"For the time being, you'll be under my direct command Lieutenant. You'll need a new designation, Noble-6 no longer works, for obvious reasons, and on the off-chance that someone picks up our communications. For now, you'll be known as Pharaoh-1, and your pilot will be Pharaoh-2, understand?"

Lieutenant Cassian, no longer Noble-6, snapped a crisp salute, "Understood sir." At this point he'd been called so many different titles it barely even registered, just a new name for the same old work.

Now he stood in the hangar bay waiting for orders, sitting upon a stack of crates and checking his weapons for the umpteenth time. Admiral Montinaro had simply told him to wait in the hangar until his pilot arrived, until then, he could be reliving his memories of bootcamp and weapon assembly. His mind went into autopilot as he disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled the SRS 99C Anti-Material Rifle in front of him, despite his hatred of doing nothing, this process was almost meditative in a way.

"Is this all you plan on doing while we wait Lieutenant?" Kara questioned, it would still take some time to get used to her… speaking, but the innumerable benefits outweighed whatever minor discomfort he felt.

"Nothing else to do, just waiting to get back to the fight."

She was silent for a brief moment, "Is fighting all that interest you?"

His hands briefly paused during his assembly before he quickly went back to work, "I'd hesitate to call it an interest, but it's all I know. At this point it seems that without it, I get anxious, but I never enjoyed it like Emile did."

"Emile-A239 correct? He was a valiant warrior; his ferocity and bravery will be missed."

Cassian adjusted the stock of the SRS and put it down next to him, he sighed and stared out across the hangar. "He will, surprisingly enough I felt I was closest to him out of all of Noble Team, always said I spoke too much like a 'spook', he wasn't wrong though." Cassian's work had always been under ONI jurisdiction, and as such he rarely ever interacted with those outside of the shadowy organization, this meant his speech was more formal than the typical grunts of the UNSC.

"Man look at that oversized tin-can, you freaks so lonely that you have to talk to yourselves?" Cassian sighed and looked up to see who had interrupted his 'conversation', but he already had a feeling he knew who it was, ODSTs. His suspicions were confirmed when he looked up to see a trio of the obsidian-clad special forces standing in front of him, he usually worked alone but he wasn't naïve, he knew about the animosity between the ODST's and Spartans. In the field, the two of us could work together flawlessly, but when the fighting stopped? Well, it wasn't unusual for things to get heated.

"What do you think of our odds scrapheap? Three on one ain't bad right?"

Cassian tilted his head to face the group of ODSTs, their leaders face reflecting in his visor, "Normally I'd say that three ODSTs would have a decent chance, but you guys? You're probably better suited to gang-up on a grunt. He heard Kara laugh and mention something about being surprised that he still had some humor, but the trio was clearly not as entertained. Thankfully any further trouble was stopped by a staff sergeant, Cassian wasn't one to start trouble, but it would've taken far more than a few of them to take him on.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing you bunch of used tampons? Not only are you bunch of fucking rookies fresh out of training for the Urals, but you dumb motherfuckers don't even know who this guy is? You may have been some hotshots in Force Recon, but far as I'm concerned, you just finished suckin' off your mama's titties. When you survive your first drop, then you can call yourself a Bullfrog, am I clear?" The man screamed his throat raw, a chorus of embarrassed 'yessirs' followed before the man turned to Cassian. "Sorry bout that Lieutenant, but those boys were basically glorified latrine queen before they finished their training. Glad to see you made it out of New Alexandria alive, spartan or not, you helped a lot of people."

It was now that the pieces in his mind began to fall in place, the staff sergeant was one of the Bullfrogs he'd met up with during the siege. They'd barely even talked, but soldiers passed by so fast that meeting even a vaguely familiar face was also a pleasant sight. "Staff Sergeant McCarthy, nice to see you in one piece." they clasped hands in a firm shake.

SSGT McCarthy chuckled, "It'll take more than some primal apes to take me out, despite everything we managed to keep casualties to a minimum. Did you ever manage link back up with your squad?"

Cassian hummed, "Didn't last long though." The older man nodded in understanding before clapping him on the shoulder.

"Listen, my opinion of Spartans ain't much different from the others, but losing a team is never easy, and I don't know about anyone else but you're alright in my books. You need anything, come ask me, I'll see what I can do." Cassian gave a curt nod, with that the staff sergeant turned and went back to directing the fresh blood. Barely a second had passed before a new guest had appeared, "You Pharaoh-1?" Cassian turned his head to see a rather wry and young-looking man casually standing next to him, he had swept back dark brown hair and a pair of aviators resting atop his forehead.

"Aren't you popular today."

He ignored Kara's remark, "What do you think?" Cassian responded dryly.

"Well I figured that there's probably only one augmented super soldier aboard this ship, specifically waiting in this hangar for me, but man it would've been awkward if I got the wrong guy. Better safe than sorry, besides what do you say to the man that can snap you in half like an uncooked spaghetti noodle." The man shrugged and started walking to a pelican across the hangar, Cassian equipped his gear and followed suit. "Names Ivan Yokovich, Petty Officer. You got a name?"

"Pharaoh-1."

"Whoa, how crazy that your name is also your callsign, your parents must've really hated you." Cassian sighed; this was going to be a long trip. They boarded the pelican and Ivan went into the cockpit, continuing to talk about some inane topic, while Cassian stowed his gear for drop. He heard the pilot running through his pre-flight check up but tuned out the noise and went over a mental checklist in his head for everything he'd need. The pelican's recognizable shaking and rumbling as it prepared to drop was a comfortable familiarity to him, for the first time since he was alone on Reach, he'd finally started to feel at ease, and for the first time in quite a while, he started the conversation first, "Kara, you know any good jokes?"