning, They both got right into the preparations for the library mission. Saeko never left his side. Shinji organized a run to the JSDF base, and took so many men along that the APCs were jammed and there were still more men on the decks riding along like troops did in WWII. At least the Type 96s had plenty of hand holds and tie downs on the upper deck.
When they returned from the base a couple of days later, they had a huge column, consisting of a total of 4 APCs, 2 engineering vehicles and half a dozen trucks, including another water bowser. As they planned on taking that bowser with them, they didn't bother to open the gate wide to let it in. Standing on the watch platform watching the arrival, Wolf now knew why they had taken so many people. 8 people for the APCs, 4 more for the engineering tanks, and a half dozen more for the trucks. Each of the trucks had one or two guards in addition to the driver, and half the trucks were
loaded with gear for the mission as well as additions to their stock.
They waited until the next day, then fired up the nixie way out there, and quietly unloaded that which was to be used here.
The next things to be done were the mission to the wholesaler and a visit by the command group to the JSDF base at the shipyard. They talked it over and decided that Capt Sakai, Wolf and Shizuka would take a small sailboat along the city waterfront to the JSDF strong hold. Shinji would stay behind and run the supply mission.
So while Shinji went off to organize the supply run, Wolf, Saburo and Shizuka walked down the ramp to the dinghy. It was a short row out to a small 20foot day sailor. Loading their gear aboard, Wolf made ready to cast off from the buoy and hoist the sails. The jib was on furling gear so that made handing the foresail much easier and he show the other two how to sheet in the jib and when. He'd handle the rest of it. He left the mainsail down, figuring it would be easier on his "crew" if he waited til they were out of the yacht basin and into the harbor itself.
Pre-castoff items taken care of, he asked the others if they were good to go. Saburo gave him a thumbs up, and Shizuka nodded although she looked a bit nervous.
"Are you OK, Shizuka?" Wolf asked.
"I'm not too fond of open water, but you sailed round the world, didn't you?" she asked.
"Yeah Shizuka, all the way from North America across to Europe and back to Central America. From there I headed across the Pacific, checking out places I'd read about as a kid. At least I did 'til I got the letter from Kat. I don't think I've ever made a change in plans so fast in my life." Wolf grinned at her.
"I can see why. You two are madly in love." she grinned. Then her face saddened.
"I hope Rika is OK. Last I heard she was at the airport the day this all fell apart."
Wolf thought about it for a moment, then told the others to hang loose for a bit. He had to take care of something before they shoved off. With that he hopped back into the dink and rowed over to the landing. He climbed up onto the dock and headed for the clubhouse. A few minutes later he was back aboard and was showing Shizuka how to put on the life vest, and how to clip it to the boat with the safety tether. All set, they cut loose from the buoy and Wolf walked the mooring line back towards the stern, the small boat slowly turning downwind. He let go of the line, and dropped into the cockpit to pick up the tiller. The jib was unfurled and they were on their way. It was a bit tricky winding their way through the mass of boats but the mooring was pretty large and they had good room to do it.
The constant course changes meant the sails needed to be adjusted every few minutes, so Saburo and Shizuka got a work out on their newly mastered sailing techniques. A few missteps the first couple of times, and they started to handle the tacking sail shifts pretty well. It took them 15 minutes to get out of the basin and into the large open area of the bay. Here he turned into the wind and furled the genoa to the size of a hanker chief. Then he had Saburo climb on the cabin top and the main. Falling off back on a heading to the JSDF base, he had them trim both sails until they were drawing nicely.
Wolf set the course due North, the sails were trimmed and they moved along at a steady 3-4 knots. Not much wind, but adequate for their mission. Wolf figured it would take them a couple of hours to get to the JSDF beachhead.
Once on course, he looked at the other two, and asked "OK, who wants to be first for the quickie sailing 101 course? You might as well learn, since we want to spread skills across the community. Who's up first?"
Much to his surprise, Shizuka said "OK". He had her slid along the cockpit seat 'til she could take the tiller, and started to explain the way the wind and sails interacted, and how to set the sails according to the relative wind across the deck. They were a beam reach at the moment, with both main and jib hauled in to the mid point.
"We are running across the wind, it's coming at us from the side. That's called a beam reach. So now we're going to see what changes in heading do to the sail trim. OK Shizuka, I want you to "come up" into the wind a bit. That means head closer to where the wind is coming from. Now, the tiller works opposite to a wheel so if you want to go right, push the tiller to the left and vice versa. Give it a try. Gently and slowly."
She did so, and the nose crept higher to windward. Having turned about 5 degrees, Wolf told her to ease off on the tiller and maintain that heading. He ignored the sail trim for the moment, their course changes were not yet drastic enough to need a trimming. Next he told her to "fall off" the wind, or head downwind.
Shizuka pulled up on the tiller, and as she'd expected, the nose turned down wind, and she steadied out about 10 degrees off the original course. She quickly learned that gentle movements on the tiller made it easy to keep the bow heading in the same direction. She could feel the boat waver from side to side as it rode the small waves.
While she was doing that, getting a feel for the boat's movement, Wolf went on to explain what would happen if they went farther up or down than just a few degrees. He showed them the telltales on the genoa and explained what they meant as they wiggled about. Basically, if the telltale was flat against the sail, the trim was good. If it started to lift off the sail and wiggle about, the sail was out of trim and needed to be adjusted. They would either let out the sheet or they would pull some in.
In general, the higher they pointed, the tighter the sails had to be drawn in, and the farther they fell off, the looser the sails were set. As they were drawn in or let out, the telltales would settle down snug to the sail. Having explained it, he turned to Shizuka.
"OK, Shizuka, slowly come up into the wind. Watch the telltales. Saburo, you do the same and both of you tell me when the sail needs to be trimmed and which way."
As the little boat turned to windward, the sails started to flutter and their speed dropped off. The telltales started to dance on the sail surface. Shizuka looked at him, and said it was time to pull them tighter. Wolf nodded to Saburo, who handled the genoa sheets and he tightened up on the main himself. Saburo slowly hauled in his sheet with the winch, keeping an eye on the telltales. He stopped when the yarn was snug against the sail again. As Wolf pulled, Shizuka told him to stop, and he glanced at the telltale. It was snug.
"Nicely done for your first try, both of you. Ok, Now we are going to fall off and resume our original heading. Shizuka, do your thing, and tell us what to do and when."
The blonde nurse was starting to smile as she said "Yokai" and pulled the tiller towards her. The bow swung back towards the JSDF base, and she had them let out on the sheets. The telltales this time were fluttering on the back side of the sails, and as they were let out, the yarns snugged down flush again.. The trim was now correct for that wind and heading.
"You did that well, Shizuka… You want to stay at the helm or let Saburo have a go?" Wolf asked her with a grin on his face.
"I would like to practice a bit more if that's OK." She replied.
Saburo grinned back at them both, and said "Be my guest, my lady. How about you sail us to the JSDF camp and I'll have my turn on the way back? I'm sure Wolf has more to teach us than just the basics. I heard Shinji mention something called gybing when he and Wolf spoke this morning."
"Yeah, we did. But we may not have a chance to do that today, the wind is pretty steady onshore. We don't need to. But we'll see. Shizuka, how about you come up again and go even higher than the last time. I might as well show you all the sail trim. This time we will be going close hauled, which I expect you will know by now, means we are going to go as close into the wind as we can."
Shizuka was starting to have fun with this, and she grinned at Wolf, said OK, and started coming into the wind. As she did she had both men hauling in the sheets, keeping the telltales snug to the sail's surface. As they got to about 45 degrees off the wind, and kept pointing higher, pushing 40 degrees, they started having trouble getting the telltales to lay flat. She told Wolf she was having trouble coming up higher, the sails were getting out of trim and didn't seem to want to go much further.
"Good feel, Shizuka, you've pushed her to the edge of the envelope. You might be able to go a bit higher if you were to cross haul the boom, but we're not going to get into that, this time round." Wolf told her.
"Now I want you to fall off, and head for the JSDF base. It's a beautiful day for a sail, but we do have a job to do. Keep an eye on the sails, and tell us when to stop letting them out. We went farther out into the bay, so when we head in, we will be off the broad reach, and starting to run down wind. So the sheets will be let out a bit further this time… You ready?"
She nodded, and pulled the tiller towards her. As the boat fell off the wind, Saburo let out the sheet for the jib, and Wolf did the same for the boom. It took another hour to get to the JSDF base, and Wolf took the helm to get them into the mooring. There were no spaces he figured they could get into along the heavy ship docks and still be able to get off the tiny little daysailer.
Looking around the basin, he noted several large ship mooring floats, so they came alongside one of those and snagged the ring. Shizuka and Wolf flaked down the sails, and put the covers on, while Saburo pulled the dinghy up and transferred their gear to it. The other two climbed back down and made their way to a landing where they could see sentries.
Having tied off the dinghy, they made their way to the nearest sentry and asked to be taken to see the CO. The sentry had been advised to watch for them, so he led them farther into the shipyard, to a low slung office building that had once been part of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries ship yard they were standing in.
At the main entrance they were handed off to another sentry, who lead them up to the 3rd floor of the office building. Heading down the hall, they came to a conference room, and the sentry announced them. They were offered seats at the main table, and the discussions began for the mission to the University.
Things were starting off well, until there was a commotion at the door to the room. The posted sentry was trying to prevent someone from barging in. As they listened to the ruckus, Shizuka's face lit up and she leaped from the table and took off like a shot for the door. She ran full tilt into the sentry, who staggered off to one side, while Shizuka was swept into the arms of her lover.
Rika was alive and well, and the two of them were united again.