Chapter 66: Rearment
A loud ZAP echoed through the machine shop, making Derek jump and spill both the book and metal cylinders he’d had in his lap all over the floor. The last time this had happened, he’d been using ball bearings; those had made a considerably bigger mess, but he still chose to haul himself over them, rather than risk stepping on one and falling.
And the sound of loud cursing in a language he now knew to be Gaelic filled the room as Mimi leaped back from the sparking remains of her “project.”
Yeesh.
Derek let himself drop back to the floor and cast [Lifesurge] onto the engineer, knowing from the last couple of times that had happened that she’d need it.
When Mimi glanced up at him, he almost flinched back. She looked … well, feral. Oh, the fact that her hair was standing on end from the electrical discharge wasn’t helping the impression; her ears all but vanishing in the mess, but it was her face that had really changed. Eyes that had suddenly acquired split pupils, teeth that had now sharpened into those of a predator, a slight elongation of the face into something vaguely foxlike as she sighed, seemingly uncaring of the pink-gold blood running down the side of her face from a now-healed cut.
“I think you need a break,” Derek said, flatly. So did he, admittedly, but none of his projects had exploded thus far.
“Fine,” she growled, tone harsher than anything he’d ever heard out of her, then stalked out of the room, leaving Derek behind to look over the mess that was supposed to have become an elemental focus cannon.
The history books had failed to mention how temperamental those things were, on top of all the other issues these things had had.
But the autocannons were finished, sitting up against one wall, the mount around the size of a washing machine, the protruding barrel like two party-sized beer kegs stacked on top of each other.