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The UDW Stalker's heuristic union had enough time to realize the reversal in time to redirect their defenses accordingly. Several shimmering plates of hard light manifested from the recessed projectors at maximum range from the frigate, catching the reversed bolt as it dispersed, the redirection of the shot breaking the magnetic capsule that held it in cohesion. The residual energies were still enough to shatter the plates, washing over the Luminaran plates with fury, but a fury that the vessel was well armored to handle. Damage was relatively insignificant, the most serious of which was a 26% degradation of the stealth coating of the vessel. Grazed and angry, the Stalker noted the Wolf's flight, but with more immediate threats, prioritized the threats.

Answering the psionic assault was the UDW's own psionics, from within the Psycho-Amp sphere's of each vessel. Primed and waiting, they were the standard assignment for a stealth Fist, astropaths one and all. As the neural shredder assault of the vessels came in, the astropath revealed themselves, drawing the entire assault onto themselves and transmitting it in reverse to their points of origin. The same method that made them effective for complete radio silence as communications in itself made them, within the spheres, the choice method to counter a telepathic assault. With a range to snare all incoming feeds on themselves, they did nothing to deflect it, or understand it. Just as with their reversing of the Hellbore shots, they simply turned the signal around and fed it back to them to generate a feedback.

The Stalker's heuristic crew was also able, to in extreme detail, perceive the actions as they occurred. Detecting the high speed launcher against the Harbinger even as the signatures of power redistribution formed, the frigate didn't wait for the call for aid, actually pushing it from their circle of attention as a broadside Hellbore discharged, the hellishly powerful bolt slamming into and through the local shield sector to incinerate the missile and gouge a glowing furrow along the armor of the Harbinger. Shifting to scatter patterns and reorienting on its axis to have broadsides bearing on both frigates while it shot forward, accelerating rapidly enough that anything not strapped down was thrown to the stern, despite the inertial fields generated over the interior to prevent such from thrusts. Reaching the center of the two in mere seconds, safeties were overridden and prepared for the vessels next play. Discharging all eight Hellbores at once, four to a frigate at the equivalent of knife range, well under a light second, the UDW frigate dumped all available power into an emergency TD translation, winking out a nanosecond after firing. Reappearing six seconds later twelve dozen kilometers away, the Stalker was, surprisingly, reversed its own course. Taking the reversal in stride, the frigate fully intended to use the technology against them, bouncing the shots off each other into the other.

At the same time, the UDW stealth corvettes Knife and Arrow were, unfortunately for their would-be ambushers, not at all where they're transmissions had been beaming from. At the sight of weapons fire, they had dropped bogey receivers and shifted positions radically, their stealthed signatures no sort of field, but integral structures that sealed the vessels emissions from escaping to be detected. When the swarmer vessels appeared and unleashed their payloads, they found themselves squarely in the crosshairs of each repositioned corvette's Chaser Abysses, with scarce kilometers between them. Which fired the moment the swarmer's launched. Delivering a 50 megaton per second punch apiece, the lightspeed velocity of the titan bolts all but eliminated the ability to dodge. Then each twin fired a fraction of a second later. With a 3 second cycle time, the Chaser was the fastest firing Abyss the UDW fielded, and each corvette carried a pair.

More fortunate was the Nighthawk, who's outbound vector was proven fortunate as new signature blooms expanded. Misfortune, however, struck nonetheless, as the arriving Fist's leaded corvette erupted from Tunnel Space at the predetermined coordinates, only to find itself in the path of a missile. Hard light hex plates erupted into being at the closest range to the vessel as possible, forming a lattice shell over the bow of the vessel, ECM projecting haywire signatures across the spectrums in an attempt to at least stumble the missile before it crashed into the face of the UDW assault corvette Raptor.

As the bloom faded, however, new signatures read in the system, Those of the the UDW frigates Marauder and Buzzard, and the corvettes Raptor, Sparrow, Pirate, and Galley.