Despite herself, Captain was up the entire trip. Even during her downtime, when she ate, when she was supposed to sleep, the upcoming attack didn’t give her a break. Her desk filled up with notes on various approaches that were discarded over time. After hours, she finally had a sketchup of a plan that now had to be refined by the section leaders.

Packing up the final version of her notes, she made her way to the ready room. On her way there, navigation notified her that they were about to reach their first drop off point. Tapping her earpiece,s he instructed the officer to drop them out to normal space. this far out they would stay out of detection but it’ll allow them to make the necessary preparations.

Unconventional tactics worked for Catherine so far in her life and she was not about to change that. The Lucian Alliance might have seen other SGC units fight, but what she had in store for them this time was something using borderline insane fighter strike along with the chemical attack prepared in the previous engagement.

Reaching the briefing room just as the blue glow of hyperspace vanished from the viewports, she waved everyone to remain seated. Taking her own seat she blinked the mild tiredness out of her eyes and tapped a control on her computer. The screen behind her lit up, displaying the Langra system along with their position.

“As you all know, we are about to hit Langara that is presumably occupied by Alliance forces. We have a probe on the way that should give us some idea about their forces on the orbit, but beyond that, we will have no idea about what’s going on on the ground. Contact with the planet has been lost shortly after SGC received a call for help.” she summarized the little they knew so far about the situation.

She counted in her mind the seconds she assumed it’D take for the probe to travel. On cue, three blips appeared on the screen, along with fourth representing the Langaran gate facility. “Those three would be the Alliance Ha’taks. The ground target is the gate facility the Alliance is occupying. From this we can guess their objective is to attempt dialing the [i]Destiny[/i]. That gives us several hindrances. First of all, we have to hurry. We must strike before they make this attempt. The expedition is currently in stasis and unable to fight them off even if they could. Second, the ancient ship is low on fuel and dropping out of FTL will cause it to drift part of the way, stranding the crew for thousands of years. To that end, the alliance must not even attempt the dialing. Secondly, the second we attack, I believe that attempt will be made.”

Kat paused to let the information sink in before proceeding. “That means we will have to strike everywhere at once. The ships -” she highlighted the three pyramid ships, “- the ground facility -” the ground target flashed, “And any unknown targets we will detect once we get there. This time however, we are not against innocent civilians, misguided as they might be, and I intend to treat the situation as such.” Captain said, the screen adding a stargate next to the ground target and the [i]Langford[/i] to the orbit.

“We’ll take a few pages from the Pegasus Galaxy rulebook this time. First of all, the standard tactic of the Wraith is to dial in before the attack. If we dial in from the SGC shortly before we jump in so the Langaran gate activates instead of our own, we can prevent them from dialing the [i]Destiny[/i], or receiving reinforcements from the gate. That, with transit times and unforeseen troubles, gives us about thirty minutes to execute the operation. No more.” Kat hinted at how she intends to prevent the Langaran gate from operating.

That was what buggered her the most: Limited timeframe. “That means we will have to hit fast and make it count. To that end, we’ll attempt the chemical strike form before, since we have the supply at hand. Also, I intend for our fighters to pull a Sheppard maneuver to launch faster.” she said and the screen switched, displaying an image of a 302 grappled onto a Hive while in hyperspace. “I realize this is not exactly common way of travel, but it was proven on at least one occasion it can be done. Physics department, please have a look at the ship’s blueprints and pick twelve spots where our fighters can attach.” she said, looking towards the scientists.

“As far as the ground attack goes, we will first have to find out what is going on. That means establishing contact with the planet and then storm the gate facility according to what we find out. Depending on how well we fare on the orbit, either the 302s, [i]Langford[/i] or both will be available for ground support. The last point is the new ground team commander since Col. Blaze has been recalled. Let me introduce you to the new ground commander." Catherine said and walked to Kayle. "Congratulations, [i]Seren[/i] Kayle H. Zaken. The paperwork came from IDF comamnd a while ago. I trust you with he lives of my crewmen. Do me proud." she said, handing the Lt. her new insignia. "Now, thoughts about the plan?" she said, lookig across th table and pointing to the first person to take their turn.