Me and sigma

[u][b]CSC [i]Salvation[/i]
Aishka system
Core Regions
[/b][/u]

"Damn" Admiral Maria Anisimovna breathed quietly, gazing at the main display of CSC [i]Salvation[/i]'s flag bridge. The world of Aishka hung serenely on the display, spattered with various icons and sidebars of information. A cluster of some two dozen icons in orbit was causing Anisimovna's consternation. The Angels.

CSC [i]Salvation[/i] sat with the entirety of Mercy Fleet just beyond the edges of the Aishka system. Stealthed recon platforms had long since been dispatched insystem, and were now relaying imagery to the fleet. Mercy Fleet was here at the request of the Serene Republic of Yandras; the Taspara's had reached out to the Commonwealth, concerned that some of the Great Powers of the galaxy would try to stick their nose into their conflict with Aishka. Mercy Fleet, as the Commonwealth's peacekeeping unit, had therefore been dispatched to the area to ensure the Yandras-Aishka conflict did not become...politicized. 

The fact that the Angels were already here complicated things. If Anisimovna had been able to get into position first, the Angels wouldn't have risked a galactic incident trying to get through Mercy Fleet. As things stood now, they were already deploying, and it would be difficult to get them to stop.

"Well, might as well get in there," she said with a sigh. "Navigation, coordinate a jump to high orbit around Aishka."

A few minutes later, the hundred or so vessels of Mercy Fleet appeared in a series of flashes over Aishka. CSC [i]Salvation[/i] immediately began broadcasting Admiral Anisimovna's stern face over the comm frequencies. "Attention First Joint Expeditionary Fleet. This is Admiral Maria Anisimovna, Commanding Officer Mercy Fleet, of the Imperial Systems Commonwealth. You are intervening in a designated neutral conflict, in violation of the Krogow Accords. You are to cease all combat operations immediately."
Anisimovna didn't mention that neither the Stratocracy nor the Republic had actually signed on to the Krogow accords. Of course, she hardly expected the Angels to stand down just because she'd asked nicely, but best to start from a hardline position.

All was silent for a few moments as the Mercy Fleet had awaited for a response from the Angel Fleet, their message had been received and replied. The voice of Admiral Gaius Sanders could be heard over the comm systems. "This is Admiral Gaius Sanders of the 1st Joint Expeditionary Force." He begun. "I'm afraid that will not be an option." Sanders said. "We're here at the personal request of the Aishkan Principality and do intend to follow through their call for help." Before the Admiral cut off, he decided to be a little snarky with the fleet commander. "Better luck next time Maria." He said a slight chuckle. After then, transmission was cut.

Anisimovna rolled her eyes clear to the back of her skull. She had hoped that somehow, for some reason, Sanders might have been replaced by now. No such luck. As she had been so many times in the past, Anisimovna was tempted to blow Archangel and Sanders clear out of space, consequences be dammed. Regrettably, that was not on her list of options, not really. She sighed. "Tactical, lock on to them with our fire control systems. Let them know we mean business, however much good that'll do. Ops, begin launching dropships. Signal the Yandras forces, ask them to halt their advance while we move in to support them. Comms, contact Archangel again, get me Gaius."

In the course of their many clashes over the years, Mercy Fleet and the Angels had managed to avoid obliterating eachother. They had shot eachother a few times, their soldiers had clashed on the ground, they'd opened fire on eachother's dropships; really there'd been dozens of incidents that could have counted as acts of war, but so far, the two fleet commanders had avoided major losses, or committing their respective nations to actual warfare.

CSC [i]Salvation[/i] requested a private comm line, and waited for a response.

It wouldn't tke very long for Gaius too pick up as he personnally contact with the private channels. "Maria" He said. "There's nothing you can say to convice me to turn my ships and men away now. We got orders, we're to follow through and we're already too deep in this now." Despite their previous confrontations, many personnel within both task forces often had formed relationships, be they the more friendly or familial sort or the more romantic kind, the latter of which is fiercly looked down upon by their respective Command. Gaius himself has also grown more fond of Maria, in what way, this is still left up in the air.

The comms officer nodded at Anisimovna. She turned to the small audio-visual pickup on the arm of her chair. Gaius Sanders' face appeared on the small screen, and she spoke to him in a deceptively pleasant voice. "Gaius. I could blow you out of space right this minute. Why don't we meet up and discuss the situation instead?"

Gaius gave a small smirk. "You asking me out?" he asked jokingly, much to the dismay of his command staff, their mouns could practically be heard. "Sir, please stop..." his XO, James Krensov said, an officer in his early thirties. Ignoring his subordinates pleas, he continued. "But, going to give the same anwser as before. We got people to help and a war to end."

"Damn your stubborn pride Gaius," Anisimovna cursed. "Fine, have it your way," and she terminated the connection. "Tactical, you have them locked?"
"Yes ma'am. Shall I order the fleet to fire ion warheads?"
Anismovna rolled her eyes again. This sort of clash with the Angels was obviously becoming entirely too routine. "Yes, load and fire a full salvo of ion warheads, equal dispersion on all their units. Sound action stations fleetwide, prepare for combat maneuvers. Launch all fighters."

Mercy Fleet responded to Anismovna's orders with commendable speed. It abruptly shifted into battle formation, the heavy units forming into a wall with the lighter units forming a screen. A flurry of missiles erupted from the massed Commonwealth units, high acceleration ion warheads bearing down on the Joint Expeditionary Fleet. The ion warheads would deal hefty damage against shields and perhaps overload a few sensor clusters, but they dealt little in the way of actual damage.

The very foundation of the [i]Archangel[/i] shuddered as the Ion Warheads collided, power throughout the massive vessel flickering between life and death. The carrier itself however, and many ships within the fleet had reamined relativly unharmed. From the [i]Archangel's[/i] CIC, Gaius sat looking at the barely functional display screen of the battle ready Mercy Fleet, kneeling forward as he rested his chin upon his fist. "Admiral." James spoke. "Your orders?"

"If Maria wants to play that game again, we'll play alright. Load the Ion ordenence and have several squadrons ready to launch."

"Aye Aye, sir." within moments, the alarms rang as the supercarrier itself moved ahead from the rest of the fleet, adjusting itself to it's broadside as it prepared to fire back.  Some minutes pass as a volley of Ion beams are are let loose upon the Mercy Fleet, followed quickly by three fighter squadrons.

CSC [i]Salvation[/i] was mostly untouched in its position behind the main wall of battle, but Admiral Anisimovna watched as ion beams scraped away the shields from a number of her ships. "Dispatch interceptors, but they are not to fire on the enemy without my explicit authorization," she announced, grinding her teeth.

Three fighter squadrons from Mercy Fleet's hangars zipped outwards to meet the oncoming Angels. The ranged close rapidly, but Anisimovna declined to authorize her fighters to open fire. A thought struck her.
"Operations, I want five bomber squadrons prepared for immediate tactical jumps. I want them to land practically on top of [i]Archangel[/i]'s bridge. Maybe Gaius will be more amenable once he's staring down the business end of a few bombers."
"Aye ma'am, we'll see what we can manage."

The bombers blinked and vanished...but reappeared several lightseconds off target on the far side of the Joint Expeditionary Fleet. "Spear it!" Anisimovna cursed viciously, and glared at her ops officer, who visibly quailed under her gaze.
"I'm sorry ma'am, but high precision jumps like that are a bit of a long shot."
Anisimovna did not respond, but turned her glare to the main display.

The three squadrons presed on, the flanking squadrons the Reapers and Neo-Glades,  breaking off from the leading group, the Naughty Angels. Out of all the squadrons serving in the Angels, the Naughty Angels were something unique. It wouldn't be too unusual for pilots to custom paint their ships, be it your typical pinup painted over the hull of a dropship or kill scores on the side of a fighter, but the decorations of the Naughty Angels were more...obscene to say the least, breaking every regulation in the book obscene, leaving passers-by outright speechless obscene. Nonetheless, they were among the best squadrons in the fleet, alongside the Reapers and Neo-Glades and earned their reputation. 

"Alright angels!" The squadron leader, Naughty one, spoke up. "You know the drill, pick your dancing partner! And don't engage, admiral's orders" 

"Roger that Naughty Leader." one of them spoke."

"Scatter!" Another shouted as the squadron broke formation, the other two soon following behind as they "dueled" with their Commonwealth counterparts. "Enjoy the show boys and girls!" 

Anismovna thanked the seven lords that she had numerical superiority over the Angels, because one glance at the tactical display showed her pilots were simply not as good as what the Angels had to offer. The two groups of strikecraft whirled and twisted around eachother, neither opening fire, but everywhere she looked the Angels had the advantage. They were constantly on her pilots tails, seemingly unshakeable. If either she or Gaius authorized live fire at this moment, her own fighters would be slaughtered in an instant.

Her thoughts raced. Her own failed bomber assault was doubltessly giving Gaius ideas this very moment. And with the Naughty Angels-it had to be them, with flying that sharp-leading the way, he'd have no trouble pulling a similar maneuver against her. Outnumbering him was a small comfort when he knew exactly where to hit her flagship to instantly kill her. Of course, Anisimovna had in turn become familiar enough with [i]Archangel[/i] to know exactly where Gaius was...that was it! Her best shot at forcing him to the negotiating table.
"Tactical, activate hypometric arrays!"
The tactical officer looked confused. The 'spats' between the Angels and Mercy Fleet hadn't required this kind of firepower before.
"Do it! Target their primary sensor array and fire!"
The tactical officer didn't hesitate again, punching in the necessary commands. Doubtlessly he realized that while hypometric arrays were the Commonwealth's deadliest weapon, they were also its most accurate. Without a sound or a trace, the hypometric weaponry activated against [i]Archangel[/i]'s already weakened shields, focused on her primary sensor array.

In that instant, the [i]Archangel[/i] tremored once from the attack. "What the hell was that?!" Gaius excalimed. 

"Sir."  One of the Bridge Officers spoke up. "We just lost the Sensor Array....point of orign was the CSC [i]Salvation[/i]"

Gaius' face grew pale to what had just occured. The Ion Warheads had weakened the [i]Archangel[/i]'s shields, leaving the carrier itself open for any kind of precision strike from the Mercy Fleet, and to make it worse a thought had occured to him and spoke it outloud. "That could've been us..." He said.  The hypomertic arrays weren't the best weapons against well-shielded warships, but on this occasion, it was the perfect weapon of choice to easily end them.

"Damn it all!" He shouted, slaming his fist on the arm rest. James had looked over, foucsing his gaze on the admiral. "Sir? Your orders?"

The Admiral had remained silent for a minute, before he looked up to his XO. "Recall our squadrons and contact the Commonwealth Fleet Commander..if she wants a talk, we'll give her a talk."

"Comms request coming through from [i]Archangel[/i], Admiral Sanders...wishes to know if you'll meet with him to discuss the Yandras-Aishka conflict."
Anisimovna breathed a sigh of relief, which the rest of the flag bridge crew shared. She could hardly blame them; there had been a moment, when she'd ordered the hypometric arrays brought online, a moment where she'd considered using them with more deadly intent. The bridge crew must have been relieved when she'd directed fire against the [i]Archangel[/i]'s sensor arrays, and even more relieved when Sanders signaled he was willing to talk.

"Stand down action stations, return to general quarters fleetwide. Ask Admiral Sanders where he wishes to meet."