Thomas rolled his one eye at Rane's comment about the human race and their pride. But to Thomas, pride wasn't just a bad thing, it was something that had pushed humanity to their limits and driven them out into space. And within 20 years, the human race had become just as strong as other aliens, so who was to give human pride a bad name? 

He didn't get to throw back a reply to Rane as Jason entered the docking bay, ordering the team onto the shuttle as quick as possible. Thomas took one last look at Val and gave her a nod, before he jogged into the shuttle. "Good luck up here, you'll be fine." He didn't know why he said those words, but a rookie always needed some way of assurance from a veteran, even if it was just a sentence. Still, it was better than nothing. 

Thomas took off the big backpack he was wearing and strapped it tight to the shuttle's interior, not repeating the mistake of leaving it unbuckled in a high-speed craft and having it fly all over the shuttle. Darius had already entered the shuttle and was checking what Thomas recognized as a sniper rifle, and not a too shabby one either. Thomas sat down in one of the seats and fastened the seatbelts, looking at Darius and his weaponry. "Good rifle, they sure knew how to make proper weapons back in the day, didn't they? I hope you have thermal-sights on that, won't be easy to see life down there without it, if we run into anything."