Alpha Drop – Temporary Waypoint

Unknown Alien Structure

Coordinates Unknown

Dune and company all seated themselves around the command tent. After getting back from their mission each had been given a bit of downtime to recuperate from their miscellaneous injuries. Mike's arm was in a sling to take stress off of his injured arm. After everyone had settled around the tent Dune picked up a remote and pressed a button. The monitor next to him flickered on and showed some of the footage of the clearing under the covenant ship.

"I'm sure you all remember this place," Dune said pointing his thumb at the screen. " In case you forgot, it's more or less the entire reason we're here in the first place. We're supposed to either capture a prophet, or destroy the Covenant occupation forces so that this 'holy place' of theirs becomes humanity's bartering chip. Now, how we plan to do this is going to be somewhat interesting."

Dune pressed a button on the remote and the screen changed to a topographical map of the area around the covenant ship.

"Here's how this is going down. Wolowicz, Davis and Flynn will make up one group, Group A, including a small roster of marines who are going to be under your command. Wolowicz, you're in command of this group, but if you're injury proves to be too much for combat, Davis has the right to remove you from action if need be. The other group, Group B, will be comprised of myself, Hunt, and Giles and another small group of marines."

Two X's appeared on the screen.

"Group A will be stationed here."

Dune pointed towards one of the X's on the monitor.

"Group B will be here," Dune said pointing towards the other X on the screen. "Group B will charge in and make some noise to draw the covenant out."

As Dune said this the X that stood for Group B moved in from the edge of the woods to a spot underneath the Covenant ship.

"Once a good sized group of the Covenant come out to play I'll signal in Group A who will back us up by coming in and overwhelming the Covenant force who won't be ready for a sudden wave of reinforcements."

Once again one of the X's began to move. This time the X representing Group A came to meet up with the other X joining to make one larger X.

"Once we're done with cleaning up the welcoming committee, we'll move inside the ship via the gravity lift."

Suddenly the X disappeared the entire screen went black then flickered back with what looked like a rough schematic of a Covenant ship.

"This map is courtesy of the few excursions that have been made into Covenant ships. From this point we'll be going in further to try to get the Prophet while the marines hold onto our exit. We'll take this path to what we believe is the bridge of the ship."

The screen highlighted a path through the Covenant ship.

"From there we'll escort the Prophet out and back to Alpha Drop. If things go wrong, the marines will have the Prime Meridian's only tactical nuke, which they'll use to destroy the ship, leaving the structure for us to take as our own. If things go right, we'll set it to explode and leave so that we get the Prophet and the structure. That's pretty much it. Any questions?"

The monitor went to black as the group shook their heads.

"Alright, here's your rosters, assemble your teams and get ready to depart. We're heading out tomorrow at 06:00. Dismissed."

Everyone stood and left the tent except for Davis.

"Can I help you with something Shayla?" Dune asked.

"Permission to speak freely sir?" Davis asked.

"Granted."

"You seem tired sir, the entire group does. I'm worried for morale at least, if not the fact that two of the people you're sending into heavy combat have injured shoulders," Davis said in a somewhat worried tone.

"I know," Dune said relaxing back and rubbing his brow. "I know, but if we don't pull this off, there's not a lot of chance of us going home, because by the time we pack up the Covenant ship is likely to be operational again and the chances of us surviving another shootout with it is slim. I need people I can count on, that's why Wolowicz and Giles are still going on this sortie. As for morale, we don't even know if the Earth is still going to be there when we get back. We're in a bad situation. If we don't keep everyone working, morale will just get worse."

"I understand, I guess," Shayla replied. "Just, please, be careful for yourself as well sir."

"I will be."

"Thank you sir," Davis said as she left. "I don't know what would happen if I lost you."

Davis smiled and left the tent. After she was gone Dune lifted his head, leaning it back and shaking it side to side slightly as he smiled.

"I know."