It was the subspace capsules, really. Those little miracles of engineering had been Messenger’s main mode of transporting mail, intelligence, and requisitions for years, but she had never tried to squeeze a shipping crate into one before. Not, of course, that she had come across the golden opportunity of an unnatended, hot off the line, shipping crate full of spanking new models before.
As if she would let her scientific curiosity go unsated.
So here she was, proudly presenting the results of her first field test to Scout. If Messenger were honest, his genuine excitement and appreciation of her deliveries was probably the biggest driving factor behind the experiment in the first place. And okay, maybe she had noticed that the particular weapons would be useful to offense… and Scout in particular.
Buuuuuut
That awareness had done jack shit to prepare her for his response. Oh geez. Oh boy howdy son of a fish was she instantly a solid shade of beet. He had soft lips how fucking dare he have soft lips, and she could feel the heat radiating of her face and oh god he probably could too and what? What what what? Was she talking? Her brain appeared to have blown a fuse somewhere.
“Eh, ah, uh, you’re welcome!” A little too loud, a little too much of a voice crack, “Just, uh, I mean it’s handy! The guns. Thought you could… y’know- more gun? Just the, guns being neat guns.”