Octavia felt a guilty smile creep onto her face as Vinyl cursed in pain. She shouldn’t be amused at her friend’s irritation.
But it was so funny. It had been all she could do to not burst out laughing when Vinyl had hit her head a second time.
She pursed her lips as the giggle threatened to escape, and concentrated on her typing. She had work to do. Recent reports from Outpost 226 indicated increased changeling activity in the Tartarus surrounds, and Derpy had asked ExTech to upgrade the far-flung base’s ailing surveillance equipment.
Octavia had refrained from informing the Commander that this would involve creating an entirely new system from scratch, as 226 was so neglected that its surveillance equipment was to HQ’s what a broken lens was to an observatory.
And so she worked, tapping away into the night as she built the new system. She had had to drop a few projects of her own, but she could always pick them up again later when she had time.
A thought struck her, and she called over her shoulder without turning.
“Vinyl, do you still have the schematics for the AE-35 transmitters?”
It took her a few seconds to realise that Vinyl hadn’t responded.
“Vinyl? The Ae-35s? I was thinking we could incorporate them into the 226 project. They have that strange effect on changeling physiology, remember?
Still no response. She sighed.
“Come now, are you really going to be like this? I’m sorry, but you really should have used my...”
She trailed off as the text onscreen caught her eye. She stopped typing, but the words kept coming. Green text matched the voice that seemed to come from all around.
“You really do give your all, don’t you? But what if you had nothing left to give?”