Arascus stared at the piece of paper. Fer grinned widely. Kavaa shook her head. Helenna scratched hers. Iniri’s face went pale. Olephia gave two thumbs up. Neneria sighed reflexively. Only Kassandrinned.

  Fer finally spoke. “I’ll do it.”

  “Mikhail has arrived.” Iliyal stood up and grabbed the test report Kassandora had sent as Alee let in the man. It was a review of the Binturong Mark Two, and not a pleasant o that. Mikhail could probably take it, he took her other replies and those used far more… colourful nguage.

  Iliyal looked at the maid, without Arascus about, she had gotten far more unpleasant to deal with. Far mgressive and intrusive, Iliyal had no idea what she liked about him. She stood there, dark eyes watg him and a terrible smile on her face. Arascus sighed and waved her away as Mikhail stepped in. “Wait!” He shouted. “Bring Fleur and Edmonton.” Alee’s smile dropped.

  “And here I thought you wanted some rest.” Iliyal shooed her away with his hands and she disappeared behind the sliding door. Mikhail looked at her, then at Iliyal.

  “She likes you.” He said. Iliyal shook his head and waved for Mikhail to sit oher side of the desk.

  “I know she does.” Iliyal said. “I don’t know why.”

  “An elven general? Ever in his prime? Blessed by Kassandora?” Mikhail said idly. “It’s not hard to put two and two together on what’s going on in her mind.”

  “You’re not here fossip.” Iliyal shut him up and threw Kassandora report at him. “Here’s a reply to what to y BM2. Kassandora wao re to SPA, self-propelled artillery.”

  “Not hard to do.” Mikhail unbuttohe top button of his white shirt. He had e in a suit, the man was travelling first css everywhere at this point, he had to look the part, although it was obvious he didn’t like the formal dress Sara had designed for him. His expression dropped when he opehe page. It rinted copy of what he had written, with red text in Kassandora’s handwriting marking almost every page.

  Binturong Mark Two. – This is a Binturong Mark 0.5

  Armour: 15mm of Steel alloy – Why are we going heavier? This is a le on, it doesn’t o be armoured this much.

  Speed: 24km/h – The M1 is slow enough at 40. Why have we made this slower?

  Seven gears – The M1 already has enough trouble with fears. You’ve made it slower and added even mears and points of failure.

  Range: 30 Kilometres – Good.

  Fuel range: 180 Kilometres – I fot we have a travelling gas station with us.

  Autoloader: You’ve increased the minimum crew to five aill added whatever the fuck this is. The Binturong ot keep up maximum rate of fire when it’s manually loaded. What is the point in this?

  Thireads – Is there a reason for this? Why ge what isn’t broken?

  Gss driver’s window - The hardened pstic is good enough and it doesn’t shatter. Don’t use gss.

  You’ve made something worse in every way, with more points of failure and plicated meisms that are proo failure. You are to put a big gun on the back of a truck. That’s it. Searg years for a “perfect” is worse than having a “good enough” now.

  “Kassandora likes it I see.” Mikhail said as he turhe page. Even more red here.

  “She wants something simple, this is why I called you. She called me and told me to drill it into your head. A on on a truck. Lightly armoured and fast. It doesn’t need full rotation, we have ammunition trucks so it doesn’t need an internal ste. We need something that is fast.” Iliyal thought for a moment. The engineer o uand in a way that engineers uood.

  “So this is too specialized then?” Iliyal heard two swords csh in his head, they made a spark, and that spark turned on a lightbulb.

  “Light artillery.” That was the nguage. Then he caught himself, they had light artillery in the past, he didn’t want mortars that had a range of a few kilometres. “The light version, of heavy artillery. Uood?”

  “Not really.” Mikhail said.

  “This is heavy artillery.” Iliyal tapped the diagram of the Binturong design. “We need a version of this that is lighter. Think about it like this, this is used for sieging Olympiada, now we need field artillery to be used to support battles. Things that quickly du and out of cover, things that don’t matter if they’re destroyed because their repceable.”

  “So you don’t want a Binturong then?” Mikhail asked.

  “Not a Binturong.”

  Mikhail Ash leaned bad cpped his hands. “You should have said so earlier! We have several designs for new models. The only reasoried this was because you said you wao redesign the Binturong.”

  “The factories in Arika are going to be building this chassis.” Iliyal said.

  “Then it’s the factories or the design. Something has to be ged.” Iliyal sighed. He got a bottle of whiskey out from underh the desk and poured the two of them a drink. It was as much a pleasaure as it was for ter. Iliyal always needed a drink when writing a report to Kassandora retly, she back as the Goddess of War, and War demanded and took and burned whatever it touched.

  “I’ll tact Kassandora then.” Iliyal said. “But that’s for ter, you submit the designs, but we have a ge of pns.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s more up your alley. We need guns.”

  “We have a new version of the Ash. Better, we used the Binturong design, it’s rapid fire.”

  “Guns for beastmen. I’ve sent a team to Kira already you use for testing, but they have to travel on foot.” There was no reason to expin why, the beastmen were bei secret. They couldn’t just ride a phere’ll be there a few days after you return.”

  “Guns for beastmen?”

  “Go fug crazy with them.” Iliyal said.

  “Excuse me?” Iliyal raised his and Mikhail ked his. He took a small sip.

  “Whatever you want, sider these prototypes for a human army. I’m going to send elves in a month, I want le onry for them.”

  “Guns are le.”

  “I meant sniper rifles.”

  “I see.” Iliyal smiled “And the beastmen?”

  “Anything and everything, they’ll talk with you there. Beastmen prefer things easy to use that be used as clubs too. But go crazy, fuck, make a napalm gun if you .”

  “We already have a design for a fmethrower.”

  “Then stick it on a minotaur. Mikhail, we’re outfitting a warherd that will make the world shake in fear. Anything and everything you think of, do it.” Mikhail smiled and took another sip.

  “That’s wonderful news.”

  “I have some bad oo.”

  “Oh?”

  “Arascus requested half yineers. Not the gunsmiths, choose ohat work with engines and so on. You’re on perma gun duty.” Mikhail’s smile got only wider.

  “I thought you just said you had bad news.”

  “Well it’s news iher way.”

  “I’m a on designer, not a meic, this is excellent news.”

  “Well at least one of us are happy then.” Iliyal replied and then looked at Mikhail again. He was grinning wide, smiling with the thought that he was allowed to do anything he wished to do as long as it armed the beastmen. “They’ll need armour too.”

  “Oh?”

  “Not steel, something more… I don’t know. I just thought of it. But if you , it’d be grand.”

  “Armour isn’t my domain.” Mikhail said.

  “I’ll look around then.” Iliyal said. Holy, he preferred this answer. It was better to simply deny than to make a mess and then have Iliyal up after.

  “That’s everything, you’re free to go.”

  “Short meeting.”

  “There was little to say, take the reports.” Mikhail o the paper oable.

  “I’ll send the prototype designs, pie, I’ll think of a oo.” Iliyal rolled his eyes. It would be something terrible again. What sort of name was Binturong anyway? Mikhail stood up, tapped the papers oable to get them into one blod saluted. Iliyal dismissed him with his own salute and the ma. Alee was already outside. With Fleur and Edmonton there.

  Alee was wearing her bck maid dress. Fleur was in vicious purple, Edmonton in a bd white suit that made him look ready for a business meeting. Alee led them in, saw the unfinished gss of whiskey and picked it up. “That’s Ash’s” Her smirk dropped, she put it down, picked up Iliyal’s and drank his. “That’s aable offence.” Iliyal said ftly.

  “I bet you’d love to execute me.”

  “I fug would.”

  “Oh really?” She raised an eyebrow, her tone low and sultry. “You want to-“

  Edmonton interrupted her with a cough. Fleur crossed her arms and spoke. “Alright lovebirds, what do you want?”

  “I wanted you two, privately.” Iliyal narrowed his eyes at Alee. The maid rolled her eyes a.

  “Cssic.” Edmonton said.

  “You should just sleep with her already.” Fleur added her own smart ent. Iliyal felt a vein pop in his neck.

  “If I wanted retionship advice, I have access to the Goddess of Love thank you very much.” Iliyal said. “Now, I brought you in to tell you what you twoing to be doing.”

  “And that is?”

  “I’m sending you back to Arcadia.”