New Edom wrote:Colonel Pahath-Moab shrugged. "If you want to see the road, you'll see the road--but after the briefing with the others. I'm sorry," he added, frank in his gaze, "To seem like I'm obstructing you, but I'm actually not. I realize that you're here to help us clean up a mess, and it's probably not the ideal duty for a ranger officer, though I'm sure you'll do it very well. But you see, we need to make sure everyone's on the same page so no one goes off half cocked. Those fellows with the rifles over there with the lady--that's a perfect example. You didn't plan for them, you don't even want them, and yet here they are. The area we'd be going to will take approximately half an hour's drive if there are no obstructions along the road, so if you'll give us just an hour or so, the briefing can be done, Q&A to follow, and then we can do our recon. I hope that sounds fair."
Fest shrugged. "It's not a problem. I get the concern, but it's just a soldier's instinct to find the nearest enemy and start hitting him; I'm sure you can understand," he said, noting the colonel's uniform. Yah, the mercs'll be an issue, but give 'em some simple task, make it seem vital and difficult, and they'll waste all their time on that."
"But, like you said, I'm here to clean up." He smiled. "And the fastest way to do that, it seems, is to get to this briefing. Shall we?"