Homsar Delgana and the Dogs of Sirius-10

The Master's response to report of the Patrol Fleet once again being underway, and that their reported position being an illusion, got a chuckle out of him- one that unsettled his subordinates. "Well played." he said, "Alert all commands. Battle stations, immediately. This fleet will assume a shield wall formation between the Patrol and the station. Dreadnoughts and other ships of the line shall form the center, with cruisers and lighter vessels on the wings ready to wrap around for envelopment. Station boarding boats on the tips of the wings to await orders." The Algolian fleet did as commanded, and soon they were ready for the attack that they expected.

Admiral Campbell sat on the bridge of his new flagship, the Patrol Fleet now underway at speed and under cloak. He reached out with his mind, and sensed The Master in the distance. Knowing that this Algolian could ruin everything if he sensed them too soon, Campbell spread his sense of perception about the fleet and meditated upon the image and experience of empty space, cloaking himself and the fleet from The Master's own sense of perception by way of a form of telepathic camouflage, in an attempt to deceive the enemy in a way heretofore unsuccessful- but these circumstances compelled Campbell to attempt it anyway.

The Kinneson's Revenge blasted its way through the waves of drone assault boats and made it to the station's last defense perimeter: its anti-ship artillery. The cruiser maneuvered in ways unpredictable to the station's array of fire control computers, breaking prediction algorithms faster than the Sirian slip-stick slingers could compute updates, because Captain Simms figured--correctly--that their artillery is meant for dealing with fleets and not with single ships. Furthermore, the cloak's effects interfered with the station's sensor suite and thus further degraded their ability to track the fast Patrol cruiser. Soon Simms got that ship down on the station's exterior, below the elevation of its primary batteries and forcing secondary and tertiary ones to come online to deal with it. Simms countered by weaving between the gun towers, heading towards the point where Homsar broke into the station.

General Zuzu stood by with his marines, ready to drop at any moment. That moment came and instantaneously they left the ship's hold. Already free, they jetting down to the station's surface and match velocities before breaching the station and going inert. Following Homsar's trail of destruction, they made good time in tracking him down and mopped up station security personnel attempting to confine Homsar into the trapped chamber.

Homsar noticed Zuzu well before that point, because as soon as the general got inside the station the thought screens isolating him were no longer relevant. Homsar threw Zuzu a sit-rep telepathically, and Zuzu filled him in on the Fleet's actions, so Homsar concluded: "Then we need to seize this thing. Send a squad to help me out, and you take the rest to seize command and control."

Zuzu did just that, and soon Homsar saw a mish-mash of Patrol marines outside the power plant. Together, Homsar got out. Then he led them to the other such room, cleared it, seized it, and from there directed Zuzu to the station's command center. Zuzu, wasting no time, bull-rushed the chamber and took out everyone in there within a few mad minutes of melee and maneuvering. Together they quickly ransacked the dying brains of the Sirian and Dragonsworn technicians running the station's systems for vital statistics and commands, and then assumed control of the station entirely.

As the first act, Zuzu threw down the thought screens and made contact with Admiral Campbell.

"Good news, Admiral!" Zuzu said, "Not only have I relieved Agent Delgana, but together we've reversed the situation and taken over the station. We can turn this against the Algolians at any time."

"Understood." Campbell said, "Time to end this."

Aboard The Master's flagship, The Master gasped and then slammed a balled fist against a bulkhead. "Alert all commands." he said, "Prepare for a two-front engagement. The fleet will shift to a double-half-globe formation, with this ship at the pivot point."

The captain of his flagship looked perplexed. The Master bore daggers at him: "They took the station! The trap failed, and now they're using it against us."