fanfic_name = Skull Leader

chapter = 3

author = Dwparsnip

Rating = AP15

Type = Romance

fanfic =



The Zentraedi that vowed to follow the lead of Khyron had finished the plan for the destruction of their next target. Soon, they would avenge the death of their Lord Khyron by striking at the place that now housed those who survived his final glorious assault: Monument.

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Lisa and Rick spent the night together, quietly. She comforted him as she always did, as only she could, as he so desperately needed to be comforted. He didn't want her to leave in the morning to go to her office on the Monument Base, but he knew that she had to, and when Lieutenant Archer came to pick her up, he walked her along the frosty walkway to the car. Archer was out and waiting with the car door open. Rick kissed Lisa and helped her into the car and Archer closed the door. When he began to walk away Rick said to him quietly, "Take good care of her, Lieutenant."



Archer looked at him, nodded, smiled and said, "I won't let anything happen to her, sir."



Rick nodded back to him and he stepped back to see Lisa looking at him worriedly out the car window. He smiled broadly for her benefit, mouthed the words "I love you", and waved as the car pulled away from the curb. She returned the wave and mimicked his words as Archer drove the car down the street.



When they were out of sight, Rick went back inside and sat at the table. Lisa had taken the Skull off the active duty roster, and while a very small part of him was annoyed at that, the vast majority of him appreciated it immensely. He was getting too close to being burned out, and he knew it. Lisa knew it too, and he was in awe at how well she knew him. He decided to look over the personnel files of the possible replacements for the Skull. The ranks of the Skull had become pretty thin over the last little while.



Indeed, during the final battle with Khyron and the forces he had managed to gather, the ranks of the Skull was nearly halved. And the Skull got off the easiest. Many squadrons were totally wiped out in the surprise assault, and those squadrons that weren't were devastated. Rick was the senior pilot, and he had Max and Miriya in his unit, so he felt comfortable with granting the reassignment requests from beleaguered squadron commanders asking for temporary replacements from the Skull. The only problem was that by the time he filled the requests he could, it only left the three of them.



Now however, a new batch of recruits were coming out of the RDF academies, and because Rick had reassigned most of his squadron, he was getting the first shot at them.  He went through file after file, looking at personal information, simulator scores, psyche evaluations and flight test performances. He got halfway through the stack on the table when he decided he desperately needed a break.



He leaned back, stretched and looked around Lisa's home. It was more familiar to him now than his own house, and that suited him just fine. For the first few nights after their relocation from the destroyed New Macross, they had stayed in their respective homes. That, added to the tremendous amount of work that they both had to do, meant that they lost time from being with and seeing each other. He thought back to the fifth night:

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He had come in from a rough patrol and wanted.no.he needed to see Lisa. He walked home and thought about what to do when an idea came to him. He wasn't the brightest bulb in the room when it came to relationships, especially where Lisa was concerned, and he could admit that to himself easily, but he couldn't figure out exactly what to do about it. He decided to take it to the next level, at least partly. He went home, took out a duffle bag, and threw in enough clothes and personal items to last for three days. When Lisa saw that, she would either be happy, mad or God knows what, but at least he would have an idea as to what was going on with them.  He took his bag and walked the short distance to her place. He stood on her doorstep, thinking. He finally knocked on the door and when she answered and saw him standing there, the warmest smile came to her face as she jumped into his arms. He dropped the bag, caught her, and hugged her tightly. After several moments, he put her down and started inside.



She reached down and picked up the bag. "What's this, Rick?", she asked as she brought the bag into her living room.



He looked into her eyes as they sparkled at him. "It's ah.well it's some clothes and personal stuff, that I was ah. hoping to leave here, you know, in case I wanted, that is in case you.wow, I really am no good at this."



She put the bag down and walked over to him, placed her arms around his waist and looked deep into his eyes. "Of course you can leave some things here, and I would love it if you stayed anytime you wanted to. In fact, I was going to talk to you about that." She looked down at the bag and then back at him, and at his amazed expression she said, "I'm a little disappointed that that's all you brought."



He got lost in her eyes and realized that she was deadly serious. As he leaned in to kiss her he whispered, "That's just the type of thing I was hoping you were going to say."



The next day, he went back to his place and got the rest of his gear, and had stayed with Lisa every night since.

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He was extremely glad at her reaction, for her sake as much as his. More than once she had broken down at the memories of the friends she had lost, her family, and he was happy that he was there to help her. Thinking of Lisa made him want to talk to and see her, so he went to the communication console and dialed the number for her office. Two rings went through before Commander Cindy White answered.



He smiled at her image on the screen. Lisa genuinely liked her, and from his limited dealings with her, he liked her too. "Hi Cindy, is Captain Hayes busy?"



Her face was full of regret as she said, 'I'm sorry, sir, she's in a meeting with General Reinhardt and General Maistroff.' He watched as she leaned in closer to the console and whispered, 'Trust me sir, if there was any way I could get her out of there, I would.'



He laughed a short laugh and said, "I know, Cindy. Could you give her a message for me?" She replied with, 'Of course, sir. Shoot.'



"Tell her that I'll talk to her when she gets home. And could you tell her that." He hesitated, a little uncomfortable with what he was going to say, but he decided that it was indeed what he wanted her to tell Lisa, ".that I love her very much."



White smiled and said, 'I'll make sure she gets it ASAP, sir.'



He said, "Thank you, Commander." She smiled, said 'Aye, sir', and broke the connection.



Rick got up and walked to the window. It was still a little warm out for the time of year. He couldn't do what he really wanted to do, which was be with Lisa, so he decided to do the next best thing: go flying. He put on his coat and gloves, left the house and started walking to the base. Taking the shortcuts through the residential areas meant it would only take him fifteen to twenty minutes, and as he walked, he thought.



'When did flying become the next best thing to anyone or anything?' He smiled and answered himself, 'When you saw Khyron's missiles hit the part of the city where she had run to; when you saw the SDF-2 get hit; and when you realized she survived the destruction of the SDF-1. In other words Rick, when you realized you were in love with Lisa.' It was a conversation that he had had often in the days after admitting to Lisa, and to himself for that matter, that he loved her. She meant more to him than anything, even flying. He once thought that flying could ease any pain or help solve any trouble, but he had come to realize that being with Lisa was the only thing that could help him, especially when flying was what caused his pain and trouble.



Somehow, just being with her made it all bearable, and when she smiled, and when she held him, and when she kissed him, nothing else mattered.



He waved to the guard as he strolled through the gate to Fokker Base, and a couple of minutes later he walked into the hangar and opened up his senses to take in everything. He could see the flurry of activity involved in repairing and maintaining the veritechs. He could smell the scents of burned metal and wires, the various hydraulic fluids and so on. He could hear the machinery in use, such as welders and drills. He walked farther into the hangar and closed all his senses but one, his sight, and finally his eyes fell upon Skull One.



He looked at Skull One from the thrusters up to the tip of its nose. He had flown a number of veritechs in his years in the service, but this was the only one that he remembered. The Jolly Roger tail fins were the only ones in the fleet. The rest of the Skull squadron had the Jolly Roger on them of course, but Skull One was the only veritech to have it displayed so prominently. The paint scheme of Skull One was unique as well. It was Roy who had come up with it, as well as the Jolly Roger tail fins. 'He always wanted to be different', thought Rick.



He walked up to the veritech and placed his hand on the fuselage near the kite symbol of the Robotech Defense Force. Skull One had never been shot out of the sky. It had been through countless fights, battles, scrapes and skirmishes, but she always came back under her own power and more or less in one piece. She had been damaged of course, on occasion damaged badly, but she always brought her pilot home.



The flight crews of the Prometheus had been wizards and miracle workers when it came to repairing and maintaining the veritech squadrons of the SDF-1, and especially Skull One. They didn't have much of a choice. Thanks to Roy and then Rick, they had gotten lots and lots of practice at it. For whatever reason, Rick and his Big Brother were always in the thick of it.



He thought of the final battle with Dolza's fleet of five million ships, and what he had put Skull One through on that terrible day. The battle proper against the Battlepods, power armored soldiers and ships of the fleet had been bad enough, but then he let himself get hit. Those missiles into the bread basket of the Battloid Skull One should have been it for him, but Skull One brought him through it. He rubbed the insignia appreciatively and thought, 'I should have let you rest, but I couldn't.' He couldn't. He took Skull One into the atmosphere of the devastated Earth and then into the energy drained mouth of Earth's most powerful weapon to save the woman who had come to mean so much to him. Skull One brought him home that day, but more importantly, it had brought home the woman he would come to love more than anything. He owed the aircraft more than his life. He owed it his very soul.



His eyes easily found the blemish that he always saw whenever he climbed into his aircraft. Not that Rick really considered Skull One to be his aircraft. He patted the fuselage and thought, 'You belong to Roy.' It was a thought he had often, and he often suspected that that was why he hadn't been shot down, or even seriously injured since he took over Skull One. Before that, he had several incidents where his veritech had been destroyed or damaged enough to be scrapped. It was almost as if Skull One hadn't been shot down with Roy in the cockpit, so it wouldn't let itself be shot down with Rick in the cockpit either.



Rick studied the blemish closely. It was on the port side of the plane, just above the RDF insignia, and in his mind, it was the most glaring reminder that this was Roy Fokker's plane, even though he was almost the only one that could see it. The crew chief of the Prometheus could see it, and he had tried on numerous occasions to get rid of it. He had grinded it, sanded it and painted it dozens of times, but it stubbornly remained. None of the flight crew on Fokker base could see it, and the first time he had mentioned it to them they looked at him like he had crashed too many times without a helmet on. Not even Max or Miriya could see it. There was a short time when he thought that maybe he was a little crazy, but then someone else saw it. He smiled warmly as he thought of the only other person alive that saw it. 'Lisa.' She could see it, in fact she noticed it on her own one day as she watched Rick climb into the cockpit. It meant so much to him that she could see it, and it meant even more that she found it without him even mentioning it to her. For him, it was just one more piece of evidence that proved they were soul mates in the nth degree. When he told her what he thought of the blemish, she understood totally. He feared she would be like the Fokker Base flight crew and think he was crazy, but she didn't of course, and he knew he should have known better.



He thought about that day and their conversation. It was a couple of days after he started staying at her place, and he was heading out on another patrol. She had accompanied him to the hangar to see him off, and she saw the spot and asked him what it was. "I can't prove it Lisa, but I know in my heart that the shot that killed Roy went through that spot." He climbed back down the ladder and stood there by her looking at it. He felt her left arm go around his waist and her head rest on his shoulder. "No matter what, it stays there, like a wound that won't heal." He looked at her and said, "Maybe I have had too many crashes." She looked at him and smiled. "I don't think that at all, Rick." She looked at the spot on the plane and said quietly, "It makes perfect sense to me."



He came back to the present, turned to Skull One and said quietly, "Well old friend, how about a nice leisurely joyride around the skies?"



As if in answer, light glistened off the edge of the tail fins. Rick smiled and boarded the plane, pausing just a second in respect at the blemish, started up the veritech's systems and taxied out to the takeoff position. He received clearance to go and seconds later was screaming through the blue-gray skies over Monument.

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Lisa Hayes walked out of the conference room and headed for her office, ready to scream at the very next person she saw. The meeting was going very well until General Maistroff started on his high horse about the need for more resources for terrestrial defense instead of the expeditionary mission. Reinhardt, bless him, remained steadfast in his support for Gloval's mission, but the bitter taste was still in her mouth from dealing with Maistroff.



Luckily for her, and for everyone else, she didn't see anyone along the corridors to scream at, and by the time she reached her office she had calmed down significantly. Besides, the only person in her office to scream at was holding a steaming cup of coffee for her and had the most sympathetic look on her face.



As Lisa took the offered cup from White, she said, "Thank you, Cindy." She went into her office and White followed her in. She placed Lisa's messages on her desk and said, "I tried to think of something to get you out of there, Captain, and when Captain Hunter called I was tempted to spring you."



Lisa looked up at her aide quickly, and White never bothered to suppress her smile. She nodded to the messages and said quietly, "The first one."



She turned and headed out of Lisa's office, pausing only long enough to close the door.



She looked at the first message and read it aloud. "Captain Hunter called at 1015. He said that he will talk to you at home. Oh.and he said something about loving you very much. Cmdr. C. White."



She smiled at the message, moved to the communications panel and dialed up her house. She let it ring, but no one answered. She broke the connection, waited a minute and tried again. Same thing. She opened the intercom and said, "Cindy, could you get the Fokker Base control tower on the line for me please."



White's voice filtered through the line. 'Just a minute, Captain.' Lisa waited. 'He's in Skull One over the foothills south of the city. The tower is on the line ready to patch you through to him.'



Again, she wondered how Cindy White managed to read her mind so exactly. She smiled and said, "Thank you, Commander. Please tell the tower to put him on."



'Yes, ma'am', came the happy reply, and a moment later Rick appeared on her screen.



She put aside the speech she had prepared about not being on duty when she saw that he wasn't in a flight suit, just his regular clothes. Instead she opened with, "Hey there flyboy, what do a girl have to do to get a word with you?"



He replied, 'Hi baby. Listen, you're the one that was in a meeting when I called.' She noticed him look out the starboard side for a second, and when he faced the communications panel again he said, 'How was the meeting?'



She took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes. Before she could answer his question, he laughed and said, 'That bad, eh?' She laughed too, amazed at how well he could read her. 'Why does it surprise you, Lisa?', she thought.



She nodded and answered, "That bad." She studied him for signs of fatigue and depression. He noticed and said, 'I'm fine, Lisa. I got through some of the personnel files and needed a break. I couldn't talk to you, so I had to settle for flying.'



The significance of what he said wasn't lost on her. There was a time, she knew, when flying meant the world to him, even when he was with Minmei. There was even a time that flying was the only thing that made him happy. But now, she realized that something meant more to him, or more importantly, someone. "I'm sorry, Rick. I don't mean to."



'Don't apologize, Lisa.' A serious look came upon his face. 'Don't apologize for caring and worrying about me.'



"Okay flyboy." She smiled and continued, "I'm getting out of here early today, when will you be home?"



Rick looked thoughtful and said, 'I was just heading back when I got your call.' He looked at her and the need in his eyes reached through the screen to touch her. 'Will you be much longer?'



She thought, 'He sounds so sad.'  To him she said, "I'm almost done. I should be home in about half an hour."



He nodded and said, 'I'll see you soon.' She was reaching to terminate the connection when he said softly, 'Lisa?' She looked at his image and he said, 'I love you', and he was gone.



She was worried about him now, he sounded so melancholy. She headed to the door and opened it. As she started putting on her overcoat she said to White, "Commander, I'm leaving now. The work on my desk can wait. Can you get Lt. Archer or someone to give me a lift home, please?"



"Yes, ma'am." White got on the phone and a few moments later she hung up and reported, "Lieutenant Archer will be outside in a couple of minutes, ma'am." She saw the concern on Lisa's face and said, "Is everything all right, Captain."



Lisa was ready and she looked at her aide. "I think so, Cindy. I just need to go home." As she left she said, "I'll see you in the morning."



When she got outside, she was surprised and relieved to see Archer waiting for her. He held the door open, closed it when she got in and got behind the wheel. He looked at Lisa in the mirror and asked, "Home, Captain?"



When she answered, she tried very hard to keep her voice steady. "Yes, Lieutenant."



Minutes later, she was waiting on the couch for Rick to come home, wondering if he was all right. She had been thinking about how he had acted, and the more she thought about it the more worried she got. She heard the door open and she stood up quickly to look towards him. Rick closed the door, and when he turned around his eyes found hers immediately.



To her relief he smiled and walked towards her. "I didn't think you'd beat me home."



She hugged him and said softly, "I was worried about you."



He wrapped his arms around her. "Worried? Why?"



She looked up into his blue eyes. "You sounded so sad when I called. I .I was just worried." She hugged her head into his shoulder and he held her tightly.



"I'm sorry, Lisa, I didn't mean to worry you." He leaned back to look into her eyes and said, "I'm fine. A little tired, but fine." He smiled and brought his right hand up to brush her long locks away from her eyes. He leaned in and kissed her lips with a tenderness that he had mastered in the last two weeks, and when he broke their kiss he repeated, "I'm fine. Believe me?" Lisa nodded and he said cheerfully, "Good.because I don't see anything cooking on the stove, so I'm taking you out for dinner."



Rick kissed Lisa again and released her, and as he headed to the bedroom he said, "So get in here and pick out something to wear while I grab a quick shower." He poked his head out through the door, winked at her and said, "And no peeking either." She licked her tongue out at him, and he laughed at her reaction and went into the bathroom. When she heard the shower running, she headed to the table where the personnel reports were. She leafed through the ones he had gone through, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary, until she got to the last one. In the folder of an Ensign Goodwin, she found a piece of paper with the names of all the prospective replacements for the Skull on it. Half of them were crossed off, and beside every one of those he had written 'Too young to die.'



She replaced the paper, closed the folder, and arranged the stacks of folders as they had appeared when she arrived. She looked at the folders and realized what was wrong with Rick. He was struggling very hard with the responsibility of assigning people, very young people, to his squadron for duties that could get them killed. 'Yet another perk of being Skull leader', she thought sarcastically. She needed to talk to him, to help him through it.



She heard Rick yell from the bathroom, "I don't hear you in here getting ready!" She smiled, and as she walked into the bedroom and started looking through her closet, she decided that tonight she would help him to have a normal night, free of responsibility and full of happiness.



In other words, she would do what came naturally for her.



She would love him.







State = Continuará/To Be Continue

feedback = Sí/Yes

email = dparsnipAThotmail.com