Editing Commissar Techpriestess love story (section)

=== Chapter 5 ===
Rogal coughed, breaking the silence, “Foods ready,”
Octavia placed her spoon down beside her now empty tray, and reached for the serving tongs in the ration pack. Her tiny hand was dwarfed in Rogal’s grip as he attempted the same, and the pair stopped to look at one another. Emerald Augmentations met Ceramite grey eyes, as Rogal gently prised Octavia’s fingers from the serving tongs.
“How much would you like?” Rogal asked gently, lifting the steaming pasta from the packet, “Are you hungry?”
Octavia nodded, pushing her plate forward. Keeping her body functioning at peak efficiency demanded a high intake of food, and due to her customised potential coil, she had a near perfect metabolic conversion rate. Her curvy body was a side effect of this, ensuring that she always maintained a reserve of fats just in case. Rogal gently placed the pile of pasta on her tray, 
“More?”
Octavia nodded hungrily, “Yes please,”
Another tongueful of pasta,
“A little more, if you please?”
Rogal smiled, the juxtaposition between his tiny guest and her now highly piled tray amused him. He let out a low chuckle, deep and rumbling, like a Leman Russ in low gear. Octavia blushed, realising how this must look to her host, and she tried to stammer out a reason,
“I have a very high metabolism… Potentia coil needs it, keeps me functioning at peak efficiency…”
Rogal’s chuckle became a laugh, “My dear Octavia, please. If you are hungry, you eat.”
The commissar paused, looking at his guest, and then at the large amount of pasta still in the staple pack.

“Would it bother you,” Rogal said quietly, years of commissarial training keeping the embarrassment from his voice, “If I just ate straight from the packet? I’m just rather hungry, and it’s easier”
Octavia smiled at her hosts awkward, “and adorable” her fleshbrain added, behaviour
“If you are hungry, Rogal, you eat. However you wish to.”
A huge grin spread across the commissar’s face, as he hefted his fork, “In that case, here’s to you and here’s to me, and the Emprah smiles on all he sees. I hope you enjoy this meal.”
Octavia smiled, how quaint her host’s manners were. Taking her own fork up, she began to eat. Daintily at first, acting in accordance with proper Mechanicum formal eating practices. Rogal however, was tearing into his meal, having hardly eaten in the past day, his fork powering between mouth and packet, pausing only when he took a mouthful of amasec. Octavia’s fleshbrain squealed with joy, “Look at him, a man. A real man. Not like the cogfuckers” Her cognitor tried to chastise her fleshbrain for its choice of words, but it continued undaunted “He’s like a perfect machine, a machine of flesh and iron will.” Watching her host wolf down his meal, Octavia realised how hungry she too was, and began eating faster, casting aside the mealtime formalities in favour of getting more of the delicious grox sauce covered pasta into her stomach.

The pair ate in silence, the meal disappearing as quickly as it had arrived. As she ate, Octavia looked at the side of the ration pack, absentmindedly harvesting the nutritional information on the side. Average kilocals per hundredweight… average energy per serve…. Will feed five guardsmen. Her fleshbrain’s metaphorical eyes went wide, five guardsmen? Her cognitor quickly brought up how much she had eaten, what was left on her plate, and compared it with the standard serving size. Slightly over the standard amount, but that was normal. She looked over at Rogal as he scraped the last of the sauce from the bottom of the packet up onto his fork and then into his mouth. A thin trickle of the dark sauce spilling from the corner of his mouth. The man had just devoured, in the same time it had taken her to eat a standard serving, four times the amount. Rogal sighed contentedly, taking a napkin to wipe his mouth. Leaning back into his chair, he raised his glass to Octavia “To good food and good company”
Fumbling for her glass, Octavia managed to raise her own, “To good food and good company.”
The pair knocked back their respective glasses, returning them to the table slightly harder than either intended. Rogal grinned, “I know that noise,”
Octavia looked puzzled, “What noise?”
Leaping from his chair, Rogal returned to his foot locker, grabbing a fresh pair of amasec bottles.
“That’s the noise of a girl who knows how to drink.”

Octavia blushed, and looked around nervously. She had, in the past, drank, and drank hard. Her augmented body quickly burning the alcohol for energy, fueling the catalytic converters that would allow her to drink more, but that was a classic Mechanicum colledge game, who had the most efficient body, and who could counter the amasec the most effectively. Caelistis had always beaten her, but Octavia was no slouch. Her fleshbrain started dancing, the amasec already in her system having already being used to undo social inhibitors and other things her fleshbrain considered an inconvenience. Her blessed cognitor just shook its proverbial head, trying its utmost to keep up its quickly fading façade of disapproval. A quiet “eep” left her lips as Rogal stood with the two bottles, swinging them happily,
“Shall we?”
Octavia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her olfactory senses reveled in the smell of the commissar’s tent, of the meal just gone, and of that enticing smell of sawdust and metal that Rogal was bathed in. 
“I should warn you, Rogal,” She said, grinning, “I’m augmented, this is hardly fair,”
Rogal just placed a bottle in front of her as he sat down, “Is that a challenge, little lady?” He asked, a cocky grin spreading across his chiselled features, “Cause where I come from,” A strong hand twisted the lid from the bottle, “That’s a challenge.”

Octavia’s fleshbrain and cognitor chorused together, something that hadn’t happened since her time in the colledgia, “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.” Mechadendrites snaked out, grasping the bottle Rogal had given her, and prising the lid off. Smiling sweetly, Octavia poured herself a fresh glass,
“So where do you come from, Rogal?” She asked, “And by what rules are we drinking?”
Her cognitor looked shocked, where had this sudden confidence come from, this was so risky, so forward. Her fleshbrain rolled languidly on the metaphorical floor, her hands in her hair, smiling with red cheeks, “We haven’t drunk since that time with Caelistis and the Russ, remember?” Octavia’s cognitor blushed with horror, as she hoped her body was ready for this. 
Raising his own glass to study the liquid in the lumestick light, “Rules are simple, ask a question, take a drink. Answer a question, take a drink. Find a reason, take a drink. Things are pretty simple where I come from.” He said, grinning awkwardly.
Octavia laughed, a musical, melodic sound, “So binary roulette?”
Rogal looked confused, “Binary roulette?”
Octavia nodded, “one equals drink, zero equals anything else, but if zero occurs, then one must occur. Binary roulette.”
It was Rogal’s turn to laugh, “Cogboy drinking games, who knew.” Tipping his glass to his guest, Rogal downed half the glass. “Anyway, you wanted to know about where I come from?”
Octavia nodded, before taking a drink from her own glass, “If you don’t mind, that is?”
“I’d be a terrible host if I denied my guests anything. I grew up…”

Octavia sat and listened as Rogal told her of his homeworld, of growing up in the schola progenium, of the forest around him, of growing strong by the swing of the axe and dexterous by the blade of a carving tool. The pair drank and laughed as he told of how he and some other cadets had made a trebuchet to help the convent attached to the schola train their sisters in the art of the jump pack.
“So this one sister, absolutely Emprah crazy, thinks she can just launch herself and that the Emprah would protect her,” Rogal said, before chuckling, “So she just climbs on in to the basket, and demands we launch her.”
Octavia put a mechadendrite to her mouth in horror, “and then what happened?”
“Well, I saw what was happening, so right at the last moment, just as Ambrosios pulls the leaver, I wrench the thing sideways. You should have heard her squeal, sounded like an earthshaker round.”
Melodious laughter spilled from Octavia’s lips as she took another sip from her glass. The bottle in front of her was half empty now, and her fleshbrain was reveling in the fact. Her cognitor was desperately trying to burn the excess alcohol away, but her fleshbrain kept pouncing on her, trying to let the her blood alcohol level rise. Rogal grinned, taking a mouthful of amasec before continuing, “We launched that white haired Emprah-botherer straight into the lake. She came out, soaked to the bone, and we learned that day why the heretic fears the angry sister.”
The pair laughed in unison, clinking their glasses together, before Rogal leaned in, “So what about you, little lady? How did you grow up?”

Octavia blushed; she wasn’t good at talking about herself. “Well, I was born. No, I was grown? That’s not right either, umm, how to explain this. When a Mechanicum couple wants to have a son or daughter, they, well, take the genetic material from both parents, and, combine them, and then they stick the now growing embryo in a special vat, and we develop in there,”
Rogal nodded, “Like they do on the farms?”
Her already flushed cheeks grew hotter, “I guess you could put it like that. But there is so much more to it, the parents tend to their child, ensuring it develops strong and healthy, correcting any issues that may arise before they can affect the child, it’s a beautiful thing, the machine is literally like a third parent, it nurtures us, it cares for us, the strong machine caring for the weak flesh, so we may become like the machine someday, and care for it in turn.”
Rogal’s face was dumbstruck, he had never thought of it like that. Cogboys had always just seemed strange and foreign to him, but when explained in such terms, it made sense. 
“So I grew up, got my first augment at eight years standard terran, became an apprentice at thirteen years terran, and got into one of the most prestigious Collegia Mechanica on the world at eighteen standard.” Octavia continued, explaining her learnings and what she had done, her translations and understanding of technology allowing for small advancements where it could.
Rogal nodded, feeling very aware of what a simple and backwards man he must seem. Here he was talking of wood and simple mechanical levers, while his guest had been cracking atoms and building plasma engines. 
“I must seem like such a simpleton,”
Octavia paused, realizing her guest's discomfort, “Sometimes, simple is better.”

A small hand reached out to touch a larger one, “Your work is just as valid as mine. You put as much heart and soul into your work as any Mechanicum priest, and that is to be commended, and respected.”
Rogal smiled, “Thank you Octavia, you’re far to kind to this humble servant of the Emprah.”
His hand gently took hers, and the pair just sat there in the flickering lumestick light, emerald augments and ceramite eyes sharing a moment that both wished could last forever. Suddenly, Octavia leapt to her feet, “Inverted flux capacitors, look at the time,” 
Rogal turned in his seat, looking at the chronometer beside his bunk, the dull red numbers staring sullenly back at him. The planet was on a 36 hour day, so the night was still young, but it was still late in the morning,
“I haven’t done my duties, there are tanks to be consecrated, lasguns to be serviced,” Octavia began hurrying about the tent, mechadendrites nearly blurs as she tidied the table,
“Octavia,” Rogal said, reaching out to stop her, but she just brushed past him,
“Octavia,” Rogal tried again, but was ignored. Sighing with frustration, his hand whipped out,
“Octavia. Stop.”