Gratuitous Federation & Empire

 As expected, the Klingons come again. We engage them at the approaches to the curiously-named Bezwell Index, and although we inflict heavy damage, we are forced back to the planet itself. The crew of the Darius  acquit themselves in the way we have come to expect and admire. We are stationed at the far port end of our fleet deployment, just next to a Fast Dreadnought. Our main enemy in this zone is a squadron of D5 War Cruisers, and using Klingon speed and manoeuvrability they cripple our Dreadnought. In return, though, our firepower destroys a D5 and cripples their squadron leader. Elsewhere, the fight does not go well for us as we lose a Heavy Cruiser destroyed and another crippled, in return for crippling an F5C Frigate Leader. Our most telling loss overall is the death of Admiral Shyth as his Dreadnought is crippled. He is replaced by the Terran Rear Admiral Hirva, an accomplished staff officer who is not really an experienced tactical commander. We can only hope that he has been

 The Coalition has arrived again on our central regions with a massive combined force. Partly thanks to financial aid from the Federation, plus our own earlier building efforts, our defences are in reasonable shape. We do not expect the enemy to be able to take the capital itself, but they will degrade our main planetary installations even further - economic warfare, in effect. The CVL Tempest , whose fighter force I command, is assigned to system defence at Kuballus, which is uncomfortably close to Kzinti itself. On this occasion our main enemy will be the Lyrans. We have a good concentration of force here, including the recently commissioned CVA Dreadnought-class carrier Olympus . The fighting is fierce in the first engagements, and then the Tempest  is called into the main line. Our immediate force is very powerful: an Early Dreadnought; a Battlecruiser; and a Scout Tug as well as ourselves. We are off to port from Kuballus, skirting orbit; the main enemy facing us is similarly powe

 Our forces combine with our Lyran allies to make another mighty effort on the Kzinti home systems. We do not expect to conquer them completely, but rather to disrupt them again after our previous attacks were relatively unsuccessful. This time we have the task of reducing the outer worlds while the Lyrans attack towards Kzintai itself. The campaign is a long one, with many engagements. I sit out most of the initial ones in my new command, the D5 War Cruiser Rapier , but attrition inevitably means that we take our place in the line. My first battle in this campaign is a relatively straightforward pass. The Rapier is stationed at the far starboard of our line as our fleet concentrates in a sweep to one side of the enemy Starbase off to our port. The Rapier  is part of a standard D5 squadron, supplemented to our immediate port by an F5 Frigate Squadron; our heavier vessels are centered more towards the base. They are the ones who mostly pay the price, as we lose a D7C and a D7 before war