Deli gaped at Mike for a painfully long moment, instinct alone keeping her from dropping her smuggled stash of gummy bears as a flush comparable to sunburn crept from her neck and up into her hairline.

"I...uh...no, I -- "

And then Pauline, her new and very best friend Pauline, rescued her with about the only other thing that could have pulled Deli's attention at the moment. She perked at the mention of the rockets in the hangar -- she'd planned on taking all day tomorrow (with her mother's old MP3 player and six hours worth of Celine Dion) to catalog what they had aboard, her own knowledge of, ahem, [i]assembly[/i] excluded. All at once, the dumbstruck civilian was gone, replaced by a demolitionist only a few would recognize, for better or for worse...albeit a more...[i]passionate[/i] demolitionist than most.

"[i]Guay![/i]" Deli explained, leaning over Pauline's tablet so suddenly, it was a wonder she didn't break the poor girl's nose. "Sorry!" she added quickly, meeting blue eyes with her green for the briefest second before returning all her attention to the screen the other had procured. "Is that a -- " she started again, then stepped back as a technicolor projection turned her hair, face, and shoulders into a slow-spinning cosmos. 

"[i]Guay[/i]," she whispered again, too reverent to even realize she was speaking. She watched in quiet, earnest fascination, apparently speechless for the first time all day, as the candy splintered like stain glass, tumbling away into the darkness. When it was done, Deli was still gaping, all wide-eyed and stunned in silence that went well-beyond appreciative, straight into worship...but the newfound glee had nothing (or almost nothing) to do with Army Astronaut Mike. 

She resisted the very, very strong urge to throw her arms around Pauline. 

"You [i]made[/i] that?" she demanded, incredulous. "Just now? With the VT? And the [i]candy[/i]? Can you do more? Like the old GBU beta models and...and...and that tank thing Astronaut Mike was talking about? Can you change the atmospheric conditions, too? Or use unstable explosives? Not on purpose, of course, just...y'know, worse case scenario. My dad told me once they started developing those plastic casings at the turn of the century because old low explosive devices were all based on charcoal and potassium [i]nitrate[/i], if you can believe that. I dunno why anyone would use anything so basically nonreactive, I mean people use to [i]eat[/i] that stuff -- "

She realized she was rambling and straightened abruptly in what would have been a decidedly self-conscious movement in anyone else. Mildly embarrassed, but still too excited to care, she offered a sheepish smile to both Pauline and Mike, before tilting her head inquisitively at the latter. 

"So...Mike," she began tentatively, though much less so than pre-gummy-bear-explosion, "what do [i]you[/i] do here? And how do you guys already know each other?"