[It's a good firm handshake, and Tayrey responds in kind, and also briefly clasps the girl's forearm with her left hand, Tradeline-fashion. Professionalism is absolutely the way to impress her, but it also confirms her thought that the girl should be treated as a soldier, not a child. Tayrey herself would have been deeply ashamed if her seniors hadn't taken her seriously, after all.
Lieutenant-Colonel isn't a Tradeline rank, and she guesses Degurechaff isn't an Earther, given how squeamish most of them seemed to be even about teenage lieutenants like Tayrey is. Somewhere else, then. Planetary militia? Something she mentally files away to question later.]
Well - come stand in the shade, and we'll talk. [She might be cavalier about her own health, but she won't keep anyone standing in the sun for no good reason. She gestures towards the shaded side of a nearby building, and then walks briskly over to it.]
The weather changed very abruptly. The locals believe it's a punishment for resisting what they would call taxation and I would call intimidation and theft. [She calls all taxation theft, but especially that version.] It seems unlikely, on the surface of it, but there could be active climate controls in this region. I don't know enough about bubble universes to be conclusive.
Unfortunately, much of what we have here is incomplete information. The flow of it is tightly controlled by the man in charge, Vaeros. The locals practically worship him. However, they're ineffectual sorts. The worst sort of civilians, yes? No use in a crisis, but no threat to us either.
[It's a succinct explanation, and the truth as she knows it, even if perhaps not the entire truth - but she'd be a fool to immediately trust a stranger with everything.]
no subject
Lieutenant-Colonel isn't a Tradeline rank, and she guesses Degurechaff isn't an Earther, given how squeamish most of them seemed to be even about teenage lieutenants like Tayrey is. Somewhere else, then. Planetary militia? Something she mentally files away to question later.]
Well - come stand in the shade, and we'll talk. [She might be cavalier about her own health, but she won't keep anyone standing in the sun for no good reason. She gestures towards the shaded side of a nearby building, and then walks briskly over to it.]
The weather changed very abruptly. The locals believe it's a punishment for resisting what they would call taxation and I would call intimidation and theft. [She calls all taxation theft, but especially that version.] It seems unlikely, on the surface of it, but there could be active climate controls in this region. I don't know enough about bubble universes to be conclusive.
Unfortunately, much of what we have here is incomplete information. The flow of it is tightly controlled by the man in charge, Vaeros. The locals practically worship him. However, they're ineffectual sorts. The worst sort of civilians, yes? No use in a crisis, but no threat to us either.
[It's a succinct explanation, and the truth as she knows it, even if perhaps not the entire truth - but she'd be a fool to immediately trust a stranger with everything.]