This explanation makes temporal meddling look straightforward by comparison. She has a dozen questions - but whether this person is Palamedes Sextus or not, they're right about the issue of time. Prioritize, Tayrey. You're good at that.

She doesn't move. She speaks quickly. 'If you are who you say you are, you'll know exactly why I won't go meekly into captivity. I don't trust that this ship's commander will be civil and negotiate instead of keeping me here and torturing me.' Any automatic deference for rank that the young woman carried with her from the Tradelines had long since been lost on the Serena Eterna. No trusting to the honor or rationality of strangers from strange universes, whatever they called themselves.

Holding up a hand of her own, she carries on, confidently. 'Here's my idea. I shut that door with the two of us on the better side of it. If your Smoky or his colleagues bother us, I take them down.' This she says with a little twitch of her energy pistol. 'We get to the hangar- no, this ship won't have a hangar bay. Too small. An emergency shuttle? It must have at least one. That's why I'm here, yes? To rescue you? So let's go. You can explain the rest when we're out.'