You make a snap decision and bring forth the communication window to deal with the traitor squadron commander (or his NPC avatar) directly. A window appears before you and a balding heavily tattooed cyborg appears before you, half his skull replaced with metal, eye lenses and wide assortment of headtubes, you avoid having your mouth quirk up in distaste at the ultrahuman stylings of the pirate.
"Captain Radunin, we got lucky and our long range telescopes picked up stellar occlusion of the command cruiser, reorient your squadron to the following address and go to full EMCON levels." you say with a charming lie.
"Missy" you frown, the simulator seemed to be taking liberties with the scenario in addressing you, "We be dropping shields and approaching the battle zone"
"We'll be dropping drivefields as well and coasting on internal jets, we'll be invisible to passive scanners, but it will allow us to slip in closer so prevent any chance of escape of the Princess."
The NPC over the link gave a toothy grin, "Oh hungry for the bounty I see. Well, I am sure the surprise to come will be worth it. Very well."
The traitor squadron of Corsairs began to drop their fields and shields, as you maneuvered your loyal ships in closer, and then a cadet said, "Drive field down. Moving on internal jets now."
"It looked like the ruse worked." Commander Degrando commented, also checked with the simulator master control, our ship to ship boarding action will have to be controlled from here, as we lack the simulator room or troops to do it on 1:1 basis."
"You ever have experience boarding ships in hostile combat, Commander?"
He shook his head "No, most of the ships I fought ended up vaperious clouds or struck their flags, your highness. I did do a course on a it, and the Guard has corps of espaiters for such missions, but we don't have any of those cadets assigned here today."
A voice called out from the back end of the room, and a cadet stood up, tall, probably the tallest person in the room, with sharp aristocratic features and pale blonde hair, "Cadet Zervina, your highness," she bows, "Forgive my temerity but I have experience in ship to ship combat via boarding due to a eventful childhood. I offer to command the boarding teams."
You look at Degrando, and he shrugs, you put a thinking look on your face as your left hand quietly types in her name into the database and you get a pages of documents and evaluations on this Ariana Rahel Suzanne Nisaka Zervina, including a report of a report of a Midshipman's cruise with the Navy that saw her ran afoul of some more rebellious fief holders on the edges and taking part in recapturing her ship, which earned her honors including a transfer to the Imperial Guard academy midstream.
"Very well Zervina, I'll have Commander Degrando transfer controls to your station. The fate of the mission is on your shoulders. DeGrando, prepare to focus fire on the powerplants if this goes south."
You settle back, you gave your orders, now you hope that your crew who you known, you check the clock, about a hour now can do their jobs. As Seil pours you another cup of tea, you let your guard down enough to marvel at the sophistication of the simulator room as Cadet Zervina starts the interfacing with the simulator directly through a pair AR contacts as they create a scenario for her to operate in that would be difficult but fair enough to non-typical situation they found themselves in. The speed of which the simulation was adapting the changes and request to the scenario is making you think that perhaps is limited actual AI involved, though such a creature would be highly controlled and contained if that was the case. If not, well you mentally saluted the no doubts thousands of programers and devs that were involved in this affair. Or it better be, the Imperial family was powerful but not powerful enough to break the Taboo and get away with it.
You tap into her feed as she organized the small army of pirates onboard each Corsair in record time, project ballistic course for entrance and then overseeing the assault on Radunin's ship directly. With a few more orders to Radunin to keep his eyes and scanners looking in the wrong direction, the first phase of the operation of actually flinging troops across the void into other ship hull occurs without incident in the first five nerve wracking minutes, and then as they enter into the hulls is when all hell starts to break out.
"Energy spikes on enemy cors." the cadet managing sensors says. But you interrupt him "Snap power to shields, direct all energy power to shields as well, and move us away. We don't want to get damaged or damage those ships if we are to take on da Moya" you say, stopping Degrando from opening fire. The teams were already in the ship and the possibility of success had skyrocketed.
Your squadron pulls out, while the enemy corsairs distracted by internal fighting fire a few potshots, and then as you pull out of weapons range, you look back into the Zervina feed and you blanch, she's standing on a simulated bridge, gore everywhere as her specialized loadout of Imperial Guard microplasma cannon was overkill for even the cyborg pirates not expecting a threat from the inside.
She clicks over the feed, and her voice comes over the bridge, "Ships secured, your Highness, though some internal damage has occured."
There are cheers, you managed to conserve enough fighting power to take on da Moya and spoiled her trap. Though now the ships are fighting at a malus due to disruption of the internal combat to represent lost crews and officers, if given time you could transfer your own loyal replacements over to get them at full strength. Also you think your battle has caused you to be found for a brief moment during it, you spotted a imperial destroyer in scouting mode before it zoomed back into the electric mist of ECM and gas giant's messy environment.
You have new orders to give.
Gain a fate point for being statistically improbable in succeeding in recovering all the ships roll
[] Pull back to a more defensible location and let your bridge staff reorganize the traitor ships and set up an ambush for da Moya
[] Strike while the iron is hot, da Moya isn't expecting her trap to fail and giving her a chance to regroup could come up with some other dastardly plan, you get the sense she isn't a one trick pony
[] Send in the traitor ships as bait, and then focus fire on her ship if she falls for it
[] Write in
~~~Glossary~~~
Taboo: When capitalized it means the galaxy wide standard revolusion and rejection of use of Artificial Intelligences to their full capabilities. The exodus to this galaxy was caused by AI, though the stories of that conflict or crisis are lost to the mists of time, but its testament to the scars to the human race that its never been breached by a major power in the galaxy.
~~~Next Update June 2nd~~~