Jack of Harts

The Republic of Texas Space Force designed and deployed the F-23 Super Sabre not long after War’s End. It incorporated all of the lessons Texas had learned during The War into a single fighter that could, theoretically perform any mission assigned to it. The laser and missile arrays could engage in everything from ground attack to space superiority missions, while the single spinal gravitic cannon could penetrate even warship deflection grids when operating in squadron strength. The Super Sabre was the largest fighter in widespread usage, due largely to the small living space hidden behind the cockpit. Texas planned to use it for extended interstellar patrols, and wanted their pilots to arrive rested and ready to fight. The Super Sabre quickly became the dominant multi-role starfighter in Texas service, a position it maintained to good effect with consistent minor and major updates over the decades of peace we saw after War’s End.

The Republic of Texas Space Force greatly wished a new series of homegrown hypercapable attack and fighter craft to go along with their Valkyrie bombers. Texas was getting its Texas on when it replaced the older Vigilante’s autocannons with gravitic cannons and renamed it the A-10 Righteous Vigilante. It was a mouthful of a name that was quickly truncated by almost everybody. The absolutely new F-15 Sabre sported a quartet of missile launchers along with a single gravitic cannon so it could handle more mixed missions. Both designs received their baptism of fire in the Hyades Cluster, where mixed hypercapable forces quickly moved through the close systems of the Hyades Core in a serious of feinting and slashing assaults. It is one of the crowning moments of Space Force history that they drove this campaign clear through to War’s End.

The Republic of Texas Space Force had been working on a new generation of bomber for years when The War began. Most bombers mounted single-shot anti-ship missiles, or other heavy weapons, on external hard points at the time, but Texas wanted a hypercapable bomber with internal, capital missile launchers. They were experimenting with both the weapons and the hyperdrive when The War forced them to rush what they had into production. The B-17 Valkyries quickly gave the Space Force the one thing it had always lacked. The ability to send their units to other star systems without requiring a Navy transport to get them there. That ability would fundamentally change the function of the Republic of Texas Space Force throughout The War and after War’s End.