Rick slid into the seat of the still warm flight simulator. He was glad to find that the simulator didn't have the usual stale smell of sweat and was pleasantly surprised to find a lingering clean almost slightly floral scent left behind from the previous occupant.
As usual, Rick was curious to see how the previous occupant of the simulator had fared and tapped a few key codes that he had "borrowed" from an unsuspecting maintenance engineer. Taking a quick glance at the records log, he noted the initals the kill rate and efficiency score. Impressed with the numbers, Rick let out a low whistle and muttered to himself, "Again EGH, eh? Who are you?".
Shaking his head as to the mystery of "EGH", Rick strapped himself into the simulator and went through the standard pre flight checks before notifying the simulator technician that he was ready for takeoff. Rick quickly forgot about the previous occupant of the simulator as he came face to face with a number of Zentraedi battle pods and quickly redirected his attention to dispatching the pods as fast as he could.
Under a stream of hot water, Rick let the tensions of the day roll off of him and he let his muscles relax under the water's heat. As the water beat down on him, he let his mind wander back to the mysterious pilot "EGH" and wondered which of the wild rumors were true of the pilot's identity. The logins for this pilot started showing up a few weeks after the Vermillion team's escape from the Zentraedi. No one would have noticed them until Max had made a comment in the locker room about someone beating his latest score in the simulator. When no one fessed up to being the owner of the highscore, jokes were made as to who the mystery pilot was.
Most pilots thought that the initials were just one of the logins that the maintanance teams used while recalibrating the flight simulators. Some other pilots gave the wild idea out that it was someone's kid using the simulators as a gaming device while others thought it might be one of the officers on board the ship. The strange thing was no one could figure out who's initial they stood for and so the mystery remained.
Rick had a bit more details to go on as he accessed the log records on multiple occaisions to find that this mysterious pilot, used the simulators at the weirdest hours. There was no pattern to the timing of when EGH and there was no records of seeing anyone coming in and out of the simulator room doors at those hours. Rick had tried to ask Roy about it once but got a fairly evasive answer from Roy who basically told him not to go digging around trying to solve the mystery. Rick secretly thought the mystery pilot was either Roy or Max because the flying done by the pilot was that good but didn't understand why either of them would hide such a thing.
Shutting off the shower and towelling off, Rick quickly finished drying off and changed into his civilian clothes, ready to return to his room to get some sleep.
In the officer's quarters a lone figure walked through the corridors to her room. It was late as usual, most of the crew sleeping while the skeleton night crew kept watch. Lisa let out a long sigh as she unlocked her door and entered her apartment. It was the completion to another long, stress filled day. She couldn't wait to put on her comfy cotton pajamas and hoped that her fatigue would keep her from suffering from the insomnia that recently started to plague her.
She didn't want to admit to anyone but her capture and escape from Dolza's ship along with Rick, Max and Ben still gave her nightmares. Remembering how easily the Zentraedi destroyed that planet and the number of ships in their arsenal all weighed on her mind. She didn't understand how the senior officers on board were so easily dismissive of her report about the true strength of Dolza's forces and wondered how the SDF-1 could defeat a foe like that and hoped that the Earth's defense force was making good use of their time to come up with a plan to defeat the Zentraedi and defend the planet. Lisa didn't think it would be enough and even though the top brass on board hadn't wanted to believe her or the other POWs regarding what they saw, Lisa knew she couldn't stand by idle and do nothing about it. Luckily Captain Gloval was of her same mind and between the two of them and Dr. Lang's research and development team they hoped to make a difference.
The Zentraedi's obvious firepower was not the only thing that weighed on Lisa's mind.
As much as she tried not to, her mind wandered back to the kiss she and Rick had been forced to share in front of the Zentraedi. As horrified as the Zentraedi had been by the kiss, Lisa had a complete opposite reaction to the kiss.
Even under duress, that kiss had unlocked something in Lisa that had been hidden and buried for a long time. If she closed her eyes, she could feel his hands as he grasped her shoulders, pulling her towards him and the softness of his lips on hers. She thought he would have given her a quick peck or just rest his mouth on hers but Rick had actually deepened the kiss, catching Lisa's breath and unconsciously she had responded, relaxing into him and returning the kiss.
Not wanting to spend any more time analyzing whether or not she was attracted to the brash young pilot, Lisa shook her head and laid down hoping to get some rest before her next shift.
Author's note - Not yet sure where I am going with this story yet so please be kind with your reviews.