Homsar Delgana and the Dogs of Sirius-09

Homsar soon found himself shot down within the enormous battle station's superstructure. He emerged from the wreck of his boat clad in his powered armor, space axe clipped to one leg, and semi-portable blaster in his armored hands. A platoon of Sirians descended upon him, and Homsar--his rage evident on his face--fried them all in seconds. Klaxons sounded, alerting the station's personnel to Homsar's presence, but he didn't care; he wanted them to come, because he would bring righteous death to all of them as he made his way to the station's power plant and blow up the station.

The Master knew this, so he filled the station's personnel with all of the problem-cases in his organization, making their deaths superfluous to him and therefore expected- even desired. The fighting went non-stop throughout the station, with scores, then hundreds, and then thousands of Sirian marines dying at Homsar's hands. Once Homsar consumed all of the power for his blaster, he appropriated those of his foes. When those went dry, he drew his axe and killed man-to-man until he got more blasters. The opposition shuddered in horror, trying to stop this unstoppable juggernaut, but still they attacked in wave after wave and they died just as fast.

Outside, the Patrol Fleet hurried to reorganize but The Master's forces kept harrying them to delay as long as possible. Hit-and-fade attacks forced the Patrol to maintain a state of readiness that consumed their energies. Admiral Campbell saw through it straight away, but sighed as he saw himself unable to fix the trouble. He had his hands full keeping his fleet organized and disciplined in the face of such adversity from a competent and experienced foe.

Captain Simms and General Zuzu, however, were not idle. They gathered up a collection of crew and marines from broken ships and shattered units, took up a cruiser lacking a captain, and--with the Admiral's leave--slipped away from during the next attack. Informally dubbed Kinneson's Revenge, this rag-tag group of Patrolmen followed in pursuit of Homsar's captors along the last known trajectory. Simms had the engineers working on some sort of thing to screen them from sensors because otherwise the station would blow up this ship as easily as it did the Kinneson. Zuzu drilled the marines hard, knowing that he had little time to get them working cohesively as a unit before combat would force them to adhere or die.

From the bridge of his flagship, The Master simultaneously watched Homsar hack and blast his way through the station meant to be nothing more than a big trap for a powerful enemy while the Patrol sent ahead a single ship to come to said enemy's aid- before it disappeared from all of The Master's sensors, including his own powerful innate superhuman sense of perception. "Expected." The Master thought, "Accounted for, adjusting parameters to conform." and within the station the living Sirians now increased in number and ferocity in their attempts to bring Homsar down while the boat docks on the outside of the station's superstructure adjusted its attack boats' sensor suites to account for the presence of cloaked vessels.

However, the worst of the weapons arrayed against Homsar, his allies, and the Patrol in general remained the most passive one: a thought screen tuned to the range of frequencies known to be commonplace amongst the Patrol. This is what kept Homsar isolated from his allies and friends, and thus out of the loop on what they were up to outside the station. They could not inform Homsar about what the nature of the station really was, and instead could only hope to get to him before the trap closed on him utterly.

Homsar, as he approached the station's power plant, made quick work of the engineers and guards protecting it. He scanned the controls, quickly sussed which did what, and moved to set it to overload and destroy the station. As he threw open the last switch, bulkheads dropped into place and ship-level screens went up around the room. Then, in a moment of recognition, Homsar realized that he'd been played- and trapped in a room with a power plant now set to blow up, taking him with it, but--due to the screens and bulkheads--confining the damage to this one room. At this point, he also realized that a second power plant must exist, hidden from his own sense of perception.

The approach of Kinneson's Revenge soon saw that they too were not unexpected, as the station released its attack boats--drones, one and all--to swarm and destroy the Patrol cruiser. Simms called for battle stations, and all hands swiftly ran to their stations. The cruiser demonstrated a level of maneuverability heretofore unexpected by the drones, its primary and secondary batteries effectively engaging the attack boats while its defensive screens held up against their combined bombardment.

The Master watched as his enemies strove to defeat with passion what his logic arrayed against them. Only what he didn't know that he didn't know could stop him now, and The Master knew that; it's why he kept his personal fleet in reserve after withdrawing from battle. That said, even he did not notice that Admiral Campbell not only reorganized the Patrol Fleet, but successfully cloaked the entire fleet and got them underway- and left illusory images of the fleet in disarray behind. This would soon be dispelled as a ruse, but not soon enough to have its intended effect.