Preybird-class Starfighter

"There's nothing wrong with the Preybirds, sir. They're a quite capable midsize starfighter."

- Captain Ardiff to Admiral Gilad Pellaeon

The SoroSuub Preybird-class starfighter was a model of heavy starfighter. It was a capable craft for both offensive and defensive purposes, with a heavy laser cannon on each wing, and fore and aft concussion missile launchers, and it was perhaps best-known for the fact that it never entered full production.

The Preybird was in most respects a competent snubfighter, with a heavily-armored hull, but significantly less maneuverability than a TIE/ln starfighter or a standard X-wing. However, its large size and intimidating, raptor-like appearance could make the Preybird appear more powerful than it really was: a tactic often employed by the smuggler Mazzic was to surprise a ship with his Preybirds, and invite the captain to surrender. Faced with aggressive, unfamiliar fighters, they often did just that.

The Preybird was designed a few years before the Battle of Endor, intended primarily for sale as an escort fighter on the open market, rather than for use in Sullust's own defense forces. However, disputes over the weapons systems led to substantial cost overruns, and ultimately to the project's discontinuation: only a few production ships made it off the assembly lines.

For the next twenty years, the Preybird remained one of the rarest starfighters in the Galaxy, with the best-known examples of the few in operation being a pair which had fallen into the hands of the smuggler Mazzic. Mazzic had managed to inspect the prototype during production, and was immediately taken by the aggressive elegance of the design, so when the production run was canceled, he managed to acquire two of the production ships well below their production cost—perhaps through the agency of his Mistryl bodyguard Shada D'ukal. Mazzic steadily upgraded these two fighters over the years, naming them Raptor and Skyclaw, and decorated their hulls with distinctive raptor designs—red for one ship, blue for the other. They served as supporting muscle for him in high-risk situations, notably at Hijarna in 9 ABY, when they destroyed the fleeing Niles Ferrier and his ship. Other fringe groups possessing small quantities of Preybirds included the Hurrim, an Outer Rim pirate group, and the Tarnished Blades, a pirate force operating in the Ringali Shell.