Aboard UNSCS Destroyer Iris

Slipspace travel, undisclosed location away from Earth in accord w/ Cole Protocol

08:54 hrs 3.5.2550 (Military Standard Calendar)

Running, that's all they were doing. Running from the Covenant, running from imitate doom, running…like hell. Gauge Hawk was one of the runners, in fact, so was the whole roster of the Iris. Their doomed, yet valiant defense of the so called "Last Outer Colony" of Rome IX was over, Rome IX was glassed over graves now, and its defense force, 80 percent of which had been called to defend the Inner Colonies and Earth, had been vaporized, save the Iris.

While running was the most logical option, Gauge had learned a great deal about running in basic training, one thing that applied now was: you can't run forever, while you can train to run miles and miles, you can't run forever. And as such, another applied here: you will have to stop, and either fight, celebrate, or try harder next time depending on the circumstances.

Gunnery Sergeant Gauge sat bored just as all the ODST's in the Cafeteria. Nearly the whole crew was either at their stations or in the Cafeteria because it was one of the few places of the ship that still had atmosphere and structural integrity. A worn out looking lieutenant, his uniform ruffled and wrinkled, bags below his eyes, pale skinned, and his hat, just slightly askew, he looked as he should after the long battle and at least 27 hours awake. Gauge actually knew the lieutenant; he had been friends with him in high school, Marcus was his first name, but Gauge couldn't recall his last name. Nonetheless, he must have recognized Gauge's name and face because he went over and talked to Gauge personally instead of calling him out.

"Hey, old buddy, long damn time no see. Good to see you're still alive." Marcus said as he punched Gauge's armored shoulder

"No fuckin' kiddin'" Gauge chuckled.

"Hey, man, I'd love to reminisce on times past, but I got limited time to get back to my station, but anyway, the Captain would like to see you ASAP, if you'd like I can show you the way to the bridge."

"Sure."

On the way to the bridge, Gauge and Marcus had some time to reminisce on their years in high school; it was a good comic relief to the stressful situation at hand. Upon arriving at the bridge Marcus tried to straighten his uniform for the Captain and Gauge decided he could care less about the Captain and did nothing to his battle scarred armor, or to the blood on his face or the mud in his sandy blonde hair. Like hell if he was going to get obsessed about looks just for some pompous old starship captain. As they turned the corner he regretted his decision. There was an attractive female officer who looked to be about his age standing in front of the main readout screen, her hand reached up to adjust something, or key in some number. She had long elegant fingers, and she was about 5'10" and slender, but not anorexic, her hair was cut slightly shorter than shoulder length and was a sun bright natural blonde.

Marcus stood at attention, and Gauge, forgetting a lot of manners and training was about to ask the woman where the captain was. But, just as he inhaled and began to speak, she turned around and he saw the shimmer of polished double stars and bars on her sleeve; she was the captain. Gauge suddenly drew to swift attention.

"Thank you lieutenant, return to your station." She said to Marcus. She spoke with an Australian accent that was just enough that you automatically knew it was real. Normally, Gauge would have known the captain, at least his or her name, of the ship he was on but this time he had simply been herded on to the Iris, in an attempt to get the hell out of Doge, or Rome IX. Gauges eyes darted to her name plate on her breast, it read Valor. Nameplates always displayed last names though, he wondered at her first. He quickly diverted his gaze, so as seeming not to stare at that part of her anatomy, which was tempting, considering the perfect shape of her breasts, as well as how their size seemed to be in perfect proportion with her body. He looked back up into her too light green eyes, and wondered if they'd been bio-colored like his, but he doubted it, she seemed too natural. Her eyes seemed to look deeper into him than his eyes could look into her, it was almost scary. Gauge wondered how she felt looking into his one emerald colored eye and his other dirt colored eye.

"Gunnery Sergeant Gauge Jamie Hawk, first off, I'd like to welcome you to my ship. Secondly, I'd like to discuss the matter of your combat record."

"Ma'am, permission to speak freely?"

"Granted."

"If you'll excuse me I don't believe now is the best time to be dragging me back over the coals about those little blunders on Tetra, New Pluto, or aboard the UNSCS Stephen Hawking."

She smiled at Gauge, anyone could tell that her face was free of make up and had probably always been and always will be. Her high cheekbones hinted at some Native American in her bloodlines and her face was a perfectly between round and gaunt, her lips were thin but not too thin and her eyes were proportionate to the rest of her face as was her Roman nose. Her complexion was that of someone whose tan was fading a little unevenly. "Hummph, I didn't expect you to be so negative. You have a leader's service record, the higher brass might not see it like that, but regardless, you seem to be the answer to a dilemma I have. You see, you are the highest ranking ground soldier I have on this ship, but so are four other people. Our scanners have picked up a Covenant outpost on an M-class planet not too far from here, I figure, we can't run forever, so we'll go out with a fight. In other words, we're gona blow it all to hell. But I need a commanding officer on the ground, and after looking over all the Gunnery Sergeants, I thought you were the best choice, so are you interested…lieutenant." She finished with a wink and then with drew a singe star and bar from her breast pocket, Gauge now noticed the number of medals that adorned her uniform, put simply, it was a lot. Gauge drew back his lips in a mischievous smile that he'd mastered when he was a teenager always trying to get girls. He hoped that it still worked on his 26 year old face.

He reached over and took the star and bar from the captain, but she held on for a split second, Gauge was glad he had taken off his gloves, or it would have been hard to grip the brass piece. While they played a miniature game of tug of war, they looked into each other's eyes, and then smiled, then she released her grip of the emblem and Gauge took it and pinned it on to a place where his armor was broken at a shoulder joint and put the pin through the fabric. "Yes, I'm very interested, Captain."

"In that case, get ready; we'll be in orbit in three hours."

"Yes Ma'am." Gauge said with a dubious smile. Then he walked off to head back down to ready his men for combat, one thing He would not tell them is that it'd would almost certainly be their last, but then again, every mission had that potential.