The TS-1 ready process had been interrupted by reversion to realspace and subsequent collisions with the debris afloat in the field. Milton had been getting into his gear, black ACU style uniform. It was pretty similar to the fatigues when he'd been in echange with the US Air Force. He'd picked up his mission kit, as well as his translator's kit. It seemed they weren't using him as a lead linguist at least for the moment. That might be subject to change at any time, so he needed to have his tablet and translation software ready to roll. He'd had several manuals piled into his gear as well, small but sufficient to help him stay concurrent and fresh. He didn't have much problem reactivating old languages, but he knew he was going to be calling on several of them frequently for this tour. 

The tablet which was a glorified PDA was more advanced than the gear he'd used with the teams out of Cheyenne, and had built in recording suites and voice analyzers. He could use it as a com-link and a portable lie detector. A couple of other things that were useful, like line tracers, and a few simple tools, sunglasses, radio, compass, pace counter/Ranger beads, binoculars, anda few other things were part of his loadout. He had a small survival kit too, geared for desert, which gave him some paracord, a good fixed blade knife, ferro rod, and a military canvas tarp, canteen, sunscreen, salt tabs. Part of the standard loadout was at least one MRE. Meals Rejected by Everyone weren't Milton's favorite thing, but it beat starving. 

Knowing they would be beaming down to a desert world, he slathered on sunscreen, and changed from the usual baseball style cap to a wide-brimmed boonie hat with vent holes. The idea of going to a sweltering environment wasn't ideal, and he didn't relish it, but the job was the job. After a moment's consideration he added a black shemagh which could protect face and neck, provide more shade and cooling, and had a ton of other uses. Most of everything disappeared into his tactical rig. For weapons he snagged a couple of smoke grenades, a concussion grenade, and a fragmentation grenade. A suppressed FN P90 with holo sight was issued to him with two extra magazines. Typically he preferred a different weapon, usually the H&K MP-7 developed for LAPD S.W.A.T.. It was even smaller than the P-90, and usesd a smaller round that was designed more for penetrating armor. The P-90 was a sweet weapon system though, and it worked well. He was fully rated with it, and could put rounds on target all day. He simply had his own likes. At least by keeping standard weapons compliments, they could share munitions. 

With the impacts to the Tempest tossing people about, causing power surges and secondary structural damage, and secondary internal explosions, he'd been lucky to avoid injury, except for a couple bumps and bruises. He'd been spending his time helping where he could to repair systems. He was no super-tech, but he knew how to wire electronics, and he could take direction. When he was informed it was time to return to mission, he had cleaned his hand soff and headed back. 

It wasn't hard to see some of the nervousness and excitement on the faces of those around him. He could also tell that their Tok'ra advisor was worn down and a little frazzled around the edges. By what he'd heard being passed around the ship, she'd probably saved a number of lives up on the bridge with her healing device. He was thankful for that. Still, his own thoughts were more directed to the operation ahead. 

Materializing on the planet's surface, he held onto the cooler air in his lungs for as long as he could then sighed and took his first breath of hot, dry air. He moved with the rest of the team, sweeping his own gaze out behind his sunglasses. The slight chill that had been clinging to his skin was rapidly being eaten away by the blazing heat. The shade of his hat and the sunglasses made adjusting to the light no problem. When the Sergeant ordered the second element out to the city he took a moment to speak up as they moved toward the wreck. “Sergeant, do we know what the rotational cycle of this planet is,” he asked. That would determine day/night cycles and the last thing they needed was to be out on open desert when nightfall came. It would probably be bitter cold in the city too, but the buildings would radiate heat longer. The derelict they were making their way to would probably be thermally insulated... but that meant it could be an oven, holding the heat in from days of glaring sun, and never quite venting all of it at night... then building up more the next day, and not quite cooling as much as the previous night, until it was worse than a sauna at night and a solar oven during the day. 

At least hydration wasn't an immediate concern, or starvation

The heat was a pain, that was for sure, but he put the discomfort out of his mind as he sub-vocally murmured an old marching cadence to himself. Almost immediately his discomfort left his mind and rote rhythm and routine took over, his body starting to operate with machine-like determination. The body follows the mind, always. 

One bead. One hundred meters. The ranger beads were on a piece of paracord, short, with knotted ends, with plastic beads in olive drab. It had been folded over and knotted with a loop so that it hung from another loop of paracord from one of his zippers. Easy access. One side had four beads, the other had nine. When all nine were expended, he would have walked a kilometer. When the four beads were ticked down to the end knots of the string, that would make five kilometers. It was a decent way of dead reckoning navigation. It was an old habit from the SAS days, a reflex and it had saved his bacon more than once, as well as his buddies. He supposed he could be a cocky sod about it but that would get him nowhere. 

Another hundred meters ticked by, and by now he was positively broiling in his gear, but he couldn't afford to get rid of any of it. Still, it mattered little. “Sergeant... Sir, are we still getting that locator beacon from the derelict? If I can get a hand I might be able to get a lead on deciphering whether it's computer code or something more like an actual language. Might give us more of a heads-up on what we're walking into.”