Editing Commissar Techpriestess love story (section)

=== Chapter 4 ===
Rogal just sat there, his brain somewhere in limbo, looking at the ration pack. He knew he needed to say something, or to do something, and that it was important he not do something stupid, but for the life of him, he could not think of a single thing. He knew he was hungry, and he needed to eat, and that was what he would do, but he just, couldn't find the right order of thoughts.

Outside, a feminine chuckle was heard, before the hum of a generator was silenced.

The pair looked up as the glowglobe hanging from the ceiling slowly faded. Octavia's eyes glowed dimly in the darkness, as Rogal tapped his earbead, patching in to the base voxnet.
"Tiberius, what is the meaning of this?"

In the vox tent, Lieutenant Tiberius grinned and gave Caelistis the thumbs up, "Nothing major sir, just some trouble with the generator, the cogs are looking at it now. Should be back up in a few hours."

Rogal nodded, tapping the earbead again, severing the link. Octavia just looked at him, "The generator is down?"
Rogal nodded, before rising from his seat, "Now just you wait here, M'lady, I have a" there was a thud as Rogal kicked his foot locker, "Lumestick somewhere" Another thud as he hit his desk, "around here". With a crack, he ignited the lumestick, and set it on the table, bathing the tent with soft flickering white light. Octavia smiled despite herself, noticing the direct correlation between this situation and one of the many that her and Caelistis had read back when they were still apprentices. Rogal set the lumestick on the table, before moving back into the tent,
"Would you like a drink?" He called, crouching over another footlocker. Octavia froze; this was matching too many gelt romance situations. They were just fantasies, fiction for the masses, entertainment, not fact. She hesitated, letting out a small "eep"
"Beg your pardon, M'lady?"
Octavia forced herself to answer, "Do you have any amasec?"
Rogal grinned, "But of course"

Grabbing a couple of glasses, and a miniature barrel of his finest amasec, Rogal returned to the table. Placing the glasses down with a slight clink, he removed the stopper from the amasec.
"I hope it's okay," Rogal said as he screwed a spigot into the barrel, "I made it myself."
Octavia's eyes lit up, she may have been on her way up in the Mechanicum, but there was one thing she would never loose, and that was her appreciation for a good amasec. The fact that Rogal brewed his own, her fleshbrain delighted in telling her, just made him more "delicious"
"You brew your own amasec?" She asked, as the commissar filled her glass.
"Yes ma'am. It's a little difficult sometimes, but basically, that foot locker, I had converted into a miniature distillery." Realizing what he had just said, Rogal added, "Helps with morale."
Octavia held her glass up to the lumestick, admiring the brilliant amber coloring of the drink, before taking a small sip. The smooth liquid washed over her tongue and down her throat, warming her stomach. A small infographic popped up in her vision, explaining the exact composition of the drink, but she dismissed it for a future time. 

Rogal prayed to the Emprah, begging him to bless that cask, so that his guest would like it. He had scrimped and scrounged and even made a deal with the quartermaster just to get the ingredients he needed, and then keeping the still functioning during the past few months had been harder than expected. This moment, he knew, would let him know if it had all been worth it.

Octavia's face lit up. She had drank a lot of amasec in her time, from the cheapest swill her and Caelistis had synthesized, to fancy bottles that had been... 'appropriated' from various sources. None of them however, compared to this.

In the dim light of the lumestick, Rogal’s face beamed with pride. The contented sigh that spilled from his guest’s lips said more than words ever could. She liked it. She liked his amasec. He watched her take another sip, which was followed by another contented sigh, and before his eyes she seemed to shed all the stress that had built up over the past few days. He watched as her emerald green eyes glinted in the lumesticklight, her delicate porcelain skin, the intricate scrollwork on her mechanical hands. 
Octavia suppressed a shiver, the amasec was amazing. She leaned forwards, resting her arms on the table, and surveyed her host in the lumestick light. Her vision flicked through the spectrums, picking up on the heat emanating from his body, how he traced the rim of his glass with a finger, the faint scars on his hands and face, the slightly lopsided smile, caused no doubt by some old wound. Her fleshbrain and sacred cognitor faced off. The man was still that, just a man, her cognitor argued, made of weak flesh. Weak flesh? Her fleshbrain questioned, You’ve touched the weak flesh, and it’s stronger than us. You read the report, YOU made the report. Her cognitor tittered nervously, as she took a longer draught from her amasec, say something, her cognitor urged, anything. Her fleshbrain sighed, desperately flicking through the thousands of possibilities she had thought of. Her mechadendrite tapped the ration pack gently.
“Shall we eat?” Octavia managed to say, gripping her glass tightly.

Rogal’s brain registered the request, but no answer came forth, instead he just continued to look at his petite guest. Octavia coughed politely, breaking the commissar from his revelry, and with a nod, he reached forward, pulling the lid from the ration pack. 
“Sorry, priestess, I’m still a little tired. Weak flesh and all that,” He said, with a small smile, as he handed her a packet of biscuits. A mechadendrite snaked out and took the silver pack, as another reached to open it. Rogal opened the small jar of spread that the ration pack contained, setting it down in the middle of the table, before reaching back into the box and removing the two serving trays contained within.
“I’m sorry I don’t have anything better,” The commissar said, tugging at the plump soup sachet, “I wasn’t exactly expecting a guest tonight,”
A puzzled look crossed Octavia’s face, as her cognitor attempted to make sense of that statement. She saw no reason for the Commissars apology until an errant scrap of knowledge flitted past her vision. Combining the strange statement with the body language, and his thermal readings, and a small note from Caelistis, explaining how he would say something like this because of the infatuation.

Rogal watched his guest’s attention drift away, her nose twitching as she pondered whatever mysteries a servant of the machine god pondered. He contented himself with preparing the meal for the two of them, pulling the tab on the soup sachet to engage the heating mechanism, before pulling the staple packet from the bottom of the pack. Rogal grinned, the Emprah was kind. The staple packet contained the converted string pasta with grox mince sauce. The soup was nothing special, just a simple grox broth with some herbs, designed to be eaten with the small loaf that came in the ration pack. The string pasta with grox mince staple however, was considered the best rations to come from the pack, and he had heard stories of guardsmen trading packets of lho sticks for a single serve.

Octavia silently cursed her friend, for always being right. No matter how she looked at it, the data she was collecting pointed to one thing, and one thing only, an irrational infatuation with the commissar. Caelistis and her had been together since as far back as either of them could remember, and every single time, Caelistis would find a way to be right. Octavia’s fleshbrain interrupted her musings to point out that the meal had been prepared, and it was damn foolish of her to just be sitting there twitching her nose. Blushing at the realisation that her host had prepared the meal while she had been day dreaming, she let out a quiet eep, before looking down at her tray.
“My apologies, commissar, I had some urgent data to repackage.” She mumbled, 
Rogal just smiled, “Duty always calls.” He said, taking up his spoon and dipping it into his soup, “And please, call me Rogal.”
Octavia smiled, feeling her cheeks grow hot, as her fleshbrain rebelled. “Just like in the gelt romances,” her fleshbrain pointed out, “just think, we can eat, and then drink, and he will be attracted to us, and us to him, and he will pin us down, and tear our-“ Octavia eeped and dropped her spoon, splashing soup across her robe. She sighed angrily, looking around for a napkin, her mechadendrites attempting to brush the liquid from her chest. A white kerchief was gently pressed into her hand,
“Here, use this,”

Rogal knew of Octavia’s perchance for absentmindedness and flights of fancy, but this was
“Adorable”
Looking up from sponging the stain on her robe, Octavia was puzzled, “Did you say something Commis- Rogal?”
Shaking his head and praying his blushing cheeks couldn’t be seen, Rogal replied, “No, nothing at all. How are you finding the soup?”
Taking another spoonful, Octavia daintily sipped, swirling the broth in her mouth before swallowing. “It’s good, thank you.”
Her mechadendrite continued to wipe at her robe, only making the stain larger. Octavia sighed angrily, and shrugged out of her robe, her mechadendrites moving to drape it over the back of the chair. Rogal felt his breath catch in his throat. His mind went all but blank, as he watched his guest in the lumesticklight. A mechadendrite brushed a stray lock of hair from her face, as Octavia took up her spoon once more. Rogal managed to swallow the mouthful of soup he had taken before clumsily taking another spoonful. Light glinted gently from the band of silver electoos around Octavia’s neck, and from the smooth red plates that made up her elegant cyber mantle. Her obsidian black mechanical arms met with pale porcelain flesh at her shoulders, more silver electoos splaying out from the contact point. A simple, if delicate white top covered her chest, her cyber mantle acting as a corset, clinching the fabric in. The table obscured any further view, but for Rogal, that view was enough. He thanked the Emprah for blessing him, for creating this woman of exceptional beauty. Rogal had met many women in his time, from governors’ daughters, to celestines of the Ordos Famulous, but none of them compared to Octavia.

Noticing the attention her disrobing had brought, Octavia blushed, bringing her arms together in modesty. This however, her fleshbrain noted with glee, had the complete opposite affect of enhancing her already ample cleavage. Blushing even harder, Octavia whimpered quietly, her cognitor begging her fleshbrain to stop thinking of things that had to do with tables and pinning and ravishment. She cursed her fleshbrain for reading all those gelt romance novels, and her cognitor whimpered as it tried to find some action to perform that would get her back to her comfort zone. The staple pack opened with a soft pop, indicating its readiness for consumption, as the tantalising smell of grox sauce filled the tent.