Faster than the Speed of Love

Chapter 7 - Private Cassie and Lieutenant Luke Cameron

Chapter 7

3rd Person (No POV)

Three weeks later

Kyna walked into her lab, well ‘her lab’ being the lab she shared with Dr Yamamoto. However, for the next 2 weeks, he would be back in Japan, getting a few things ready for the Ceenox Expedition, seeing as Dr Yamamoto had, only yesterday been recommended (by Kyna) to be her second in command, and she requested him joining her, seeing as a) she’d miss him and b) he really wanted to go, and he was devastated when he wasn’t selected for the mission. Of course, with Kyna’s high rank, it was as good as done as soon as she asked for him to accompany her, but with the last minute nature of the situation. Dr Yamamoto had to return home to tell his family he’d be on assignment for 2 years (obviously not saying any details, due to the classified nature of the SOIE and this mission) and getting all his affairs at the Japanese SOIE branch sorted.

While she knew he had to go home during this time, it didn’t stop the fact that she missed her quirky Japanese co-worker. The lab felt empty without him there, so she decided that she’d work in the docking station on some physical work, rather than the usual theoretical stuff she had to do in her lab. Kyna loved being able to actually work on something, a computer, any alien tech, spacecrafts, she loved working on anything and everything, since she was able to pick up new tricks every time, that and the fact she was good at it, and loved the feeling of fixing something that was broken.

Kyna worked by herself in the docking station, installing the Sublimating Omni-phasic Displacer Cannons (The SODC’s) to the Arcturus; the spacecraft Dr. Yamamoto and a team of the Japanese SOIE scientists designed and built about a year ago.  The Arcturus is the ship that the members of the expedition would travel to the Ceenox System in. It is a General Systems Vehicle, (GSV) it was built as a mobile habitat for the Ceenox Expedition members until they found a suitable place to build a new HQ.

But it also needed to be a ready and able warship seeing as there was no evidence as to who or what, destroyed the previous HQ location, and whether or not they were still out to attack the SOIE members. Hence why Kyna was installing the most dangerous weapon the SOIE had to the ‘Mobile habitat’ to make it into a warship if needed be.

She had her music playing loud and blasting strong as she worked on the colossal spaceship. She wore a pair of jeans that were comfy and practical, a plain black shirt underneath. Her hair was up in a bun and she didn’t have her glasses on today. Kyna hummed along to her music and she worked, she would be singing if she was in the secluded space of her living quarters, but there in the docking station, she would never know when someone would sneak up on her and hear her dreadful singing… just like John had done a few weeks earlier.

With her beloved green satchel on the fold up desk next to trusty laptop playing her music, Kyna typed and scribbled onto the SOIE tablet, wirelessly adjusting the controls for the Arcturus’ new sublimating omni-phasic displacer canons. These displacer canons were an invention of Kyna’s, which when properly installed and managed, are so powerful that they’re capable of destroying the whole continent of North America with one command code.

After a good 3 hours of work on the displacer canons, Kyna decided to take a break. She pulled up a chair to the fold up desk and began typing on the laptop. Her idea of a break was stopping doing one project and starting another, consequently she ran over the blue prints of one of her newest advanced weaponry inventions for the SOIE military division.

“What ‘cha doin’?” A very incoherent voice said over her shoulder a few moments later. Kyna turned around shocked briefly but relaxed when she saw it was just Private Cassandra Cameron– her female friend who was still in the 6 month training period – and a man Kyna didn’t recognise behind her.

“Not much, just creating new schematics for and Active Denial System” Kyna answered, Cassandra nodded, pretending to understand what Kyna had just said, Cassandra – or Cassie as she like to me called – was in the military sector, not the scientific division of the SOIE.

“You mean a heat ray?” The man behind Cassie a spoke up. Kyna looked from Cassie to the man, he had pale green eyes, dirty blonde hair which was styled handsomely. He was pretty good looking.

“Sort of… yes it’s usually referred to as a 'heat ray'. But my invention - the Active Denial System - uses a focused micro-wave beam that heats up your skin to a very shallow depth. Causing intense pain, but virtually no damage.” She explained to the man.

“How big is it?” He asked, genuinely interested, it seemed

“Well, the system utilizes super cooled magnets, so it's size very large at the moment. But these blueprints are an effort to 'rifle size' the weapon underway. Expected range for this lighter weapons seems to be about 50 yards. Although the current battery packs will limit use, guess I’ll have to fix that too won’t I?” Kyna smiled, happy to find someone interested in her work.

“Oh! I totally forgot” Cassie piped up, causing Kyna and the man to look at her. “I didn’t introduce you two.” She smiled, kind of goofily. Her brunette hair ruffled as she bounced on the spot lightly.

“Kyna this is my older brother lieutenant Luke Cameron. Luke this is my friend Kyna, she’s one of the leaders of your mission!”  Kyna and Luke looked at each other, eyes wide, posture newly rigid.

“Pardon my rudeness Ma’am, I didn’t realise, you are Dr Lawrence.” He saluted, Kyna – much like the Director, had grown to hate people saluting her- and made a ‘hmpf’ noise when he did. “Cassie! You shouldn’t call your superiors by their first names.” He turned to her scolding his little sister.

“No, no, it’s fine lieutenant, I told Cassie to call me by my first name. Seeing as we started training together, and are friends.” I reassured him, he stopped rebuking Cassie. “To be honest, I hate it when my friends are overly formal with me.” Cassie stuck her tongue out at her older brother, childishly. I rolled my eyes, typical Cassie. “You can call me Kyna too, if you’d like.” Kyna added.

“Ok then.” Luke nodded, “Well then, seeing as you call my little sister by her name, you can call me by mine, but I’m not usually called Luke by anyone except my family, so call me what my friends call me. Cameron.” Kyna smiled and nodded, Lieutenant Cameron, preferred to be called Cameron, she’d have to remember that.

“Will do” Kyna beamed at him. “I like you’re first name though, too bad I have to call you Cameron, Luke” She joked, lightly, smiling playfully. Her bangs got on her eye for a moment, so she puffed and blew the estranged hair from her vision. She smiled again. “Well I’ve got to get back to work now, Cameron, it was great to meet you.” Kyna turned to Cassie “It’s great to see you again. Good luck with the rest of your training, Cassie. And thanks again for doing my hair to the Expedition meeting, it looked great.”

“Yeah, it did didn’t it?” Cassie grinned smugly “I’ll talk to you soon, Kyna” She said, then nudged her older brother, who hadn’t said anything for a little while. He’d actually just been staring oddly at Kyna for some reason, and his sister’s nudge in the ribs startled him out of his daydream.

“What? Oh yeah…” he said stumbling over his words as he re-entered reality “It was great meeting you, and if I don’t see you again before we leave, I guess I’ll see you when we’re on this thing” He said gesturing to the massive ship with dwarfed all of them.

“Then I’ll see you when I see you” Kyna said, nodding in agreement to Cameron’s statement. Then Cassie waved goodbye as she dragged her brother with her out of the docking station and left Kyna to her work again.