Excerpt: Hunt Starfire's Phantom Phliers

2838 C.E.
Drexel VII, Drexel System
House Donov Space, Keetis Sector

Korvettenkapitän Hunt Starfire broke to his right as another of the squadron’s fighters turned into an expanding cloud of gas and debris in the thin atmosphere above the planet Drexel VII. Dammit, they got Hansen, Starfire thought. That’s two down. He broke back to his left and started looking for targets again.

These Donov fighters are too much for us. If we stay out here much longer, we will get slaughtered. It was true; the Wraith fighters the Donov pilots were using out-classed and out-performed his Hammerhead fighter in every category. As squadron commander, Starfire had seen the specs on the Wraith fighter that intelligence had provided a few weeks ago. Nothing in House Merker’s military could touch these new Wraiths. Rumors had been swirling around since the start of the war that Donov had something new in its arsenal, and only a freak accident had delivered a badly damaged Wraith into Merker hands. The technical division had poured over every millimeter of the remaining hulk of the fighter, and the news was grim. Wraith fighters were going to own the battle-space for the foreseeable future. His gut told him this could turn into a short war for his squadron if he didn’t do something quick.