Joshua felt the truck lurch underneath him, his arms shooting out to keep his seated form from toppling over. His back was pressed by the deceleration onto the smooth metal of the Suit behind him, the cool steel a comfort in the sweltering desert heat. He mentally thanked fortune for his seat under the tarp for the thousandth time, overjoyed to be out from the burning hot sun. As his back pushed into the metal, the computer on his lap pushed into his stomach, its glowing green-tinted screen the only light under the shadow of the tarp.

His fingers didn't stop their dance across the keys, despite the uncomfortable stop. He trusted the technicians, sure, but being stuck on this long trek to a surrender that still galled him, he needed to find something to occupy himself with, and ensuring the erasure of pertinent data had seemed like a good investment of his time. He may be surrendering to the Feds, but that didn't mean he had to like it, and it certainly didn't mean he had to make life easy for them.

Unfortunately for Joshua, one can only make sure the same data is deleted for so long, and by now he had long since exhausted his modest computational knowledge and was just making work for himself. With one last wipe of the navigational computer, he extricated himself from the truck bed and exposed himself to the outside for the first time in hours.

It was not a pleasant experience. Earth was magnificent, and needed to be preserved at all costs, but Joshua found it hard to feel connected to this blasted, forsaken wasteland. He was still not quite used to the heat, for one, and though he had learned early that sunscreen was a soldier's best friend, he had not gotten used to the burning on his arms and neck. His olive sleeves were rolled up, his booted feet sank ever so slightly into the blistering sands, impeding his walk towards the gaggle of soldiers gathered around the front of the transport.

He approached the group, hungry for some sort of interaction and eager to take his unoccupied mind off surrender, he made his way towards the short frame of Lieutenant Tyranne, stopping just behind the man before he spoke, his voice raspy from disuse and dust accumulation. 

"Enjoying the trip, Tyranne?"