XIII

Lisa's Perspective

The remainder of her shift was a total blur; when Rick went down, she didn't know what to say or do next and went on remote control.  The last command she remembered giving was to order the Destroid units closest to the blast to scour the area for survivors.

Now it was 2300, and she couldn't sleep, even though her body ached and screamed for rest.  Every time she closed her eyes, she saw either Alaska Base going up in flames or Rick's VT going out of control into the shockwave of a miniature semi-nuclear explosion.  She looked over at the bottle of Scotch on the counter, but she scolded herself for even considering that.  Getting drunk off my ass won't bring him back, she told herself.  The ache in her eyes, the throbbing soreness in her temples, and, above all, the nearly mind-wrenching, heartbreaking agony that blossomed in her stomach was all conspiring against her to prevent true rest or even a small nap.

Just like the wind,

I've always been

Drifting high up in the sky that never ends…

Through thick and thin,

I always win,

'Cause I would fight both life and death to save a friend…

Was this massive, important part of her life, the part of the puzzle of her heart that had been missing for so long, gone for good?  Was Rick just a passing torment, there to just relieve her pain and make her whole, then tear her apart when he departed?

I face my destiny every day I live,

And the best in me is all I have to give.

She wished Claudia was there for her just then, or even Vanessa, Kim, or Sammie, but they all had to work extra shifts in hope of restoring some of the order in the chaos in Macross City's wretched and scarred streets.  Admiral Gloval had relieved her of duty because of her total loss of control after the explosion, knew how close she and Rick had become, and felt, akin to a father looking after his daughter, that she would be of more use after she had time to herself and some sleep under her belt. 

The last time she'd slept…

No, she couldn't remind herself of that now, not while the wound was fresh in her heart.  Even though she made it worse; she'd run back to Rick's house, making it almost a shrine to her, and she stayed there because it was comforting to her.  The best comparison she could make was that someone had suddenly dropped the Grand Canyon into the middle of Central Park; the hole was that big and noticeable.  And no surgeon, no craftsman, no artisan could make her whole again.  No, she would not be whole again until she was safe and securely in Rick's strong arms.

Just like the sun,

When my day's done,

Sometimes I don't like the person I've become…

Is the enemy within a thousand men?

Should I walk the path if my world's so dead ahead?

Is someone testing me every day I live?

Well the best in me is all I have to give.

I can pretend,

I am the wind,

And I don't know if I will pass this way again…

All things must end, goodbye my friend.

Think of me when you feel the sun or hear the wind.

(1)

At that point, Lisa burst into hysterical sobbing.  She hadn't felt this awful since she accidentally put a barrage of reflex warheads through Rick's VT in an attempt to destroy Khyron's errant scout ship.  At least then it was more possible that he could have survived like he did.  It wasn't a purely nuclear bomb this time; it was a radiological "dirty bomb" that had been detonated.  Those things were still nasty, though.  After all, a reflex weapon is not nuclear in nature, merely an abundance of thermal energy accelerated by gravitational exertion.  Nuclear was, well, like a microwave frying an egg.

Lisa cringed at the analogy she made for herself and kept crying and screaming, shuddering uncontrollably as she went along. It's a good thing these rooms are mostly soundproof. She dully thought that she had hit her forehead along the rail of the bed but she didn't care; physical pain was an outlet for emotional pain.  Her toes hurt from mashing and ramming them against the floor in her spasms, and her forearms hurt from bashing into the side of the bed, but she was too far gone to care.  After a long, long time of physically abusing herself in that fashion, she passed out from a lack of oxygen.

*******

She saw a maze in front of her, a long, bluish gray sequence of walls.  She ran forward and made a left turn when the wall came up in front of her.  She came upon a cloaked figure holding an ancient, weather-beaten staff.  It spoke: "Whoso dares to disturb my slumber?"

"Um, it is I, kind stranger," Lisa replied, surprised at her meekness.

"Ah, yes, we've been expecting you."

"We?"

"Come along, my dear, there is much to discuss.  Memories and the past are useful tools to analyze the present and salve the conscious mind."

Time and space distorted as the cloaked stranger spoke, and soon, she saw a familiar memory.  "That's Moscow, but not as I remembered it," she said.

"Indeed," said the wraith.  And time started in motion, with soldiers streaming past her in defeat, wearing the uniforms of League Militia members.  "This is the spring of 1996, my dear," the wraith said, "and now seems like as good a time as any to show to you how your future was almost altered."

Captain Donald Hayes ran alongside his men, screaming for them to reform their lines, to hold their ground.  His face was creased with mud and scratches, he had perpetual stubble that only war-hardened men wore, and he was fatigued beyond words at that point in time.  He was shouting in words and tones that she couldn't hear, for they were the voices and the sounds of the past, ones never meant to be heard by the living.  Her father had been photogenic and even alluring in his slightly younger years, she noted.  Then, she saw him with an anti-tank weapon in his right hand and an assault rifle in his left hand, standing defiantly on the edge of a bridge, with the rest of his company retreating blindly across it. 

Captain Hayes fired off the anti-tank missile and it struck a Russian T-47 tank just below it's main cannon, then he dropped the empty launcher and fired his rifle blindly, in a rage, peppering the advancing infantry like one would season a Christmas roast.  There were piles of enemy weaponry at the edge of the bridge he was standing on, and he knelt, still firing, to grab another tank rocket and to grab another fully loaded rifle.  With the AK-47 slung over his shoulder, he fired off an RPG launcher at another advancing armored vehicle, an Armored Personnel Vehicle, filled with more infantry.  The illuminated sky was red with the fiery light of demolished vehicles.  Suddenly, he jerked back involuntarily, then put a hand on the left part of his abdomen.  Lisa could see the pain he was in, could see the blood spilling out as he continued to fire his assault rifle against the incoming infantry, taking more wounds to his upper body.  Suddenly, some of his own men came forward to rescue him, and she saw her father being carried off to the hospital.

The scene shifted to the operating room.  Her father's life signs were failing rapidly, and she almost screamed, Not again!  I lost you already once, I don't want to lose you again!

Then, Captain Gloval came in, and murmured something to the head doctor.  The doctor nodded and they both exited the room.  "Captain Gloval and your father had the same blood and tissue types.  Gloval saw your father needed a kidney and some blood, so he volunteered himself to offer what was needed," the wraith said.

Lisa sat there, silently.  "Why have you shown me this, spirit?"

"Because you were abusing yourself for events outside your own control and became deluded into thinking that it was all hopeless."

"So, you mean…"

"Come along, my dear."

It was Alaska Base, again.  She was sitting at her console, ordering squadrons to form up on various flanks and in various formations when the main blast came in, frying the shields and annihilating the Grand Cannon.  The ground rocked with the impact, and she went flying across the room, banging into chairs and consoles and dead bodies along the way.  The bodies scared her the most; they were all her coworkers and she had just become friendly with them a few days before.  Wires covered her as the faces of the dead seared images in her soul.  Then, she talked to her father for the last time, and she felt her legs go out from under her.  Once she could reestablish visual contact with the space armada, she watched in horror as fighters were picked out of the sky like maggots off a rotten piece of fruit.  She saw friends and subordinates die in fiery hulks of tortured metal, or melted to death by superheated lasers, or smashed to bits in suicidal fury, as they'd attempt to ram the Zentraedi cruisers. 

Then Rick's VT came in and rescued her, like plucking the Phoenix out of the ashes.  On the way out, though, the walls started blowing up, one after another, and the fireballs were engulfing his VT from stem to stern.  Once the glass became superheated, it imploded in their faces, and for the first time in her life, she was afraid shrapnel would blind her.  Rick's heartbeat was raised and yet controlled and that comforted her as he piloted her out of harm's way.

"This is your most frequented memory, Lisa," the wraith spoke mellifluously.  "Why does your mind drift back to it?"

"I, I don't know," she said, afraid of herself for the first time.

"It could be that it represents the death of your old life and the beginning of a new one.  Or it could mean that you just like to revel in being saved like the princesses of old."

"I…."

"Lisa, your life is still being lived, even without Rick Hunter.  He, and everyone else, is beyond your control.  Live for yourself and not the world, and not for anyone else.  Above all, don't lose hope for the future."  Then he faded from sight.

Lisa awoke with a fit of pure panic.  Life without Rick was no life at all.  And she loved him with every ounce of passion and life energy she could produce from her battered, scarred body.  She resolved that she would not rest, in purpose, at least, until she found him again.

She heard a car pull in front of Rick's house, and heard the steady tromp of weary feet, like someone staggering towards her door.  Frightened, she grabbed at his pistol and brought it to bear at the door to his bedroom.  She heard the key jiggle in the lock, and felt with growing terror the presence of a lumbering being coming across the living room floor.  Then, she saw the door fly open and Rick stumble and stagger towards the bed, utterly spent, battered, smoke-covered, and mildly feverish.  She reached out to catch him and comfort him as he slept, and she smiled softly, knowing that her man had come home to her at last.

*********

AN: The song, I am the Wind, is from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and it's always been a favorite of mine.  The mnd-trip was always something I wanted to see her go through, like Rick did, and the backstory on Admiral Hayes, well, there had to be some reason they made him the planetary defense minister.