Robotech 2018

Chapter 2: Rick

10:30 PM. Yup, that what is watch read all right. He ran his hand through is dark brown hair and sighed. He wished he and Lisa hadn't got into another tiff before she left to the Factory Satellite. It wasn't his fault, really. Okay, maybe it was. So he had lost the ring, it's not like he couldn't get another one. But he had to smile; the thought of marriage reminded him of Minmei. He hadn't seen her in a year, and he really missed her. All in all, she was one of his best friends when it came right down to it. She really changed over the years; she wasn't a self-centered brat anymore. Although he still missed the Minmei he first met on Macross Island. The Minmei he got to know so well those long twelve days. The Minmei that he got to know again around Christmas four years earlier.

"Don't do this to yourself, Rick. You made the right choice in Lisa, that's just how it turned out." He slammed his fist down on his desk, "But why did it have to hurt her? I never wanted to hurt her at all."

It wasn't the first time he had thought about this; in fact he and Lisa had several fights over the subject. Lisa didn't like Minmei, and she couldn't stand the fact that Rick spent any time with her.

"Don't be such an idiot Rick, it's over. We're just friends now. There is no such thing as what could be now, or might have been." He stood up and stretched his legs; he had been sitting at his desk for hours filling out papers and official documents.

Rick walked over to the closet and dug out an old album. When he opened it, a picture of Minmei was right there to welcome him. Well, not just one picture. The whole page was full of Minmei pictures. Even a cute picture of her getting ready to stick a bite of cake in her mouth. He flipped through the pages until he found the picture they had taken in Macross Park in front of the water fountain. He swallowed hard and thought back to those twelve day that seemed like forever. Thought back to what he enjoyed the most.

***********************

He had been looking at his Heiko aviator's-model watch, and as it switched modes Minmei came closer.

"What've you got there?"

"An internal tracker-a kind of a compass."

She looked at him with a puzzled expression. "But I though a compass had two arms that go back and forth?" she held her forefingers together to show what she meant.

"Huh? Oh!" He began to laugh.

Minmei looked a bit hurt, and miffed. "Well, the only compass I ever saw was for drawing circles."

They set out at once, Rick showing the way with a flashlight from his emergency equipment. "With this kind of compass we'll be able to find our way back to the Mockingbird if we get lost inside this big old tub and can't find a way out."

They quickly found out that they were in a maze, a limitless world of conduits, cables, hull, passageways, ducts, and bulkheads. Their footsteps echoed eerily.

"I wonder what all these pipes are for?" Minmei said, as he watched her reach out to touch one.

"Maybe to cool some kind of energy unit." He said, shrugging.

"Oh. Yow!" Minmei yelped, snatching her hand back, fingertips scalded.

"You okay?"

"Oh, I'm all right. It was just a little hot."

Rick's eyebrows went up. "Well, now, that was pretty dumb."

"Sorry." But as he started off again, Rick put his foot right in a puddle of oil and nearly landed flat on his face, flailing and slipping.

"Um, what was that again?" she asked him sweetly. He grunted and strode off again.

But they came at last to a big compartment filled with scrap, discarded machine parts. "I think it's a dead end." Rick judged.

"You mean," Minmei said with a tremor in her voice, "we can't get back?"

***********************

Rick shook his head and laughed. That was one of the highlights in his life, spending all that time with Minmei. There was the time he caught that giant tune fish too.

"Oh man! I haven't thought about that in years!" Rick laughed harder and harder, soon he forgot that he and Lisa had the fight and was enjoying his memories of Minmei.

"Maybe I should give her a call, I mean it's not that late. I'm sure she's still up." Rick walked to the phone, and began dialing Minmei's cell number.