"Hey, Boss"

Author: Haruo Chikamori

E-mail: n/a

Rating: M

Classification:

Spoilers: N/A

Summary: What if Ben didn't die? Another 'let's get rid of Minmei' fic.

Author's Note: As you can tell, I really, really, really HATE Minmei.

DISCLAIMER: Robotech is the sole creation of Harmony Gold Productions in conjunction with Tatsunoko Production Company Ltd. All characters are the property of Robotech and its creators.

New Macross

After Kyhron the Destroyer's Attack

Smoke; acrid, bitter and choking drifted across the ruins of the SDF-1 - A smoking funeral bier for the dead. Rick couldn't contain the choking feeling in his throat – tears in his eyes as he gazed up at the structure in which Lisa had died; where only hours before they had worked…where she had lived. When she had appeared at Rick's house where she had burst out her love for him, he realized just how much it was that Lisa had agonized over his trysts with Minmei. He also realized just how much he had hurt Lisa in the process. And it seemed the smoke mocked him with the fact that the odor of death hurt his throat just as much as the realization that the love of his life had been taken away from him.

"Rick". Could it be that Death itself was taunting him with the familiar voice of Lisa echoing out of the smoke. He looked up through the fog of tears in his eyes and he saw a shape through the smoke. "Rick." What he thought was an apparition spoke again. He looked up to see it walk towards him. As the smoke swirled away from the figure, he realized that it was Lisa Hayes in the flesh as she walked towards him.

Shaking, his hands reached out cautiously for her, still thinking in his mind that it was an apparition. "h-h-h-how?" he stuttered as Lisa reached out to him with an all-too real flesh hand to cup his cheek as if to reassure her own self that he was still alive, her own shoulders shaking with grief and unshed tears.

"At the last moment. Admiral Gloval…and Claudia…" she coughed harshly trying to dislodge the lump in her throat. "forced me into the ejection module." Overcome with emotion, she turned to gaze upon the SDF-1, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Rick…they wanted me to live." She turned back to him, her red-rimmed eyes locking with his, her gaze intense. "They said that I was the only one who still had anything to live for!" At this last statement her carefully barricaded emotional façade crumbled as she turned to him crushing her face into his chest and sobbed. Rick just held her as the cascade of emotion ran its course.

"I thought I'd lost you." Rick said, his own voice a whisper as his throat was just as tight as Lisa's, as Lisa nestled in his arms, gaining consolation from his nearness. "Just when I realized just how much you mean to me." He tightened his embrace as Lisa looked up at him. "You do have something to live for – we both do now."

"Hi, Rick." Minmei's voice caused them to start and reflexively, Lisa and Rick pulled away from each other.

"Minmei." Rick's voice was civil.

Their conversation was short but to the point. Minmei realized all of a sudden that her life was singing, which Lisa doubted – Minmei was probably just trying to cover the fact that she lost Rick.

The conversation was so intense that they didn't notice the creaking of a Battle-Pod stepping up to the conversationalists. It just happened to impact Minmei right in the small of the back as both Lisa and Rick gasped. The light brush of the massive foot launched Minmei, screaming, in a parabolic arc into the now radioactive lake.

Lisa and Rick had their lives pass by in a flash before their eyes as the Battle-Pod came to a stop beside them. Was there a rogue Zentraedi in the pod? And Rick wasn't in his Veritech. No weapons within easy reach. The hatch came open.

"HEY BOSS!" Ben and a few of his squad members shouted from the hatch. "We found a BattlePod that works!"

*****THE END*****