Julia Ascania

 Julia is my latest hero in the campaign. She comes from an Italian family with a very long, perhaps even legendary, history. She makes her appearance just as the General War really starts to kick off...

Starfleet Academy is at full stretch, rotating new officers through the system as fast as possible. The First Officers of older ships up to Destroyer class are being promoted to command their own new vessels as soon as they roll off the production lines, and people like me are being sent to replace them as soon as we graduate. 

The overall strategic situation is delicate. The Coalition offensive against the Kzinti has ground down to a sort of stalemate, although the Klingons are grimly reducing our direct geographical links with our erstwhile allies piece by piece. The Hydran capital is reported to have fallen; rumors abound about the little guys fortunately managing to extricate much of their fleet before it met its demise.

In the meantime, I familiarize myself as much as I can with my new posting. I am second-in-command of the Destroyer Darius. Its previous First Officer, who is only a few years older than me and goes by the name of Bernie Raywood, is now Captain due to the promotion of his predecessor to one of the New Light Cruisers. We are very quickly sent Rimward as part of the reserves on the Southern part of the Klingon Front, only to be sucked into the action almost immediately.

The Klingon Front has settled into a series of vicious back-and-forth skirmishes across what used to be the neutral zone, with two main areas being contested around Sherman's Planet and, in our sector, the so-called Bezwell Index. Nobody truly knows how many times these planets have changed hands, but we warp in to try to help against the latest Klingon incursion.

My first taste of battle takes place as we contest the approaches to the planet. Unlike most of the Federation's theatre commanders, ours is much more than an armchair warrior. Andorian Admiral Shyth is a well-known firebrand, and is determined to give the Klingons a hard time. His briefings, though, indicate a shrewd strategic mind behind the bravado, since he is obviously willing to trade the planet once again for time. He will fight the Klingons, but only up to a point, because his priority is preserving as many of our ships as he can.

The Klingons, though, have other ideas, and press their attacks remorselessly. The Darius is stationed at the far port wing of our fleet formation, and as it happens we are facing an F5 flotilla and a D5 War Cruiser squadron. The D5s quickly force one of our number to disengage due to heavy damage, while the Darius and the other remaining Destroyer do the same to the F5C Frigate Leader. Things are not going so well elsewhere, though, as the entire Klingon fleet targets our main cruiser squadron. We lose a Heavy Cruiser destroyed, along with another crippled as well as the Command Cruiser. The Boneheads even manage to cripple an NCL into the bargain, while their most serious loss is a crippled D6 Battlecruiser. We leave.

I also take part in the engagement at the planet itself, but this time the Darius is just an observer. Our fleet formation is extremely widely spread, and this time we are at the far starboard of the fleet. We swing round the planet, but the action is over before we get to decent range - we are just too far away to intervene. This time, the Klingons attack our main carrier force directly, destroying the Escort Destroyer, crippling the Escort Frigate, and heavily damaging the CVB itself, as well as wiping out its fighters. They also destroy an NCL. In return our forces destroy a D7 Battlecruiser and cripple another. We leave the planet to the Klingons, and get ready for the next round. These battles are getting pretty intense!

And then comes news that the Romulans have invaded.

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