The Security officer chuckled at Lena’s jest. It was expected, predictable, but sweet nonetheless. Diego sent an indirect glance at Dr. Laster as she and Lena continued the barbaric back-talk known as sarcasm. It was the vail of the hopelessly stupid, the sword of the hopelessly pretentious. But, it seemed to suit this group fine enough. The hypersleep had already taken it’s toll, as the Highwayman does, leaving them with dull eyes, and even duller wits to boot. 

Yet, the preponderance of such ponderings, made with dull perceptions, could have easily been countermanded by the torrent of [i]character[/i] the XO, Preacher, brought in behind him. John Paul D’Angelo represented the ultimate pride and shame of the Colonial Marines, plus everything in-between. He meant so much to so many people, it was actually quite mind-boggling to even begin parsing out what it all meant. And, the true dilemma was that John was not the only one. Every Marine who had died or suffered to bring humanity so much closer to the stars was a burden to behold. They are the scar that never goes away, the soaring reminder of our ambition and it’s cost. Diego was lost in that bloody mindscape when John came up beside him. He snapped from that world of loss and sorrow and his eyes came to rest on John’s mechanized arm, as if it wanted to pull him back. 

Diego’s dark eyes scanned the XO, from the buzz cut top, to the steel-toed bottom. He watched the bible, which suited the country bumpkin so well Diego could almost laugh, flip open, it’s soft pages fluttering from one fine phrase to the next. Diego took another sip of his coffee when John spoke to him. 

Diego smiled in response, swallowed the coffee in his mouth, and nodded. “Aye, at least this tin can is floating [i]toward something[/i]. I mean, if I woke up in another space station in the next five years I’d probably throw myself out of the fucking air-lock.” Diego whispered to John Paul, ending his grisly joke with another light chuckle. 

While suicide had certainly crossed Diego’s mind before, this particular occasion was purely a joke. That, however, did not mean the statement was vacuous. Diego didn’t want to work for Wey-Yu any longer, not after this job. Over the past decade or so Diego has learned that working for a large organization, like the CIA, or Wey-Yu, or for the Columbian government was never stable. One way or another someone like Diego was a liability, a risk never worth betting on. Wey-Yu probably expected him to die on this mission, just as the CIA had expected that to happen on his last mission. Of course, he had no way of knowing that for sure, but his instincts were on fire, he could practically smell the corpses of Prometheus’ crew from the surface of LV-223.

Diego lifted his mostly empty coffee cup to his lips as Sara responded to the captain. Reddick, that’s where the answer lied. If Diego wanted to know the truth, he was the man to go to. After Diego swallowed the rest of his drink the cup was kept near his mouth for a while longer as he thought of how to approach Reddick, or, in the worst scenario, how he would find this information himself. His hand started to shake, and the coffee cup therein. Diego slammed the cup on the table to stop the shaking, and held his head down; the tittering warmth of embarrassment coursing over his spine, sieging his composure through pure attrition.