[i]With all of the firepower here, they could potentially hold an entire sector comfortably for, say, a year.[/i]

That was Rear-Admiral Airick Skye's strategic - and currently, his only calm - portion of his mind thinking. He walked along a corridor headed towards a port - they said that his new ship would be there for some new command. 

Taken in the middle of the night from his own flagship. While he admitted that the captain had relaxed security in order to divert more energy and effort to fighting the alien threats, it led to an uncomfortable situation in which Spartans - bloody [i]Spartans[/i] snuck into the Admiral's own quarters and dragged him out without anyone noticing.

They controlled a star system that was officially dead and devoid of life. 
They had command of the [i]Yamaguchi[/i], the ship whose disappearance caused panic and a severe morale loss within the navy 
They had command of the biggest concentration of elite units he had seen ever since the first attempted counterattacks against the Cruxi forces. 
And last but not least, they had the resources -and authority- to kidnap a Rear-Admiral. 

Putting all of that together, the kidnapped rear-admiral knew one thing: he was in way over his head. 

"So, is this what it has all come to?" The Admiral said in a low, borderline dangerous tone to his escort - a fellow named Boris - even as he stopped to look at a video monitor on a security station that showed the new framework pilots - including [i]Kaila[/i]. Dammit, he had promised! He promised Captain Kenneth all those years ago that he would take care of her, that she and her brother would be safe instead of being sent to disappear in the rapidly deteriorating and overflown orphanage system! He had promised - and now here she was, kidnapped and brought in order to be - what? A wind up super pilot sent right onto the frontlines!? Was this what the Captain would have wanted for his daughter!?

 "Have we, the conventional military, proven so incompetent in your eyes that you see no alternative but to resort to using children and cloak and dagger techniques?"