Rick never expected "bad news" to look so beautiful.

The window - small and fragile-looking despite the strength he knew it had - looked out onto a courtyard, part of the mining center visible snaking off to the right and curling around the rocks. The entire left half of the view was taken up by a cliff face, the ground dropping away sharply. No birds occupied the sky like on Earth and no trees obscured the view, leaving them with a perfect snapshot of the beauty of an alien world.

It was beautiful… but there was nothing to merit Jesus's response, nothing to explain why they had been pulled away from the defense of the colony to stare at pretty pictures. Rick's patience was already stretched - as if the constant adrenaline surge mixing his own panic of they're back, we're screwed, we're dead with his attempts to keep the others calm wasn't enough, he had to deal with Jesus, who he still didn't trust and probably never would - so it was just the final straw.

With that in mind, he turned back, eyeing Jesus with no attempt to temper the impatient bitchiness in his tone as he snarked, "That's very pretty, Jesus, but what are you trying to show me?"

Jesus didn't seem to notice his annoyance, staring placidly out the window. The one reaction he gave was to reach out and point, drawing Rick's attention back to the landscape just as a flare of bright light shot out, rising feet into the sky and casting bright blue-ish-purple light over the rocks. "There." He paused, taking a step back and letting some of the other marines step in. "Emergency venting."

Merle slid into the place Jesus had just vacated, looking out the window just as the flare died down, voice a convoluted mix of genuine and bitterly sarcastic. "That's beautiful." He snorted and turned, walking past the others with muttering, "Oh, man, that- that's-" until they faded away with distance.

Dixon had turned away from the window to watch his brother, but he looked back out, then glanced at Jesus. "How long till it blows?

Jesus raises his hands from his side slightly, appropriately cruciform given his name. The shrug fell as he settled on an estimate of, "Four hours?" Dixon snorted, worrying his nail with his teeth as he contemplated the new information. Jesus didn't seem inclined to minimize the news, either, adding on, "With a blast radius of 30 km. Equal to about 40 megatrons."

Dixon snorted again, voice sardonic as he grunted out a, "We got problems." He turned to walk away, the conflict clouding his eyes visible even in the dim lighting.

Merle's frenetic pacing brought him closer to the group, still muttering under his breath. Rick could just make out a frantic, "...believe this. I don't fucking believe this!" before the man was gone again, disappearing for another pass down the hall.

Rick's head wasn't working right, wasn't piecing things together fully. He barely registered Dixon getting Vasquez to close the shutters, barely noticed the slight jostling of moving bodies as she complied. He was far too concerned with the memory of that flare, of that light casting such a beautiful - and such a dangerous - shine across the rocks. His thoughts were sluggish, still caught in the repetition of this too? and how do we fix this? to notice the window's shutter slipping closed.

Dixon continued walking away, Jesus following in his role as the ever-present advisor, and Rick finally snapped back to the present to hurry after them. "Why can't we just… Why can't we just shut it down from here?"

Jesus shook his head, expression surprisingly contrite for something synthetic. "I'm sorry, but the crash caused too much damage. An overload was… well, it was inevitable."

Merle had come closer - surprisingly quiet for the man's perpetual combination of bluster and panic - but he started up again at the words, voice surprisingly quiet despite the fear edging them. "Oh, man… I was gettin' short, too! Four more weeks 'n out, and now, now I'm gonna buy it on this rock, and I'm-"

Rosita rolled her eyes, shouldering him slightly as she shoved past. "Merle, just give us a damn break."

He didn't, ignoring her as he ran his hands over his face. "Four more weeks, man, just fou-"

Rick didn't let him finish. "We've got the other dropship, yeah? Could we, uh… There must be some way to bring it down remotely, right?"

Merle stepped in, leaning in from the outskirts with annoyance bordering on anger. "How, Officer Friendly? Th' transmitter was on the APC, case ya forgot. It's wasted." He laughed, stepping back with a cold smirk. "Should remember that, Friendly, since ya wasted it."

"Well, I don't care how, but we better think of something! I know there's a way; there has to be." Rick pulled himself back from ranting at Merle; he wasn't in charge and, even if he were, panic clouded the mind, so Merle was doubly not the person to address. Instead, he turned to Dixon, ready to appeal to him…

But Merle wasn't one to be ignored and interrupted first, his now-familiar shouting filling the hall. "Think of what, man? We're fucked!"

Rick had already opened his mouth to interrupt when Dixon did it for him, an exhausted-sounding, "Shut up, Merle" that somehow made its way through the varied sounds filling the hall.

Merle didn't listen, still whining about something, the words "We're doomed-" sounding at top volume and drowning out his brother.

Drowning out his brother until Dixon shoved him backwards with a shouted "Shut up" that went directly against the man's usual laconic nature, shocking Merle into silence despite the fear still raging in his eyes. A pause ensued, everyone silenced in one fell swoop, everything quiet save the rattling thuds of walkers that still beat against the door from so far away. Dixon had started the pause and, in the end, he was the one who interrupted it, back to his usual quiet tone as he asked, "What's with th' colony transmitters? Uplink tower?"

Jesus shook his head. "No, I checked. The hardware between there and here was damaged. We can't align the dish."

Rick looked back towards the window, thinking. That hope that had filled him until then, stubbornly clinging to the idea that we can get through this fizzled out, replaced with the grim feeling of scrambling to catch up. They were behind and, as much as he only wanted to worry about what needed to be done, half of his mind was concerned with what would happen.

Eventually, he schooled himself back to rationality (however tentative and borderline said rationality might be) and turned back to the others. "Then, uh… Someone's gonna have to go out there. We've got portable terminals; we just gotta patch in manually, yeah?"

Dixon's recrimination clearly didn't shut his brother up long. He was first to speak, gesturing so widely towards the window that he nearly hit one of the room's other occupants. "Oh, yeah, sure! With those abominations runnin' around?" He looked around at the others, mouth held tight with displeasure. He looked like he considered the others insane for even contemplating it, eventually settling on, "You can count me out, man!"

"Yeah, guess we c'n just count ya out of everythin', huh?" Dixon had straightened, shoulders back and head held confrontationally high, but Rick could see his frustration and exhaustion. He could see dark circles under his eyes, the tights set of his mouth, the ways his hands were clenched at his sides and his eyes narrowed at his brother, all of it hidden behind the stance of a fighter positioned for defense.

Jesus said something, but it was drowned out by Merle's unapologetic, "Yeah, that's right, man." His eyes were meeting his brother's, some kind of communication going on between them, but Merle was refusing to back down.

Jesus tried again, and Rick could just hear the slight outline of the words, something along the lines of "I'll go." Merle was speaking again - still more confrontation with his brother, antagonistic and loud and brash, but meaningless beyond that - and Rick couldn't even follow it because what the hell was Jesus up to? He knew he was biased against the synthetic - artificial person, but sue him - because of the damn Governor, but this? Volunteering for a dangerous mission? That was just too damn unexpected. He must have made it up, misheard or something.

Except, no, because then Jesus says it again, louder and clearer and in far more silent conditions. "I'll go," uttered simply like he isn't completely subverting everything Rick had thought about him.

"What?" Rick didn't quite realize he'd spoken until he heard his own voice echoing in the room, but he stood by the question and didn't take it back.

Jesus shrugged. "I'll go. I mean, I'm the only one qualified to remote pilot the ship anyway."

Dixon looked unhappy at the suggestion, but Merle leaped onto it, grabbing it with both figurative hands and running with it. "You're right, man!" He turned from Jesus to Dixon, grinning widely. "Jesus should go! Good idea!"

Rick turned to Jesus - vaguely, he was aware of Dixon doing the same, but his conscious mind was focused on can we trust him, why is he doing this, can this work - and looked the man over. He couldn't read him well, couldn't quite see whether what he was saying was genuine, but he was inclined to trust him (and wasn't that odd… Rick Grimes, trusting a damn synthetic).

In the end, though, the matter was settled with Jesus giving a small nod of reassurance. "I'll do it." He paused, then went on. "Believe me, I prefer not to." He cracked a smile, slightly unnatural, but almost the visage of a normal person. "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid."