Kinetic Experiments (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on 29 May 2012 @ 11:59am by Lieutenant Lilou Zaren & Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius

6,098 words; about a 30 minute read

Mission: Episode 01 - Project Sienna
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 2, Holodeck 1
Timeline: MD06 - 1930 hrs

[ON]

At the appointed time, Lilou headed up to the holodeck with a fully replicated set of each of the four versions of her design she'd been working on carefully arranged in a hovercart. "Test range," she requested to the holodeck panel. "Full security protocols, two tables behind firing range blast wall, four identical test subjects - average size humanoid - in front of it." When she stepped inside, she began prepping stations on the tables for each of the prototype sets - four sets of ten. She wasn't sure why she had invited Lamar along. It had seemed like a good - well - it had seemed like an idea at the time. Forcing herself to face the possibility of... that event... while actively discovering that the probability of a repeat of that event with him appeared very remote. But this project had been her baby for the last few months, and while she was reasonably certain that each of the prototypes had their own merits, she only knew that from mathematical diagnostics. It was possible there was an entire aspect of the project she'd neglected to consider, which would mean back to the drawing board. Why she'd set herself up for possible failure in front of anyone, especially him... it seemed like a recipe for disaster. Then again, that's what she'd become lately, she thought with a soft sigh.

Arriving outside the door to the holodeck, Lamar quickly straightened his uniform before stepping in through the door with a swish. He had received her call on his commbadge not too long ago and had already been in the nearby vicinity at the time, so it hadn't taken him long to arrive. As he walked into the room, he wondered what kind of tests she was going to be conducting. Something about a force field, had she said? He couldn't remember, but hoped that it would be interesting. "Hey." he said rather simply as he walked up to her and looked around at the different stations and equipment nearby.

She looked up as the doors opened to admit him. She had twin, opposite impulses - one to run to the other side of the barrier and the other to stride forward until her face was pressed against him again. She stayed where she was. "Hi," she replied, glad to see him - and not - and still working through why she'd asked the man to come here in the first place. She busied herself, picking up one band from each station - each clearly marked with a number one through four - and carrying them over to the barrier for the test subjects to take. She showed them each how to clasp them onto their forearms and pointed back a little ways. "If..." she pressed her lips together. "If you get bored, or... you don't have to-" Of course he didn't have to stay. He was a damned marine. He'd just smash her head through the door and leave. Subconsciously, she pressed her fingers to her previously broken nose. She cleared her throat, looking across the barrier. "It's a prototype," she explained, trying to focus on the task at hand and not the possibilities. "I've been trying to break down disruptor fields for personal use in hand to hand and cross-fire situations. See-" she picked up one of the bands closest to her, snapped it around her forearm, and snapped her arm to her combadge. There was a little fizzling sound and a glow of shimering gold energy erupted, two meters by two meters, in a wide, flat cone from the band. "It's supposed to absorb kinetic and pulse energy and transform it into energy to continue fueling the shield." She looked at it with a little wrinkle in her nose. "That's the idea, anyway."

Lamar watched the small cone of energy materialize and raised an eyebrow as it flickered with bright gold hues. "A personal shield prototype?" he asked curiously as he stepped closer, subconsciously moving himself nearer to the pretty Trill engineer and resting his hand on the back of her shoulder. "So it absorbs energy blasts?" he asked with a bit skepticism. He hoped she hadn't brought him here to be a test dummy, as he didn't particularly feel like getting shot because one of her inventions malfunctioned.

"Pulse and kinetic," she said, resting back against the hand as her pulse hitched up. She reached around to tap the front of the open cone; it flickered a little brighter for a few seconds before returning to normal. "Minimal testing shows it works and the math... well, my math always works." She shrugged, "But this isn't one of those things I'd show without trying to cover any bases my math might have missed, so." She pointed past the barrier. "Experimentation to prove the hypothesis." She closed her eyes and stood still for a moment, focusing on the sensation of heat on her shoulder. "If this fails terribly, you are welcome to forget you ever saw it. Or heard about it. Or met me at all, ever."

"I'll just be sure to get my holorecorder out and send the video to the captain." he joked, and squeezed her into his arm. "What is your plan to test it?" he asked, still looking at the shimmering shield. "A simulated fire exercise?"

She nodded. "I set up the four test participants with the four variations on the prototype. And I'll just... go through the tests." She tapped the shield from her own side and watched it gleam and die down again. It didn't feel like much except a light sensation of resistance. The harder and faster the impact, the more active it would be. At least, that's what the numbers said. "I need see how it fares against average human hand-to-hand combatants, stronger than human combatants, Type one through three phasers, disruptor blasts, fire, and pulse explosions." She wrinkled her nose, gently twitching her fingers along the shield's surface, "I just hope I'm not forgetting anything."

"Yeah, me too." he muttered to himself. In theory, the personal shields were a great concept and would give security forces a significant edge in a firefight, he thought. But as Lilou had been quick to point out, there was still a lot of work and testing to be done. "So...what first?" he asked, wondering how she wanted to go through the various tests.

She reticently drew away from him, crossing to the barrier. "Computer, program one average human assailant for each division," she said, wrapping her arms around her middle as she watched the proceedings. In each of the four target lines, a basic human test subject appeared, prepared for attack. Steeling herself for the violence, she exhaled slowly, "Activate." The assailants sprinted forward, barreling into the test subjects with their shields. Every one of the assailants hit the shield and couldn't get through, one of them - the one in the division furthest to the left - was actually thrown back a couple feet after making contact. As the other assailants continued to struggle against the shields to reach their targets, her gaze flicked back and forth between the sensor read outs along the barrier and the action. Mark 1 and 2 were holding against the struggle. Mark 3 was increasing in energy the longer the assailant attempted to break through it, expanding out in all directions until it touched the dividing walls. Well, she thought with relief, and sighed a little.

Observing the first round of holographic projections failing to penetrate the shield brought a small smile to the chief's lips. He nodded silently to himself in satisfaction as he watched further, taking note of the average force which was being put into the hits. "Looks good so far." he finally said, glancing back at Lilou. "Try a heavier opponent." he suggested.

"Computer, hold," Lilou called. "Reset test subjects and assailants. Reinforce assailant strength to two thousand one hundred and fifty psi. Increase size and weight by forty percent." She noted the increases in the summary PADD and looked up, "Activate." Again, the assailants barreled forward. Mark 1 glowed so bright it was almost blinding and then gave out, the test subject toppling back. Mark 4 threw the assailant all the way to the barrier and made a visible dent in the dividing wall. Mark 2 held against the attacker for almost five minutes before it, too, gave out. Mark 3 grew again, faster than it had before, forming a solid golden wall between the test subject and the assailant. "Reset division one and two, new test subjects at barrier," she said, grabbing another of the respestive prototypes and strapping them around the test subjects arms. "Activate lane one again," she called. Again the assailant barrelled forward, and the same results followed. Lilou's nose wrinkled a bit as she took her notes. "Messed up the energy filter relays. Overloading system." She wanted to be mad at herself for the mistake, but she couldn't. Not yet. First she needed to figure out why Mark 2 had lasted that much longer than Mark 1 and why the energy relay circuit in Mark 4 was causing its kinetic rebound to be so pronounced.

"Not a bad first step," he commented as he shifted his feet, observing the second test with mixed results. "The second and third force fields were holding for a long time." he added, wondering why they proved more stable than the other two prototypes.

She nodded. "I don't suppose they'd need to hold that long continuously against a physical assault, but..." But it would have been nice, she thought, watching the assailant in Division 3 struggle fruitlessly against the relentlessly reinforced golden wall. "Computer, reset. Empty assailants. Provide phasers Type one through three, compression rifles, plasma cannons. Reinforce security protocols in division lanes and barrier." She whistled, waving the test subjects in the first two lanes forward and re-equipped them with replacement bands before sending them back a ways. "Activate shields." Turning to Lamar, she lifted her brows. "Single bursts, flurries, anything you can think of to get past the shield. Smallest to largest." She paused, realizing she hadn't actually asked him and blushed. "You did say you liked the firing range," she murmured. "Would you... I mean..." How could she have been so cavalier about ordering the man around? Was she stupid? Suicidal? "I'm sorry, that was... I don't know what I was thinking." She shut her eyes.

So that was why she had asked him to come. "It's alright, I'd love to let off a few shots." he answered with a bit of enthusiasm in his voice. The red-collared man walked over to the nearby table and procured a light weapon of his choice, the Type-1b hand phaser. Though a relatively low yield weapon, it was small and compact, smaller than his hand and easily concealed. He walked around to the designated firing position and looked downrange at the target, then back to Lilou one last time. "So just shoot it? You sure?" he asked. He really did hope that nothing catastrophic would happen, such as the emitters overloading and exploding inside the holodeck. But from what he had seen of her engineering ingenuity so far, he had confidence in her.

She grabbed a pair of goggles from the table near by and handed them to him before donning her own. The goggles were a bit large for her diminutive face, making her seem even more petite, like a child playing dress-up; they were hitched up above her brows, like an engineer's bonnet. "That's the idea," she said, a little quieter, but reassured by his response. Moving into the second lane, she picked up the Type-1b and aimed. There was nothing child-like about the way she held the phaser; the weapon instilled a confidence in her that she usually only felt when she was scrambling the hull of a ship or tucked into deep into her work. She set the phaser to Stun first. A tiny flicker of pride manifested in her eyes as she sighted down the lane. "Fire at will," she murmured; her voice had shifted from the quiet, whispery, light voice she usually spoke in to a lower sound in her body that held humor, heat, and depth. "Please let this work," she whispered, cropped her goggles to cover her eyes, then fired. The phaser's beam poured straight ahead towards the test subject's head; the subject lifted his arm, the beam hit the shield and seemed to soak into the intangible golden net, burgeoning the strength of the thing until it was solid. Lilou jerked sideways and the beam seemed to drag the shield with it, expansing the gold wall wherever the beam moved to. Unexpected. She set down the phaser and pressed her hands to her lips. It worked. So far, in certain ways, it worked. She looked over to see what Lamar was doing with the Mark 1.

Securely putting the goggles on which Lilou had retrieved for him, the chief watched the engineer fire into the force field with good results. Although it was the lowest setting, the protective energy shield had not destabilized. Steeping forward next to her and aiming at his designated target, his thumb pressed the red fire button and a bright orange beam of phaser energy streamed from the glowing weapon's tip, then slammed into the energy shield. The field held and shimmered a brighter gold color, appearing to reinforce itself. Firing again, this time in consecutive bursts, the chief volleyed phaser strikes in different multiples and at different locations, all with the same result. Satisfied with the results at the lowest level, he tapped the selector switch on his hand phaser and increased the output level. He fired again at increasingly higher settings, the familiar swoosh and bright glow of concentrated phaser fire traveling throughout the small holodeck. With a final test at the highest setting, Lamar fired on the holographic target only to see the shield hold for a brief moment, then collapse with a bright flash, sending a feedback pulse back through the beam and into his weapon. Lamar watched with wide eyes as time seemed to stop while he attempted to drop the phaser from his grip at the last moment. With a loud bang and a shower of sparks, the small Type-1b exploded, sending debris flying and a small energy shockwave to anything nearby. It was suddenly silent and a cloud of smoke enveloped the room, from which Lamar finally emerged. "Are you okay?" he asked Lilou, walking closer to inspect her.

Lilou watched the energy stream back along the phaser beam towards him and, though her protective instincts kicked into gear, her experience with shocks and beam blow-back kept her from running to his aid. Instead, she dropped down , flattening herself against the barrier and covered her head as the phaser exploded. "Are you?" she asked, lifting her head and rubbing at her goggles. When that didn't work, she pulled them off her face and waved a little at the smoke, standing up and moving over to inspect him. "Computer, first aid kit." She bit her lip, smiling a little despite herself, "You have to admit, they seem to be protecting the test subjects so far. Sort of."

"Yeah.." he muttered, then looked down at his hand and gingerly moved his fingers. There were several first degree burns on the back of his hand and he felt a sharp pain when he tried to make a fist. With a sigh, he went over to a nearby stool and took a seat, his eyes betraying a bit of frustration. "Do you have a dermal regenerator?" he asked her.

She'd already opened the kit and dug out the dermal regenerator when she saw the burns. She knew this much medicine at least; she'd given herself enough burns in her life. Still. "You can move your hand, that's good, no nerve or tendon damage, right?" She wiggled medical tricorder in one hand and the dermal regenerator in the other, following him to the stool and scanning his hand just to be safe. "I'm sorry you got hurt. That... wasn't something I anticipated." She looked at the tricorder's readout. Bad burns, but nothing they couldn't fix here. She juggled the two instruments and began regenerating the burned flesh. "Not that it doesn't make sense. It does. I just didn't design them to be anything other than purely defensive. Then again, they do say the best defense is a good offense, don't they? Still, I'm really really sorry you got burned. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've been burned and scraped and broken and electrocuted and I still keep coming back. This is a flesh wound. Still, I bet it hurts, does it hurt?" She squinted at his hand as the dermal regenerator slowly grew new flesh. She knew that feeling too. Itchy and stinging. "Damn it, I should have put a... something on it... metorapan, right? I bet there's some in the kit there if you want it. Spirits, I'm sorry. Gloves, idiot. Goggles and gloves."

"It's okay, I've had much worse, believe me." he said with a smile to put her at ease. Though he had been mildly injured, he didn't want her to worry or feel at fault for the accident. It was, afterall, just that: an accident. Looking down at his hand, he flexed his fingers again and watched the newly repaired skin on his hand. The sensation was slightly uncomfortable but most of the pain had lessened. He looked back up to see her holding a tube of metorpan cream. Instinctively, he held out his hand for her to tend to. "It's not your fault, you know. Sometimes experiments malfunction...don't blame yourself for this little bruise." he said, his eyes glancing to his hand and then back to her grayish eyes.

"Yeah, but it's my experiment. Usually, I'm the only one who gets to experience the glitches. Not even that bad of a glitch, actually, I mean in the scheme of the purpose of the device, that's not such a bad thing to happen as long as there's a way to control it. Having it happen by accident, that's a problem. But the-" She was rambling, she could hear herself rambling and bit her lip to keep from speaking as she finished smoothing the cream over his hand and peeling away the dead skin. "I'm not used to... I mean, I've never asked anyone to see any of my designs this early in, I wasn't thinking enough about your safety and I should have, that was my responsibility and... I didn't. So... just..." She kept her eyes on his hand, "Forgive me?"

"Of course I forgive you, just don't let it happen again." he said with a wink, then stood from the seat and pulled his hand back to inspect her work. The antibiotic dermal cream left a glisten to his dark skin, but most of the pain had subsided and he felt much better. It would probably be sore tomorrow, but for now he was ready to continue the experiment. "So do you want to continue?" he asked, waiting for her to take the lead and make any adjustments before the next test.

"You're su-" she stopped herself from finishing the question, Will's words running through her mind. 'If I didn't mean it, I wouldn't say it.' Lamar didn't seem the type to be insincere either. Then again, what kind of a character judge was she? Not very damn good, that was certain. "Computer, two pairs of anti-shock/flame gloves, two anti-conductor bibs fitted to personnel in chamber." As the holodeck robed them, she nudged her goggles back into place. "Better precautions taken. Now let me see exactly went awry." With a little humming sound, she went to division lane 1 and checked the monitoring console. "I didn't allow for shield expansion on this one; that's why it sent the overflow energy back along the conduction route. It was supposed to just store the excess power, but I guess it ran out of storage space." She tugged at her earlobe, considering the math. "I'd have to take the unit apart and reroute the ODNs, then reprogram the system. Not sure I want to risk blowback on that with a heavier weapon. Mark three has expansion fields programmed in. Maybe you want to test it instead?"

With a nod, Lamar walked over to the weapons rack and obtained a larger weapon and his personal favorite, the Type-IIIC compression rifle. He walked back to his firing spot and put his goggles back over his eyes should another feedback surge occur. Turning the rifle over, he slapped a power cell into the magazine and flipped the charge button. A soft increasing whine sounded as the lights on the weapon rose from red to green. After a final quick check of the rifle, he shuffled his feet into a shooter's stance and aimed at the distant target. Sighting the target in the red dot holosight, he slowed his breathing as he gently pulled back on the trigger. A bright yellow flare erupted from the barrel of the weapon and a pulse of phaser energy flew down-range and impacted the shield with a shimmer of gold color. Satisfied that the shield would hold against the current power level, he fired several more shots into the shield at various intervals and locations. For the final test, he tapped two small buttons on the rifle's upper receiver and selected the highest output setting, level sixteen. Able to disintegrate entire sections of solid rock, the shield would face it's strongest test so far. Aiming back at the target, Lamar squeezed the trigger and felt the rifle kick hard into his shoulder as a white surge of energy blurred downrange, splashing loudly and rippling across the shield as it impacted and absorbed the phaser blast.

Returning to division lane 2, Lilou turned up her phaser to the next setting and fired. Then the next, and fired. And if she saw picturing her own head cowering behind the shield she'd constructed - well, that was her business, wasn't it? She fired high and low, in long beams and short flurries, and when - through all of that - the shield held, she narrowed her eyes, sighted right along her steady arm, and fired directly into the center of the cone. The shield flickered. She held her sight and fired. It flickered again, but held. Weak point, she thought, and watched the monitoring console until the shield stability stammered back to full. Half minute loops. She fired in the hitch of the loop and the shield fizzled and died. Overloaded. She waved the test subject forward and traded out the band for a replacement, making a note in her PADD. "Still alive?" she asked, stepping over to check on his monitoring console and the status of his test subject.

"The Mark-3 is a winner. So far, at least." he said enthusiastically, pointing at the unscathed holographic target which he had been previously shooting at. "Did you say something about pre-programmed fields?" he asked, trying to remember her exact words. Glancing back at her, Lamar walked back over to the table and set down his weapon, then paused to rub his hand.

"I set this one to expand to fill the space directly in front of it to the extent of its surrounding confines. Walls, ceiling, floor. Just in case someone got the bright idea to jury-rig their phaser into an explosive and lob it at them." She scanned the console, biting her lower lip as she took in the data. "Level sixteen?" she asked, like a proud mother. "It took a level 16 blast?" She hopped over the barrier and hurried down the lane. "Hold, please," she said as she reached the test subject and carefully scanned the band with a tricorder. "Hot damn. Hot damn." She bounced on her toes, looking back down the lane at him with a grin, "I could power a whole shuttle off this thing for about five minutes. If I expanded the capacity on it, we could actually build temporary batteries while on the front lines. Charge weapons by defensive measures. Have to... have to test it against projectile weapons," she said, tapping notes into her PADD, then pressed her hand to her stomach, feeling giddy, as she ran back down the lane and vaulted the barrier, laughing, and almost zigged straight at him but caught herself at the last minute and just stood, still internally effervescent, unsure what to do with herself.

Seeing Lilou so happy and jubilant put a smile on the chief's face, and he looked down at her with bright brown eyes. "Congratulations, I think you just made ensign." he said, half-joking and half serious. If such a technology could remain stable for a prolonged period of time, promotions would be swift to come to the young warrant officer.

"Fft," she waved the idea away. If Quinn had never been commissioned, she certainly didn't expect to, but she didn't really care. The point - the important point - was that she'd figured it out. At least so far. There were so many other tests to run. In different environments. Seeing how long the more stable prototype could maintain its shield mechanism. Finding the weak points. Justifying it against projectile battering, fire, electric shocks, and other hazards, but this... and if she could expand the battery and add a component utilizing the glitch in the Mark 1 matrix for repelling... She laughed. The point was, she'd gotten good enough results that she could bring at least the Mark 3 to Quinn and see what he thought. She hugged herself. Then she turned the full wattage of her happiness on Lamar and for a moment, he wasn't an ex-marine. He was just the man who'd been willing to fire a level sixteen blast at her baby and proved it could hold. She flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his middle and squeezed. "Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for really trying to break it."

Somewhat shocked at the sudden embrace, the chief stood stiff for a moment as he felt her arms wrapped around his abdomen and head pressed his chest. It felt...good. And comforting. Reaching down, he put his arms around her shoulders and returned the hug, rubbing his hand gently up and down her back. Inside his chest, he could feel his heart beating quickly from their close proximity.

It was like before, sort of. That same cat-like stretching feeling of ease just from the heat of a warm hand on her. Rather like a caterpillar in a cocoon would feel, she imagined; surrounded by warm. Like how the massage had felt: where contact was established she relaxed, wanting to become a part of that warmth and meld with it, fill the empty waiting gap in herself with something - spirits - for wholeness. His hand traveled up and down her back, spreading that thick, gluttonous heat through her. Her spine had always been especially sensitive; she wasn't sure if that was a Trill trait, or a result of her numerous electrocutions, or just something she'd always liked. She knew, reasonably, that she responded to warmth because she didn't generate heat the way many other species did. Her body had to find it outside itself. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to his chest and listened, fascinated, as the steady rhythm of his heart gained momentum. Why did hearts race? Fear, adrenaline... she couldn't think of the other reasons. Hadn't paid enough attention in her medical classes beyond basic wound she imagined she might actually have to deal with herself. But he didn't seem afraid. The continued brushing over her spine was releasing the muscles that had found ways to tense up all day, the release in combination with the giddy elation she was already on a high from left her dizzy. A little purr curled out of her throat as she pressed her cheek more firmly to his chest.

"I, um..." he muttered, unsure of how to reply. He couldn't help but take in the moment, the two of them alone together in the holodeck with her slim frame pressed against him. She seemed to almost melt into him and he relished the sensation. And strangely, she could now feel his anxiety beating in his chest as he contemplated his next move. It wasn't often that he got the opportunity to form relationships, and it seemed amazing that he had managed to get so close with Lilou over the last few days. Com'on Lamar, she likes you...go for it!, his mind yell at him. He couldn't really argue. Without thinking much further, he stepped back slightly and moved one hand to her shoulder and the other to her chin, cupping the side of her face and lightly stroking her cheek with his thumb. He tilted her head up and looked into her blue-gray eyes one last time, then leaned down to kiss her.

Lilou accepted, as he stepped away, that she had gotten all the contact she was going to get that day, but she was okay with that. She knew from experience that most people weren't as gluttonous about touch as she was; maybe that was because they were touched more in general. Or maybe it just didn't resonate with them in quite the same way. That was fine; out of all the things she'd learned to shame about herself, the fact that she could quite happily melt into physical sensations had never been one of them. Physical needs were a sign of weakness, her father had always said; a sign of immaturity. But she knew what weakness felt like, and the more she learned about the sensation over time, the less she equated it to the warmth that curled from that waiting, empty symbiont-eager place inside of her when she experienced touch. Then his hand was on her shoulder, quickly followed by his other hand against her face before she could formulate any negative scenarios in her mind. She leaned her face into the movement of his thumb, practically giving the weight of her head to his hand, and watched his face move closer to her own. For a tiny, awful moment, a jolt of fear tried to fight its way from the dark places in her mind as he loomed over her, but the continued stroking of his thumb against her cheek defended his intentions well enough. Then he kissed her, and - coming as it did in a perfectly natural progression - she wasn't caught off guard. And his lips were nice, she mused absently as she tasted him. Everything about him was warm, even this. Her hands, which had clasped each other behind his back, slowly untwined and opened to feel the heat there too. Even this. How many Joules are you running on? she wondered just before she stopped thinking.

Delighting in the sudden contact of their lips, Lamar felt Lilou move herself closer and respond to his advances by returning his kiss and rubbing her hands on the small of his back. Slowly and careful to take his time, he tilted his head to the side and furthered the kiss, sighing as he felt his tongue slide against hers. Mmm.. he whispered in his head. His hands slid down to her waist and along the outside of her lips, allowing him feel the natural curves of her body. It had been a long time since the chief had had relations with a woman, especially one as beautiful as Lilou, and he enjoyed every moment of it. As the seconds passed and turned into minutes, he finally pulled back and stared somewhat glossy eyed at her, a shy sideways grin finally forming on his face as he was suddenly unsure what to say.

It was a very nice kiss. One of the nicest she'd known, not that she had a huge wealth of experience to draw from. Certainly one of the longest, which was also... very nice. And the warmth went on and on, flooding her often cold veins and leaving her languid and malleable under his hands. When he straightened above her again, she blinked twice, slowly, and mirrored his smile. Unsure and rumpled and shy, he wasn't anything to be scared of. He was just like her, only... well. Bigger, she supposed. And fully human. And male. Quite male. But otherwise.... well. Her smile widened a notch and she ducked her head, pressing her lips together to keep from laughing out loud. There was a fluttering feeling in her stomach and in her head and she was still riding the elation of the Mark 3's performance on top of everything. It was almost the same as she'd felt the other night, except she knew she hadn't hit her head on anything this time and she didn't feel as though she were about to fall over. Not entirely, anyway, although she had to admit her knees were a little weak. She looked back up at him, still flushed. Part of her wanted to dive back into the sensations, but she'd shown enough gumption hugging him in the first place. If he hadn't wanted to stop, he wouldn't have, she reasoned, pressing her hands to his back to feel the heat there one more time and then letting her hands fall back to her sides. When he said nothing, only kept smiling that very sweet smile and looking for all the world like a lost little boy trapped in a giant's body, she tugged her own earlobe thoughtfully, peering up at him. "Well," she said, her voice as slow and thick as honey. "That..." Was unexpected? Nice? Warm? Good? Dizzying? "...happened," she finished lamely, smiling despite herself. Eventually, she trusted, her brain would work again.

"Yea..." he replied in a light voice, finally letting out a nervous laugh. "That was nice." he managed to say, finally peeling his eyes away form Lilou and looking down to take her hand, intertwining his fingers between hers. He wasn't sure what to do or say but he knew he wanted to kiss her again. And quickly! After looking around for a brief moment and taking in his surroundings, Lamar led her over to the nearby stool and took a seat. Now that he was closer to her eye level, he pulled her towards him and returned his hands to her hips. "So...can we do that again?" he asked quietly, then leaned in once more hoping for another long kiss.

As he led her over to the stool and sat down in front of her, Lilou had a distinct memory of her father doing just the same thing right before he'd sent her way to boarding school. So when his hands graced her hips again, his fingers ten warm points pressing through her uniform, she let out a low exhale - the trickle of tension that had been working back into her muscles melted away and she leaned forward into him again, stepping in between his legs and curled in the circle of his arms and sank into his kiss once more.

The chief closed his eyes as he pressed his lips against hers, and turned his head to the side to allow her better access. As their tongues rubbed together, his heart raced once more and his mind processed a flurry of thoughts. She's delicious, he silently mused to himself as he continued for several more long moments.

She lost track of time, or rather it simply stopped mattering. She wound her hands together in front of her chest and pressed closer to him, another purr vibrating through her chest and throat as she fought the growing impulse to guide his hands to spread over her. Her skin was greedy for heat and pressure and, at the same time, so pleased to be absorbing what was offered that she thought she might actually melt. At a certain point, breathless and blinking, her knees did actually give out as she relaxed completely and she found herself held up only by his arms around her.

[TBC]
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MWO Lilou Peers
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

MCPO Lamar Darius
Chief of the Boat
USS Galileo
NPC'd by Lirha Saalm

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