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Vendetta — Description
From the sketchbook, Mitsubishi liner and acrylic ink. 9x5 centimeters. A doodle I got a bit carried away with.

A bit of an artistic composite featuring two ancient enemies back to back. On the left, a canine Confederate marine wearing a combat rated RF suit (sans helmet), equipped with a multibeam PPG carbine with underslung missile launcher, a PPG sidearm, an FBS boarding knife - and 100% abbrevation free glare tan under his eyes. Even in a future of interstellar empires, faster than light travel and intelligent robots, some tricks never get old. On the right, a Hyperorian Elektronika P1-700 (chassis type 159: Genet, female) wearing the lady's maid livery of her principality, equipped with a cryo pipe, a kizami dispenser/lighter, and a Potassium iodide tablet dispenser. The latter, while here designed and decorated to match her working environment, being a standard safety accessory included with most nuclear Elektronika robots, providing some degree of immunity in case of a fuel vessel breach.
But the carnage behind them is not one either of them is personally familiar with. It is something they have almost certainly heard of and may look back upon as a legendary middle age: A simpler time of honour and heroes, before the race against light was won and the worlds were still distant, before politics and high technology made war among the stars endless and beyond understanding. But wishful thinking is easy. When it comes to their inability to fathom the hell of being a space warrior in such an age, the trooper with countless brushes with death behind him and the robotess who rarely leaves the comfort of her owners' court have nothing that separates them.

A thousand years earlier, maybe more: In the comet cloud of a Martenclaw daughter colony some 25 light years from Sol ships of the line are locked in combat. On the left, a punitive fleet of Terra United. On the right, a fleet of haphazard Martenclaw slimliners. But whichever the side, the carnage they face is the same. As are the dangers of spaceflight, the risks of cryonics, the years lost sleeping away transit, the tedium, the wasting of muscles in zero gravity, the poor food and hygiene, radiation, dangerous technology and claustrophobia.
It will not last forever. Soon enough the bonds of lightspeed will be broken, freeing beastkind to explore the galaxy. The Terran empire will fall, and in its place the Confederacy of Democratic Worlds will rise and eventually be worthy of its own name. The scions of Martenclaw and the Sons of Atlantis will travel far beyond Orion, founding the Hyperorian Aggregate and its hundred principalities. But for the space warriors in their ships of the line all that is at best a distant dream of a better future. A dream that trooper and robotess alike are unaware they are privileged to live.

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EDIT: An update particularly for the benefit of space combat enthusiasts.

Space warfare doctrine in the Twelve Planets era is based on WMD deterrence. The vast distances of space and the impossible logistics of planetary invasions and occupation means the only viable objective of interplanetary conflict is control or denial of resources under threat of destruction; ie. taking populations hostage. While the capacity for destruction on a hyperbiblical scale certainly exists, with warheads produced in the billions, in practice leadership generally recognises destroying labour and resources negates the purpose of conquest, effectively making such threats meaningless. Combat for space control persists as a matter of institutional inertia and the inevitable result of arms races, but across the thousands of years that the Twelve Planets endured only a handful of wars actually resulted in even minor significant changes to interstellar power.

The predominant warship of the Twelve Planets era is the ship of the line, massive constructions several kilometers in length. Size and some degree of bloat is a necessity: Interstellar travel times being measured in years or even decades excludes the possibility of fast response or reinforcements, requiring warships to be as self-sufficient as possible and outfitted to face obstacles unaccounted for at the time of launch. Ship combat occurs at fractions of light seconds. There exists no effective defense against directed energy weapons other than keeping distance and avoiding hits altogether.

Left, top:
A pair of capsized Pacifica pattern descendant ships of the line. Both have lost the stern section, but not necessarily to enemy fire. The stresses of space travel are immense, especially on craft with a mission profile requiring them to be in transit for years or decades before seeing combat. Even the ships of Terra United, commanding perhaps the technologically supreme shipbuilding tradition among the Twelve Planets, are prone to suffering mission-ending accidents.

Left, center (above):
Catastrophic frontal penetration. A shot pierces the spine of the ship through the water-filled RCS pans, disintegrating the ship in a steam explosion.
Although the prow and stern are largely intact this is effectively a loss with all paws. At this point all crew not directly exposed to the explosion have already been killed or mortally wounded by the sudden acceleration. Death is usually the result of hydrostatic brain injury.

Left, center (below):
A Pacifica pattern descendant ship successfully returns fire, currently the only ship in the squadrom doing so. This says little about the current state of the battle. Space combat is extremely chaotic, with outcomes frequently decided by dumb luck.

Left, bottom:
Catastrophic hit, a beam shears off the dorsal turret. While this ship has survived for the time being this is one of the most dangerous injuries ships of the line may suffer. Penetration of the massive capacitors required to sustain and modulate laser weapons, through the water-filled sections of the ship may create the conditions necessary to ignite nuclear fusion, instantly obliterating the ship in a miniature star.
Contrary to popular belief, while a reactor vessel breach will result in release of radioactive contaminants, it will not actually cause an explosion. Controlled fusion reactions are extremely unstable, and in case of a breach suspended plasma will dissipate before even making contact with the chamber walls. The popular impression of the efficiency of fusion power is also greatly underestimated: The actual fusion pile of a massive reactor such as the Bussard ramjet of a ship of the line averages less than 10.000 atoms in diameter.

Right, top:
A pair of Saetang slimliners, rolling hard as the squadron enters an evasive action. Behind them, another ship further back in the ranks did not receive the order in time, with devastating results.
The slimliner is an offshoot of the ship of the line, taking the concept of presenting a small frontal target area to its extreme by flattening the ship along a plane. The actual feasibility of this concept is debatable, but established traditions - and the economic aspects of military gear acquisition - die hard.

Right, center:
A Saetang slimliner opens fire. Normally laser fire would not be visible from off axis, but as the battlefield becomes saturated with debris and RCS waste bloom is inevitable.
The primary ship to ship weapons of the Twelve Planets era are high wattage laser weapons and utility missiles. The number of emitters increases steadily throughout the era, from dozens to eventually hundreds, as the only way to compensate for inaccuracy over distances measured in fractions of light seconds is increasing the number of shots in a salvo.
Highly sophisticated projectile weapons, such as rail guns and coil guns (mass drivers) exist, but such have not seen use since the early days of the era due to being generally inferior to DEWs. For most of the era mass drivers are also banned under one of few conventions all Twelve Planets universally agreed upon. As mass drivers small enough to fit on warships are not powerful enough to yield interstellar escape velocity, stray ordnance has a tendency to enter comet orbits; certain areas of the Sol and Alpha Centauri systems are intraversible for a period of time once a century as shots from ancient battles pass through.
It should be noted that had it not been for the general inferiority of mass drivers compared to DEWs, said treaty would likely never have been signed.

Right, bottom:
Martenclaw space warriors abandoning ship. One learns the hard way that wearing a helmet is a good idea in space.
Being left separated from the lifeboats makes little difference as there is practically no hope for rescue anyhow. They take positions and prepare to repel intruders; perhaps an even less likely scenario. But in every age and every place, war has a tendency to drain the sanity out of people.