"'Evening, general." Alexis answered whipping a salute. Sparing a quick smile, she returned her gaze to the PDA in her other hand. "All of our supplies are on board, we have just tested the gate, tanks are full... Aside from the Tok’Ra, we are good to go, though 'All set' might be overselling it a little, sir. I could have used a week longer for preparations. A shakedown cruise with skeleton crew is not what I'd prefer but I'll work with what I have." Alexis answered, not sugar coating any part of it.

The government was rushing the [i]Tempest[/i] into service. She didn't know why, but suspected it had something to do with egos of those higher than her. Both Russians and Chinese received ships before them, and battlecruisers no less. As far as she was concerned, the rush was putting her ship and crew at risk, and that was all she cared for. At least with a science vessel, they were not likely to encounter any major threat, especially since the gate addresses they will be visiting were mostly unknown, or so she has been told.

“Well I suspect your guest will be arriving soon, it’s not exactly a slow process gate travel. Sorry to say Captain but you’re going the long way around.” O’Neill worked on something off screen for a moment, handing something on. “We’ll have the [i]Apollo[/i] on standby if you get into trouble, she’s just had her shakedown cruise after her repairs were finished. All in all it wasn’t up to me when you launched. While I’m giving the orders they have to get approved by your high command and they chose your launch date. Don’t worry, when the [i]Hammond[/i] was launched as you’ll know she came under fire and she didn’t have backup.” Several files would of pinged up on the bridge displays as files were sent to the officers at their stations. “We’re finalizing the gate addresses right now with the star charts, while our eggheads do that you got any questions regarding your new toy? I was in charge of the Prometheus once.”

“The [i]Hammond[/i] had plasma beams, sir, not naval guns.” Alexis noted, but didn’t give it further thought. Instead she remembered reading the report of the battle where the [i]Apollo[/i] got damaged. In fact, she has been doing a LOT of reading lately. It was one other reason why she would have welcomed another week of time, to get to know the galaxy a little better. As things stood, she managed to cover all the combat that have been waged in space and the specs of ships she might have to go against, but much of the history was still kept from her.

“They weren’t exactly, working when she was sent out. The [i]Odyssey[/i] was busy with the Lucian Alliance, [i]Sun Tzu[/i] still hasn’t been repaired and the [i]Apollo[/i] was still limping back to Earth. The [i]Hammond[/i] had to be put out for financial reasons and she was the only ship fully available for us to use. You’ll be fine Captain, you’ll have a nice easy run to break her in. If you don’t have any questions first?”

“Wasn’t Icarus base supposed to be secret and easy run?” Alexis said to herself, unsure if the General heard, but not at all minding if he did. ”I’ve done my homework on the likely threats and the [i]Tempest[/i]. All I have to know now is the crew and I’ll handle that during the transit. I suppose there would be questions about the difference between a sub and a space ship, but I believe we don’t have time for that. Don’t worry sir, we’ll manage.” the Captain assured, looking at the files she received, pleased to find not only mission details but also several other files she requested that contained some ideas that might be helpful to them.

“Well, being an Air Force man myself, I’m not so sure so much between the difference of a spaceship and a submarine. However, that isn’t important. You know all the rules about the Asgard core and such, the IOA rep will likely press to use it but you may of read the files that we’ve had some bad experience with IOA members and an Asgard Core. However that is for your discretion and you may hand access to it to whomever you want, the President wants me to remind you that your space program hasn’t been active as long as ours so you should be prepared for the possibility of infiltration. Though that’s for another time. Your first missions a simple one and I’ll give you the rundown. Years ago we discovered an Ancient Repository on P3R-272. We all want to know what is on the surface of this planet if anything, simple recon mission. If there is anything nice we’ll have to set up beam relays so we can beam from the gate on the planet to the planets surface. Bon Voyage Captain.” The image faded out, and as it did a bottle of wine was beamed in the center of the bridge. 

Walking over to the bottle, Alexis picked it up. Herself she was an abstinent, but she guessed the XO might be pleased. Instructing a deckhand to move it into storage, she returned to her post. There was nothing to celebrate yet, not until the first mission was smoothly accomplished.

Looking over her post, she noted a few differences from the 304s. Instead of having just the chair and few controls, she insisted to have access to more functions of the ship on her own. Now there were two touchscreens on either side of the chair, one feeding her information from the crew and the other tied to the ship’s controls. Sliding her finger over the control screen and selected shipwide on the intercom. “To all crew, this is West. All hands to your stations and report. We are leaving as soon as we have all green.” she said matter-of-factly, eager to leave.