Surprisingly enough, Kyle backed off, and Rick offered silent thanks to the heavens, because if it had gone on another second, he would have been all over Kyle, promise or no promise, martial arts or no. The piano player had stopped his noodling, the restaurant patrons having found more accessible entertainment.
Kyle grinned knowingly and turned to Rick. “This is how a professional acts … Attractive, isn’t it?” He swung back to Minmei, raising his voice parentally. “That’s enough of your whining! Why don’t you try acting your age for once? People are waiting for you!”
Minmei was standing at her place, her fists clenched. She grabbed her cocktail and downed the thing defiantly, shivering and trying to brave it out. Rick looked out the window.
“I’m tipsy …” he heard her say. “I couldn’t possibly talk to any reporters now.”
Kyle issued a low guttural growl, a dangerous signal that Minmei might have overplayed her part. With lightning speed he scooped up the water glass and threw it in her face.
“That oughta sober you up.”
Rick was halfway out of his chair, his teeth bared, waiting for the next move. Minmei had begun to sob, and once again Kyle had her by the wrist.
“Now, stop acting foolish and let’s go.”
Kyle tugged, she followed; then she suddenly turned and shouted for Rick.
“Kyle!” he screamed, expecting him to let go of her and come after him. Kyle, however, chose a subtler way to disarm him.
“Don’t you understand, Hunter?” he said, reasonably and in full possession of himself. “She’s got too many things that have to be taken care of. It comes with the territory.” When he saw Rick relax, he added: “Oh, and don’t worry about lunch: We’ll cover it—that’s what expense accounts are for. Maybe you should just report back to your base, huh? Get back into your uniform or something.”
Rick saw Minmei nod to him, sobbing but gesturing that he should do as Kyle said. Kyle tugged at her again, lecturing her about how he had given up everything, how she didn’t care about her career anymore. Most of the patrons were bored by now; many had simply gotten up and left the restaurant.
Rick avoided their stares and reached for his drink, fingering the new scarf. Some swashbuckler, he said to himself.
It was almost noon, and the Seciele coffee shop was beginning to gear up for lunch, although the majority of its outdoor tables remained empty. The weather had taken a sudden turn, and most people were electing to take indoor seats. Lisa, however, was still at the table she had occupied since nine o’clock. She had already downed four cups of coffee and was sweating despite the sudden chill in the air. There had been no word from Rick, but she had decided to remain in case he tried to get a message through. Obviously he had been called in, but no one at the base knew anything about it or knew where he might be. If there had been an alert, she would also have been notified, but no such orders had been given. Still, Rick’s being called in was the only possible explanation.
The good mood she had enjoyed only hours before had long since abandoned her along with the morning’s unnatural warmth. Were these quick turnabouts a sign of the times? she questioned—the mood swings, the reversals, the confusion? Only moments ago she had witnessed a small misunderstanding between a pedestrian and a motorist escalate into a violent argument. It made her wonder if Rick had been involved in an accident, perhaps run over!
Anxiously, she checked the time and hurried to the vid-phone. There was no answer at Rick’s quarters, so she toned in the base again, contemplating a fall leaf that had blown her away—the closest she might come to nature all day.
“Communications. This is Lieutenant Mitchell.”
Lisa identified herself, but before she had an opportunity to inquire about a possible alert, Nikki Mitchell said: “Captain Hayes, I thought you were with Commander Hunter.”
Lisa instantly regretted phoning them. Her life had practically become an open book to the SDF-2 control room crew, Vanessa, Sammie, and the rest. It was one of those damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situations: When she was cool, calm, and collected, Lisa Hayes “the old sourpuss,” no one bothered to interfere with her private life; but now that she had taken some of Claudia’s advice and was speaking her mind, everyone was tracking her moves as if she was a regular entry in some sort of gossip column contest.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on a picnic?” Mitchell asked.
In the background, Lisa could hear Kim say: “I bet that creep stood her up.” Vanessa reinforced it: “See, I told you he wasn’t interested in her.”
“Shut up!” Nikki yelled, and Lisa held the phone away from her ear. “You two sound like a couple of old hens!”
“And what does that make you—the rooster?” Sammie countered.
Lisa was furious. Not only was her private life being discussed behind her back, but it was being wagered upon and argued about!
“Oh, never mind!” Lisa yelled, and hung up. “Busy bodies,” she muttered under her breath.
Cut off by the Chez Mann bartender after countless drinks, Rick had drifted back to the right-hand-drive rented vehicle and started out for the airport. The scene that had taken place between Minmei and Kyle now seemed just that: an orchestrated act put on for the public, with a cameo by Rick Hunter, occasional hero. In the end Minmei had chosen to run along with Kyle, and that was all that really mattered: She hadn’t changed, and Rick had been a fool to think she could. Presents, wistful walks down memory lane, postrescue embraces: it was all part of her repertoire. And now he had lost her for the umpteenth time and stood up Lisa to boot.
Up ahead of him on the two-lane airport highway was a roadblock manned by a CD corporal wearing a white beret. The road was closed, Rick was informed.
“Is there an alternate route to the airport?” he asked, leaning out the driver’s window.
“Airport’s closed,” said the corporal. “We’ve got Zentraedi trouble.”
“My plane’s out there!” Rick shouted, not clear-headed enough to show his ID.
The corporal’s hand edged toward his sidearm. “I told you, buddy, the road’s closed.”
Rick cursed him and stomped on the accelerator. The minivan shot forward, swerving around the barricade, while the sentry drew his weapon. In thinking about it later, Rick would ask himself why he had done this, wondering whether to blame Minmei or the alcohol. In the final analysis, however, he realized that he had done it for Lisa: He was going to have to tell her something!
“Damn fool!” the sentry yelled, thinking twice about firing a warning shot and hurrying to his radio phone.
A Battlepod ambled along the runway, destroying grounded Veritechs with blasts from its plastron cannon, while nearby a giant Zentraedi armed with an autocannon picked off fire and rescue vehicles that were tearing across the tarmac en route to crisis points.
“These Micronians are no challenge at all!” he yelled in his own tongue, the lust for battle erasing all memories of his two peaceful years on Earth.
A second giant in Botoru powered armor lifted a fighter from the field, pressed it over his head, and heaved it at a speeding transport truck several hundred feet away. The Veritech fell squarely on the vehicle and exploded, obliterating both.
Veritechs appeared in the skies now, just as Rick was arriving in the minivan. Dodging gatling slugs, he made his way to the CD hangar, showed his ID, suited up, and commandeered an Excalibur. He had counted five giants—all armed with autocannons—a sixth in powered armor, and at least two Battlepods. Whether these were malcontents or members of Khyron’s beaten band was immaterial: The CD unit was outpowered. And yet the base commander was giving him a lot of flack about clearance and warning him not to damage the mecha! Rick realized that Monument’s recently gained autonomy accounted for this, but without a little help, there wasn’t going to be much of a Monument left; so he humored the commander, shaking off the last of his alcoholic stupor.
Meanwhile, a Battlepod was holing the passenger terminal with v
olleys of fire. His ally with the cannon had tired of firing on the private craft and now turned his attention to the terminal. Peering through a horizontal row of permaglass windows, he spied several Micronians huddled together behind the desks of a spacious office—the most laughable sight he had seen all day. It was too easy to blow them away as a group, so he first drove the muzzle of the autocannon through the plate glass to scatter everyone. Only then did he train the weapon on them, bolts of white energy flinging bodies to gruesome deaths.
One of his less exacting comrades emptied his cannon against the building in an effort to collapse the entire wall.
Rick stepped his mecha from the hangar in time to see a pod with its left foot posed above his small fanjet, preparing to stomp it out of existence. He got off a shot without thinking and managed to take the pod’s leg off at the knee, sending the mecha backward and down on its back to the field. This captured the attention of the remaining Zentraedis, who swung around to find themselves face to face with two Excaliburs and a Battloid.
“Zentraedi rebels!” Rick yelled through the external net. “Throw down your weapons at once or we will be forced to take immediate action!” He repeated it even as the soldiers and mecha were leveling their weapons against him.
“Prove it!” said one of the giants, a purple faced, blue-haired clone with gorilla features. He gestured to his fellow warrior and opened fire, autocannon slugs raining ineffectively against the armored legs of Rick’s Excalibur.
“They’re bluffing!” he shouted when his weapon had expended its charge.
Rick smiled madly inside the cockpit. “Give them a demonstration,” he ordered.
Suddenly a drum-armed Spartan was looming into view on the other side of the airport terminal. Rick gave the word, and scores of missiles streaked heavenward from the mecha’s launch tubes. The three Zentraedi giants tracked their course with frightened eyes and screamed as the missiles plunged homeward, exploding like strings of fireworks at the giants’ feet. The three were blown from the strike zone, one flung to his death against a massive conduit, the others gasping for air as paralyzing nerve gas released from the missiles began to sweep over them.
“Move in!” Rick said over the tac net.
Reconfiguring to Guardian mode, the Battleloid went after the remaining Battlepod; but the Zentraedi mecha juked and sidestepped, facing off with Rick’s Excalibur instead. Rick dropped his mecha to a crouch and tackled the pod, shearing off one of its legs as it passed overhead. Out of commission, the mecha hit the field with a ground-shaking crash, its severed leg bouncing along with it.
The one giant who had survived the gas was easily dispatched by the second Excalibur, while the Veritech just as easily dropped the alien in powered armor.
Rick ordered the civil defense units to collect the bodies, separate the living from the dead, and lock the former away for interrogation.
“And radio the SDF-2 for me,” Rick added as an afterthought. “Make sure you mention that I was here.”
With a little luck, Lisa would receive word of the uprising even before he made it back to New Macross.
Lisa had switched over to cocktails, and by the time the robo-waiter cruised over to inform her that outdoor service was being discontinued, she had had so many Bloody Marys that she was seeing red. The waiting game had become some sort of crazed exercise in self-control. She had visions of Rick finding her skeletal remains here, her withered hand permanently affixed to the thermos or the picnic basket. The temperature had fallen a further fifteen degrees since noon, and the wind had picked up, gusting in autumn leaves that swirled around her feet. Once, a puppy had wandered by and she had fed him snacks from the wicker basket. She had been eyed by more than one Veritech jock and coffee shop poet. But now she was ready to throw in the towel. That Rick Hunter had died was the only excuse she was ready to accept.
But no sooner did she hear Rick’s voice than she went back on her word. He was running up the street toward her, dressed, oddly enough, in his one and only suit and wearing a long scarf around his neck. Hardly the picnic and hiking outfit she had expected, but she decided to at least give him a chance to explain.
“Let’s hear it, Rick,” she said coolly from her chair.
Rick was panting. “I didn’t think you’d still be here … I checked your quarters first … You see, there was a Zentraedi uprising in Monument and—”
“An uprising?!” Lisa said, surprised. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah, now it is. But there were a number of deaths and—”
“Wait a minute,” she interrupted him. “We have no jurisdiction in Monument. What were you doing there?”
“Well, I … had some official business—”
“Which is why you’re wearing your suit, of course.”
Rick looked himself over as if noticing the suit for the first time.
“This was for our date.”
Lisa laughed. “It was supposed to be a picnic, remember—not a cocktail party.”
“Look …”
She made a dismissive gesture and stood up, taking hold of the basket and thermos. “It’s too late for a picnic now. And it’s a shame, really, because I spent all morning cooking. It’s the first time I’ve had a chance to do that in years.”
Rick stammered an apology.
“You should have called me,” she told him. “I’ve been waiting here all day, worried that something had happened to you and figuring you would try to get a message to me somehow. Now you give me this story about an uprising and some mysterious business—”
“There was an uprising! Check with the base if you don’t believe me. Besides, I did try to call you …”
She threw him a suspicious look. “You’re here now. We can at least take a walk.”
Lisa didn’t hear Rick’s sigh of relief. She was too busy concentrating on the fact that he was cozying up to her, draping one end of that scarf around her shoulders. The temperature was continuing to plunge, and there was a winter dampness in the air. She reached up to feel the weave; it was so soft, she touched the cloth to her cheek. And suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.
She might have had a poor memory for faces and two left feet when it came to dancing and a habit of picking derelicts for boyfriends, but one thing she prided herself on was her talent for remembering aromas and tastes. And she sure as heck recognized the perfume on that scarf: Innocent—Lynn-Minmei’s favorite!
“Take that thing off me, Hunter!” she exclaimed. “You seem to have wrapped it around the wrong person!”
“Lisa, I can explain everything! It’s not what you think!” Rick said, as she threw one end of the scarf over his shoulder.
“I recognize the scent, you idiot! So that was your official business, huh?” she began to walk away. “And don’t bother calling me!”
She shouted it without turning around because she didn’t want him to see the tears in her eyes.
Snowflakes had begun to fall.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of Monument City,” Lynn-Kyle announced from that city’s bandshell by the lake. “Congratulations on your autonomy from the central government. Tonight, in celebration of that event, we have a special treat in store. Minmei has graciously agreed to come and sing for you. Let’s all hang our hopes for a bright future on her songs … And so, let’s have a warm welcome … for a great talent—Lynn-Minmei!”
The audience of mostly Zentraedi giants applauded and cheered as the orchestra commenced the opening bars of “Stagefright.” The bandshell blacked out, and Kyle moved off to the wings. On the stage’s upper tiers, a wide spot found Minmei; she stood unmoving, arms at her sides, the mike dangling from one hand.
Even after the song’s intro.
Kyle looked up, full of concern. The band had broken into a low-volume vamp, awaiting her entrance. “Minmei, that was your cue!” Kyle whispered. When she didn’t respond, he tried another tack. “Quit fooling around! Are you all right?!”
“Yes,” she said
with a sad smile. The band had broken off altogether now, and murmurs were running through the audience. Some thought it part of the act—a new form of dramatic effect or something—and a rhythmical clapping began, punctuated with shouts of “Minmei! Minmei! Minmei!”
“What’s the problem?!” hissed Kyle. “Sing!”
She had one arm across her chest self-protectively and her eyes averted from the audience. Kyle heard her sigh; then she suddenly turned to them. “I’m sorry—I can’t perform!”
The clapping died down.
“I won’t sing,” she continued, on the verge of tears. “I can’t perform when my heart is breaking!”
And with that she dropped the mike, turned, and fled. The audience surged forward, refusing to believe this, and Kyle was all at once stunned and worried about a riot. Quickly, he signaled the stage manager to lower the bandshell’s eyelidlike curtain.
The audience fell back to watch its descent. And the moment carried with it a discomforting note of finality; the Zentraedi ship in the lake loomed behind the closed bandshell like a spike driven into the all-seeing eye.
Kyle found her on the littered beach behind the bandshell. She was alone, hugging her knees, staring at the ruined Zentraedi ship. He wasn’t sure that anything he said would turn the trick. And for the first time he didn’t care. She had moved away from him, withdrawn from the high goals they had both set themselves. Unreachable, she had ceased to interest him any longer; she was beyond his control.
“This is all your fault,” Minmei said, sensing somehow that he was standing over her. “Since I’ve been with you, I’ve lost touch with the things that are really important to me.”
Kyle laughed shortly. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you? Still the selfish brat! You know, you only think about what you want, just like you’ve done since you were a kid. Well, it’s about time you grew up. Don’t you have any idea how those people felt when you refused to sing for them tonight? You should’ve seen their faces … They’re your fans, and they love you. And what do you do? You go and let them down. That’s just like you!”
Doomsday: The Macross Saga Page 51