fanfic_name = Shooting Stars

chapter = Chapter III

author = Cicero_Phelps and KnightsTemplar

Rating = AP15

Type = Adventure

fanfic = Chapter III

Claudia sighed as she watched Lisa and Sammie went back and forth arguing about the game Saturday, or more to the point, the cheerleading on Saturday. She gave a slight bemused smile and watched as she sipped her tea.

“Damn it, Lisa, it wasn’t that big a deal anyway. You’ve been to the games, you knew what we wear!” Sammie said, her voice getting louder with each retort.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think that you would talk me into looking like a fool in front of everyone, not to mention the fact that the person I was replacing wasn’t there because she broke her leg.” Lisa said equally as loud and slightly angrier.

Lisa was seething, not so much because of the clothes she had to wear, but the fact that she was almost crushed by someone named Hunter and had to look like one of those preppy girls that she saw all over the school, and even in the ROTC.

This train of thought took her mind elsewhere as she decided that arguing with Sammie over such trivial things was pointless. She began to think about Hunter, whoever he was. Well, that wasn’t exactly true; she knew who he was, courtesy of the Trio.

They had seen the moment between them and the anger that it stoked in Karl and decided that they wanted to play with that fire. Lisa was beyond trying to get them to stop because they were insufferable when it came to Karl. They flat didn’t like him.

That very night, as a matter of fact, the Trio had gone around the campus asking about a man named Hunter who was in the Air Force ROTC. It didn’t take long for them to find out what they needed from someone named Rodney who knew Rick. Apparently he was a fixture for the Air Force ROTC, and there seemed to be no end of ladies that seemed to also fixate onto Rick.

She smiled at the name, Rick Hunter. It had a nice ring to it and it made her smile as she pictured herself with him, if only for a brief second. It was too late by then, she was attracted.

‘Damn it Lisa Hayes, you have a boyfriend, sort of anyway,’ she thought to herself. She looked down at her tea and decided that she was going to need something stronger now, this was going to be an interesting night as she heard Vanessa start cooking in the kitchen.

-----------------------------

“Oh man Rick, you’re a popular man with the Lady Squids,” Rodney said flopping down onto the couch next to Rick, handing him a beer.

Rick, for his part, rolled his eyes and gave him his “Rick Hunter Smile” that seemed to work on all ladies.

Rodney laughed; he wished it was as easy for him as it was for Rick. He opened his beer and took a sip, ‘Well, not everyone can be Rick Hunter,’ Rodney told himself as he tapped the mouth of Rick’s beer and made it overflow and jumped away as Rick took a swing at him, laughing the whole time.

Max perked up and looked over from the phone, he had been on the phone trying to order a pizza, but had been unsuccessful to this point.

“What do you mean Rodney?” Max asked as he sat on hold still, waiting for that minimum wage jockey to get back to him so they could get a damn pizza.

Rick sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. Deciding he’d rather tell the story than have Rodney spin it into a tale of epic, and false, proportions.

“Apparently,” Rick started, throwing a pillow at Rodney’s back and hitting him in the head mid-sip, “there was a trio of girls going around asking about me. Well they found stupid here,” Rick gestured to Rodney who made an innocent “Me?” face and let Rick finish, “and he told them all about me, and I mean all about me.”

This prompted another pillow attack from the couch, but Rodney had been hit once and was ready for this one. It missed and hit the wall.

“Come on Rick,” Ben said with a mocking tone, “how many other guys get to have the best looking Air Force Cadet, and still have other women pine after you like love struck puppies?”

Rick shrugged and looked at all of them. All eyes where on him.

“Well, if any of you pricks had anywhere near what I was packing, you’d be the toast of the town too, but all of you just suck at life.” Rick said as he took a hasty sip of beer.

Everyone groaned and pelted Rick with whatever was handy. Rick even thought he saw a phone fly for his head.

‘Oh well,’ Rick said, ‘this is the price of being amazing.’

-----------------------------

Sharply contrasting the guy’s room across the way, the ladies of the Navy ROTC were sitting down to dinner and talking about everything and anything.

“Well of course he wanted you Kim, you’re the easiest one here,” Sammie said jokingly trying to prod Kim into divulging what she had been doing last night after the game with one of the Navy football players.

Kim’s face went ten shades of red and she seriously thought about the penalties of stabbing someone with a fork. She decided it wasn’t worth being someone bitch in prison and let the jibe go.

Sammie, realizing that she wasn’t going to get anything out of Kim turned her eye to Claudia. She smiled.

“So….Claudia,” she began, but that was far as she got before Claudia gave her a look that told her one thing. Go there, and die. Sammie let it go.

“Oh come on Sammie, let it go. Don’t you have your own life or something like it?” Lisa said with a slight smirk. Lisa wasn’t much one for trying to be funny, but she had her moments as a round of slight giggles rose from everyone except Sammie.

Sammie gave her a look, she hated to be the butt of a joke, and she knew she was nosy as hell, but that was her way. But Lisa had just opened Pandora’s Box, and she was going to get messy in Lisa’s personal life.

“Oh really, Lisa?” Sammie said with a confident look on her face.

Lisa didn’t like the look, and knew that she was in for it now. Suddenly she was happy that she had started drinking wine earlier, it would make this interesting.

“At least I am not the one giving away the better part of myself to a prick that doesn’t appreciate her and fools around with other women.” Sammie said in a nasty tone. This was the same song and dance that they always had, and had been having for several weeks, but they could never make Lisa see it.

Lisa didn’t say anything, just set her fork down and stared at her plate. She knew that Karl wasn’t the boyfriend he had been. He wasn’t there for her like he had been, and he had started to give her excuses for not hanging out with her, if he even gave any anymore.

It made her sad and she could see it and feel that Karl was beginning to pull away from her more and more, but she absolutely terrified of letting go of something that she had been attached to for so long.

The idea that he wasn’t as genuine as she was, that he was selfish and took and took and never seemed to care any about how anything he did made her feel broke her heart a million times again and again. She could feel the sadness well up inside of her and fought back the tears she knew were quickly rising up.

Part of her wanted so desperately for him to change, to wake up and see that she was what he needed, that all they needed was one another and they would make each other happy forever. But the harder she tried to make him see that, the more he seemed to rebuff her and pull away more. She had given him chances to change for her, but he didn’t seem to care about changing for her, all he seemed to care about was he. All he cared about was himself and he was nothing more than a selfish, self centered prick that did everything for himself and nothing for her.

A part of her wanted to tell him to “Fuck off,” but another part of her wanted to hold him and love him and tell him that she would love him forever. But lately, she had been seeing more of her future without him, and that disturbed her.

But Lisa knew she was at a critical junction. Her friends where her friends and she knew they had no ulterior motive in telling her these things. They only wanted what was best for her. But she also was blinded by her feelings and didn’t see or, or didn’t want to see, what everyone else could see as plain as day.

The Trio had been talking about drinking tonight, and Lisa, never one for drinking a lot, resisted the idea initially. She didn’t anymore.

Lisa got up, walked to the pantry and grabbed a bottle vodka, slammed it down in the table, “Let’s do this,” she said with a note of sadness and finality. The Trio let out a small cheer and Claudia shook her head with a small smile on her face.

‘Lisa dear,’ she thought, ‘you’re going to be unhappy tomorrow.’

-----------------------------

Max had finally gotten the pizzas after he had hit Rick in the head with the phone. The guys sat around, talking and eating, doing guy things. That meant that they sat around, talked about sex, women, sports, and naked women.

Rick laughed at Rodney after Alan made some snide remark having to do with his sexuality. Rodney just rolled his eyes knowing that there was not defense against that wit, except for not talking.

“So, what are you going to about that trio of girls chasing after you Rick?” asked Alan as he ate some pizza.

Rick looked up at him and thought for a moment. He was in a relationship, but something inside of him told him that he was losing it, and fast. She always seemed to be out, or with the “Girls” doing something absolutely useless and ridiculous, as women are prone to do.

As much as Rick liked to act like a chauvinist and flirt with other girls, he was really not a promiscuous person and was very loyal to those he was in a relationship with. He cared for his girlfriend, Anna, and he was confident that she cared about him. But lately he had never doubted her more, because she had been disappearing lately.

“Rick!” Someone said, that brought Rick back to reality.

He looked over to the group and smiled, “What damn it?” He said with feigned anger.

“I’ve heard some rumors that Russia is getting close to it’s breaking point, and that there may be some sort of serious change going down soon.”

“Where’d you hear that rumor?” Rick asked incredulously.

Alan gave a shrug of his shoulders, “Doc Roman.”

Rick shook his head vigorously. Doc Roman was a pretty reliable source of information on theories of intelligence operations and the like, but he’d been wrong before, and Lord knew the man was only human. Maybe it was only wishful thinking on the professor’s part.

“Come on, we’ve all heard that Russian emphatically declare they are going it alone,” Rick said between bites.

“Yeah, we all have, but have you seen what they’ve been dealing with lately?” Max asked with a look that said something was going on somewhere somehow.

Rick didn’t argue, he knew the Russians were getting hammered. The Chinese in the East and the Central Empire in the West and they were clawing at Russia with all they had. Rick knew that Russia couldn’t hold forever and that something was going to have to give. He shuttered at the thought.

Roy…

-----------------------------

Lisa looked at Sammie with a disbelieving look. She tried to push through the cloud in her head, but try as she might; the buzz was prohibiting her from forming a good thought.

“Wh-what did you say?” Lisa asked Sammie trying hard to remember the words she had just heard.

“I said that Hannah saw Karl with another girl going into a hotel in the city. And that if you ever wanted to see what Karl was all about, now is the time to see it.”

Lisa looked at her and thought hard for a second. The buzz that she had been working on for the last hour was now gone, and her brain was working in overdrive to try and overcome the alcoholic obstacle that was now firmly lodged in her head.

Lisa gathered all her gumption and decided that now was the time, it was now or never and she would see if Karl was the man she wanted him to be, that he had been, or the piece of shit he had become and the one that everyone warned her about.

“Ok, she say where it was?” Lisa asked her.

Sammie nodded.

“Let’s go.”

-----------------------------

Rodney got off his cell phone and looked at Rick with a worried look on his face.

“Hey Rick, umm, wow, how to say this…umm, man I just got off the phone with Hector, and he told me that he saw Anna in town.” Rodney said.

Rick looked at him and shrugged his shoulders, “So?” He asked not seeming to get the drift that everyone else had.

In mid-sip Rick choked on his beer. His mind had finally gotten to the next level and was processing the looks he was getting the digesting the things that he had heard.

“Wait, did he say with whom?” Rick asked, now understanding what Rodney had told him.

Rodney’s lips where a thin line now and Rick could tell that Rodney was struggling with how to say what he knew he must.

“Yeah, that safety from the oth-,” Rodney hadn’t even finished his sentence and Rick was up on his feet making for he door. He stopped and looked at his four friends, “Well, get the lead out fuckers, Alan you drive. Rodney I assume he told you where.”

Rodney nodded his head.

“Let’s go,” was all Rick said as they all ran out the door, Max slamming it on his way out.

-----------------------------

Karl looked at Anna and smiled. They had just finished for the first time tonight and he lay on the bed feeling very good about himself. He was getting to be with two women at once, one more beautiful, the other more promising in the long run.

What he couldn’t figure out was how Lisa hadn’t seemed to figure out what was going on so far. He didn’t care, if she was too dumb, or too blind to see it, why ruin a good thing. He rolled over and began to fondle Anna.

“That was nice,” was all he said and Anna gave him an exasperated look. She never really showed how she felt and she was all about the game. Karl smiled and thought to himself, ‘Game over, whore, I win because here you are,’ he smiled again.

His smiled disappeared when he heard a car screech to a halt outside and heard several male voices. This was also followed by another car coming to a quick halt in front of the motel and now he heard several female voices. He immediately recognized one of them. Lisa.

“Shit!” Karl said. He began to frantically grab for all his clothes and move as quickly as he could. He managed to gather all his clothes and made for the window and looked out ahead of him. ‘A fire escape.Maybe I can get out of this,’ Karl thought.

He heard Anna’s protests about “letting them find us.” Karl turned to her and looked at her with an incredulous look.

“No way in hell, you’re a nothing compared to what Lisa can be when she gets out of here. I plan on hitching my wagon to that ride for as long as I can.” Karl said as he got onto the fire escape and started to climb down it.

Anna sat there with a shattered look and began to cry.

Just then the door opened and in strode Rick, Max, Ben, and Alan. She saw them all and began to cry. She didn’t even bother trying to cover herself as she sat there crying. She looked up again and saw several other people she didn’t know there now.

The men all turned away, and Rick walked over and covered her up.

Anna looked at the other ladies and knew why they were here. She pointed to the open window and the ladies made for the exit.

“Rick…I’m sorry,” Anna said, between tears. Max, Ben, and Alan all took that as a cue to leave and left the room.

Rick looked at her, his face calm, but his insides torn apart and writhing in agony. But he didn’t show it.

“Eh, it happens, but we are over you know,” was all Rick said as he looked at her one more time and shut the door on her as he erupted into a full fledged sobbing fit.

Rick closed the door and stood against it for a second and felt a single tear slide down his face.

“Fuck,” he screamed and punched the wall, leaving a hole in the sheet rock and walked away, nursing his anger and hurt.

“If I find that son of a bitch, I swear to god…” Rick muttered and went down the stairs.

-----------------------------

Karl jumped down from the fire escape and finished putting his pants back on. He smiled at his luck and started to move away when he bumped into something. He looked up and saw the face of the man he had laid a cheap hit on in the football game yesterday.

“Shit…” Karl trailed off as the man hauled back and punched Karl so hard to it sent him flying back toward the entrance. Karl hit the ground with a body shaking thud. He groaned and looked up and wished immediately that the man had punched his lights out so he wouldn’t have to face this.

As suddenly as he was on his back, he was on his feet again. Hauled up by the man who had hit him.

He was before Lisa, arms held behind his body by Rodney. He knew it was coming, the wrath of Lisa was not one that you incurred with little thought given to your well-being afterwards.

“Let go of him,” Lisa told Rodney.

“Huh?” Rodney said, not paying much attention to her as he saw that Ben, Max, and Alan were now on the scene.

“I said let go of him god damn it!” Lisa said with an icy tone in her voice.

Rodney was taken aback, “Who the hell do you think you are, lady? I don’t listen to you.”

Lisa could feel herself getting more and more angry as this man holding Karl, but she knew he was not the one to be mad at.

“Let go of him Rodney,” Rick said coming out of the motel.

“But…I thought you wanted a piece of this guy.” Rodney said confused.

Rick snorted, “By the looks of things, you got him well enough for the both of us.”

Rodney looked at Rick now for the first time since all this had gone down. It was nighttime and this was playing out on a lonely street on Oahu Island. Even in the darkness with only the dim lighting from the streetlights playing off their faces, Rodney could see the anguish and hurt that was ever present on Rick and Lisa’s faces.

Rodney let Karl go and looked to Lisa, “I’m sorry,” was all he said and Lisa gave him a soft smile and a nod.

“It’s ok,” Lisa said.

Karl looked from Rodney, who had just let him go, to Rick to Lisa. All the while contemplating whether or not he should make a run for it before someone else decided to get a punch in.

It was too late as Lisa had swung her right fist toward his face and made contact with the other side of his face, sending him backwards into the street and into a puddle.

Lisa stood up and corrected herself, and flattened out her clothes. She gave a look to Rick and smiled, “Thank you,” she said to him.

Rick looked at her, puzzled, “For what?”

“I’m not sure, but thank you anyway.” Lisa said as she looked at her friends and they all got back into the car and drove away.

Rick watched as they drove away and he heard a sudden movement to his left. He looked up to Karl making a run for it. He saw Ben make a move to get him, but Rick told them not to bother with him.

They all exchanged glances and Rick knew they had to leave. He smiled, despite his heart and gut wrenching pain, and told them it was time to go home and forget today and to hell with tomorrow.

-----------------------------

Inside the motel room, Anna stared at the phone for what seemed like ages as she pondered her next move, wondering what to do.

“I will have you back Rick Hunter, so help me god, I will have you back.” She said to herself, and, as an afterthought, “And you Karl Riber, you will regret the day you made me the fool, you will pay in spades.”

Anna smiled again and began to cry. ‘Yes,’ she thought, ‘things are going off perfectly.’

Then, she made up her mind, picked up the phone, and dialed the number she had in mind…

State = Continuará/To Be Continue

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email = Lightsaber01ATHotmail.com