Alpha Drop – Temporary waypoint

Unknown Alien Structure

Coordinates Unknown

Dune walked through the now roughly constructed base, christened Alpha Drop. Since the initial contact with the Covenant when they first touched down, there had been no sign of the Covenant forces that were assumedly occupying the other half of the structure. This fact struck Dune as odd. He knew that sooner or later they would show up to remove him and his rag tag team from this rock.

"Sir," Corporal Tolsky said as he rain up next to Dune and saluted, "Captain North is waiting to talk to you in your office."

"Alright," Dune replied without looking at the corporal, "go check on Flynn and Wolowicz of my team on top of the plateau over there."

As Tolsky trotted off, Dune went in the opposite direction towards his office. The interior was little more than a tent and some steel girders holding it up. Dune walked in and went to the terminal, taken from his drop pod. He pressed a few buttons and soon Captain North's face appeared on the screen.

"Dune," she said, peering at him through the screen from the arm of her captain's chair aboard the Prime Meridian, "how are things down there?"

"Uneventful," he reported, "surprisingly, the Covvies haven't come to play at all since the initial firefight earlier."

"That's a little odd," Laura said contemplatively.

She sat in thought for a second before continuing.

"Well, odd or not, your orders are to take the fight to them."

"Just what I've been hoping for," Dune said chuckling.

Suddenly the screen changed from the captain's face to a rough schematic of the asteroid.

"You and your team are to go around the structure in the middle of the asteroid and scout out the area and the Covenant fortifications. Once you've got the lay of the land down, you're to plan an invasion in which you and the ground forces can get in and try to take their prophet. If you can't take the prophet hostage, kill him. Either way, we've officially gained a bargaining chip against the Covenant, a holy place, and, or, one of their religious leaders."

"Understood sir," Dune said, "that's it, a little alien smash and grab?"

"That's it," North replied.

"Well sir, permission to speak freely?" he requested.

"Granted."

"I thought you were actually going to assign something hard."

"To most people, sergeant, this would be," Captain North replied with a smirk, and then cut off her end of the screen.

She knew that there were only a few reasons why the Covenant hadn't attacked yet. They either lacked the force to do so, which was highly unlikely considering that they decided to land and "fortify" this station, or they were waiting to mass their forces and destroy the humans all at once. Neither one was a savory thought. Down on the ground Dune pondered the same thoughts.

They must be massing their troops, he thought, getting ready for their strike

He assumed that the Covenant would, as per usual, be ready to take the offensive, as they usually did. Backing down from a fight wasn't in Covenant nature, and as they had already done so multiple times in the air due to their prophet's commands, it was doubtful they would do it again on the ground now that the elites were in charge. Dune turned his radio to his team's frequency.

"Alright helljumpers, get your asses to my office, we have a mission briefing in 5 minutes," he barked through the radio.

Consecutive yes sirs were heard coming back through the radio from each member of Dune's team. It was finally time for the helljumpers to do what they came to the ground to do, take the fight to the Covenant.