Vagabonds, crows picking at the carrion on the site of war.  Ingrid barely held her contempt for the scrappers as the ran out, hooting and hollering.  Their services to the Green Knights earned them a stay of indignation, but really - couldn't you show a [i]little[/i] circumstance given to the inevitable?  Seeing fine machines butchered like, as Ingrid would imagine in her most offensive imitation of that certain low-class drawl, "A right dun-hawm bar'buh'cuh wit' all de fixens, bier's fuh free, yee-haw!" did not endear anyone to you.

This was a minor distraction from the real meat of the matter.  Her question was almost redundant, anyway.  She understood what was about to happen, and really, there was some small part of her that understood this as necessary.  They didn't have the facilities to keep prisoners, their enemies weren't the sort to offer ransom, and they wouldn't have been offered the same clemency.  More likely, they'd be tortured until more incriminating soundbites could be pulled out of them.

It still pained her, though.  Logically it made sense, but the core principles of her being had yet to come to terms with it.

[color=SteelBlue]"I see,"[/color] she replied to the Colonel, her tone less adamant or icy than one might expect.  She didn't seem wholly on-board, but acquiescence would be have to be good enough.  [color=SteelBlue]"Understood.  I won't be particularly kind with them."[/color]

Then, she turned her boot about face to look at the rest of the assembled Mechwarriors in the eye, and her shoulders-up back-straight posture suggested that, yes, she was going to speak to them in her position as the Holy Lord of All Honor from whom all martial wisdom flows.  And yet, though she certainly tried to [i]sound[/i] like she was giving an order, her words were a little less preachy than usual.

[color=SteelBlue]"When it comes time and you find it inevitable, give them a [i]fine[/i] death.  They're dogs, and the same couldn't be expected of them, but even miserable street-curs like these Mechwarriors have some unconscious aspiration to being staghounds.  That is to say,"[/color] her posture loosened up slightly, [color=SteelBlue]"do not be sloppy.  Show that you're better than them in the killing blow, even more so than the rest of the engagement.  You hear?"[/color]