Veronica Dare

"Orders are orders."

- Captain Dare

Captain Veronica "Dare" is a Company Grade Officer in the UNSC Marine Corps and an operative in the Office of Naval Intelligence. She is the commander of a Shock Trooper squad, and served aboard the heavy cruiser before deploying.

Commanding a squad of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, Dare led them through the insertion into New Mombasa, seemingly in order to capture or destroy the Prophet of Regret's Assault Carrier. She ordered the ODSTs to change course at the last moment so that they could perform a different mission, just as the ship entered slipspace, devastating the city and releasing a large EMP wave.

Speculation
It is noted that an Admiral aboard the referred to her as an "S1 type".
 * Originally, S1 was thought to possibly refer to SPARTAN-I, a program that predated the Human-Covenant War, but she was confirmed by Joseph Staten not to be a Spartan.
 * A probable theory is that "S-1" actually refers to ONI, as Section One is the main intelligence gathering section of ONI and she is an ONI officer.
 * In the modern United States Military, the S1 Officer plays the role of a personnel and administrations officer.

Special Forces Squads, which "Dare" is supposedly commanding, is comprised of around 14 men commanded by a Captain. However, this could have changed within the 500 years between the modern day US Marine Special Operations units and their future UNSC counterparts.

Trivia

 * This Marine is voiced by Tricia Helfer, who is widely known for her portrayal of "Number Six" from Battlestar Galactica. She joins Katee Sackhoff as another Battlestar cast member lending their voice to the Halo games.
 * She wears a special type of armor, which has been shown to be a modified version of the Recon armor for ONI personnel. She is the only ODST on the Squad in Halo 3: ODST so far that is known to wear Recon.
 * A running joke on Bungie.net pokes fun at Dare's Recon helmet, which to some appears disproportionate. However Bungie have said that her helmet is entirely proportionate to her body.
 * Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck addresses Dare by her first name (at least before she insists he call her "Captain"). Their being on a first-name basis suggests some sort of pre-existing relationship before she took command of the Squad.
 * Dare is unlocked for play in Firefight by beating the campaign on Legendary.