T he annexation ball is back in Port Orchard’s court. And once again it’s the Bremerton City Council that’s served it there.

To continue with the tennis analogy, the question now is whether Port Orchard leaders plan to sit back and volley for a while or rush the net and put their opponent on the defensive.

Our preference, given the way Port Orchard has been treated, would be the latter. And in this particular case, it seems the net to which the city should be rushing is legal action — or at least the threat thereof.

The latest salvo in what has become an ugly turf war to steal the South Kitsap Industrial Area (SKIA) from under Port Orchard’s nose came on Wednesday night, when the Bremerton City Council voted to annex the entire 3,100-acre would-be development in addition to the smaller SKIA North section it had wet its beak in earlier this summer.

The deal must still be approved by Kitsap County’s Boundary Review Board — a process expected to take between 45 and 120 days.

In voting unanimously to gobble up the whole pie, the council members made no promise to either honor or ignore a previous agreement for Port Orchard to provide SKIA’s wastewater services.

The annexation was described by those doing the gobbling as one of the most important land transactions in the history of Bremerton due to its increase of the area and the addition of Bremerton National Airport to its coffers.

Had Port Orchard been included in the plan — as all the interested parties had pledged it would be back when the city of Port Orchard, the Port of Bremerton and the city of Bremerton signed a memorandum of understanding to that effect — it would have been no less transformative a moment for this community.

Not that anyone paid any attention to what we wanted, of course — and it isn’t as though no one on our team spoke out, either.

Port Orchard Development Director James Weaver addressed the Bremerton public hearing, requesting the agreement be honored, while arguing that cooperation between the cities would create “a joint economic powerhouse” that would benefit the entire region.

A compelling argument — which the council members then proceeded to ignore.

So what happens now?

Hard to say, but at this point it’s difficult to see why Port Orchard owes much of anything — including common courtesy — to its neighbors across the pond. You know, the ones with the shiny new marina paid for in no small measure with tax dollars extracted on the sly from Port Orchard households that got nothing in return but the back of Bremerton’s hand when we had the audacity to ask the council to live up to its word.

Which brings us back to the legal gambit.

Port Orchard Mayor Lary Coppola and his staff have studiously avoided threatening Bremerton with a lawsuit, injunction, restraining order or whatever it is attorneys file in a case like this.

On the other hand, they haven’t ruled out the possibility, either.

Port Orchard’s legal consultants maintain the memorandum of understanding is binding — a notion Bremerton scoffs at like virtually every other objection this city raises.

So perhaps the time has come to see what a judge says about the matter.

Or at least threatening to, at which point perhaps we can settle for the sewer service contract Port Orchard expected to be awarded when it invested millions of dollars in wastewater infrastructure specifically to serve SKIA.

Bremerton, we’ll see you in court . Hopefully.