Category:Wing Commander: Action Stations

English language cover, Baen Books.

Czech language cover, Poutnik Knihy.

Novel by William R. Forstchen, published in early 1998 by Baen Books.

The book covers the early career of Geoffrey Tolwyn, under the guise of being a Confederation Fleet historian's fictionalized novelization published four years after Tolwyn's death; it is a "novel-within-a-novel". The plot centers around the McAuliffe Ambush at the very start of the Terran-Kilrathi War, an event first described in Claw Marks; thus, except for the fictional author's foreword, the events in it predate every other Wing Commander game, book, film, or television series.

Cover Copy

THEY PLANNED ON A NICE WAR . . .

 There had been a century of peace, and the politicians of
Earth and its colonies were running on platforms of cutting
“wasteful” military spending―all while Earth's military tried to
keep aging and obsolete ships flying and battle-ready. And
while the swords rusted, war clouds gathered on the horizon. . . .
 Contact had been made with the Kilrathi―a warrior race
feline in appearance and deadly in combat. Yet, even though
they had annihilated or enslaved scores of other races
throughout the galaxy, and had attacked human colonies on
the border worlds, the government was not taking them
seriously, thinking that the Fleet could handle them with ease.
Commander Winston Turner knew that the government was
moving toward a declaration of war against the Kilrathi in
response to demands from the border worlds. He also knew
that the Fleet would be forced to operate under Plan Orange
Five: limited action and punitive responses only. He only hoped
that mankind would recognize its mistake before it was too
late.