Astyanax

 Astyanax is the name of the Hydran character I'll be following through the General War, and his story begins rather auspiciously.

I am Astyanax, son of Hectax, son of Priax Troiax. My grandfather is something like 100th in line to the Hydran throne, depending on which day of the week you are on, which makes me a typical Hydran officer: minor aristocracy with a touch of royal blood in here somewhere. I am Heavy Weapons Officer on the Knight Destroyer Inevitable, so I am Second Officer and third in command overall. Like everyone else, I have been watching the vidcasts of the Coalition attack on the Kzinti with mounting trepidation. We always knew the smaller cats and the boneheads would eventually attack either us or our erstwhile allies, and the big cats drew the small straw. They are giving up territory very grudgingly, using fighters in ways similar to us at fixed installations to make the invaders pay, but they are slowly losing ground. It is only a matter of time before we are called upon to honour our mutual defence pact with the tiger-men (as the Klingons call them) and come to their aid.

Not that we can help directly, being on the other side of Coalition territory, but we can make our presence felt and take some of the heat away from the Coalition's Coreward drive. And this is indeed what we do in the Autumn of Spring Y169 (by Federation reckoning). We were hoping to wait a while longer for a pending series of useful improvements to our ships, but the Kzinti need some help now. So, in we go.

My ship is assigned to the rather grandiosely named Expeditionary Fleet. Intelligence has been feeding misinformation to the Klingons for years in the hopes that they think we are going to attempt to break right through Klingon space at its narrowest in a bid to join up with the Federation, so bringing the Flatheads into the conflict on our side with their powerful economy. Our force is composed almost entirely of our newest Hellbore ship types, including the flotilla of three Knight-class destroyers to which Inevitable belongs. In tow, we have Caravan Tug with a fighter support pallet and also a Frigate-class resupply vessel. The idea is to try to convince the Klingons that we really do intend to go all out for the Federation.

Of course, this will not be possible; besides, it would be a vainglorious waste of valuable ships. We make it look as though we may well make the attempt though, crossing into Klingon territory to attack one of the Battle Stations that would be in our way. In fact, the intention is to see if we get lucky and destroy a station that would provide the Klingons with an advanced position from which to launch their own counteroffensive - which we all know is coming. The Second Fleet, which I believe is a fusion-armed counterpart to our own force, is also attacking a Klingon station. Two other fleets are doing exactly the same to the Lyrans.

As expected, the boneheads react in with a fleet of their own. Curiously, though, when we warp in to contest the station, it appears that their defending vessels are mostly classic, older designs based on their Battlecruiser and Frigate hulls. There are no War Cruisers to be seen, which suggests that most of those are deployed against the Kzinti. The new generation of War Cruiser vessels that have been developed by all of the major powers are not intended for the multiple missions associated with the older ships. Instead, these are mass-produced war vessels (hence the name). The Klingons have, though, beefed up their carrier force, as can be seen from their deployment of a Carrier Tug and an F5V Light Carrier. They are commanded by a D7C instead of a C8 Dreadnought, which is rather heartening.

We make a reasonably standard pass, destroying and crippling several of their lighter ships and damaging others; our Stinger fighters also wipe out their Battle Station's entire complement of fighters. Their drone missiles mostly fizzle against our strong defences and fighters, although their diminutive E4 Carrier Escorts give our fighters a hard time with their point defence slug throwers - designed to defend against Kzinti or Federation missiles, these are also useful against our fighters. 

The Klingon ships actually leave at this point, and we turn inwards to blow their station. One of the other Knight destroyers bears the brunt of the station's powerful Phaser-IV batteries and is crippled, but that is the only serious casualty we suffer.

We wonder why the Klingons left without more seriously contesting the base defence. Perhaps they have been fooled into thinking that we are serious about the so-called Federation expedition, and hope to suck us further into their territory to our inevitable destruction. Perhaps they are just unwilling to risk so many of their expensive older ships. Whatever the reason, it has worked out well for us, and my first taste of fleet combat is a successful one.