Z-28 Skywing

The Z-28 Skywing was an arrowhead-shaped starfighter model manufactured by Incom Corporation. It featured two sublight engines on its stern and between them was a canopy enclosing a cockpit for a single pilot. For weaponry, the Skywing possessed two frontal laser cannons on its underside.

During the High Republic Era, Z-28 Skywings were operated by the Galactic Republic and were also owned by member worlds of the Republic Defense Coalition (RDC). In 232 BBY, multiple Skywings and Longbeam cruisers complemented Republic Admiral Pevel Kronara's Emissary-class Republic Cruiser Third Horizon during the Battle of Kur. They fought against the Nihil marauders' Tempest Runner Kassav Milliko and his Tempest as part of a conflict with them. The RDC member worlds also contributed multiple Skywing and Longbeam squadrons of their own to support five Pacifier-class sector patrol cruisers. In the battle, two Skywings pursued a Nihil freighter before the latter released from its bay doors a gray sludge that coated the fighters, causing them to explode in a chain reaction that destroyed multiple Republic ships.

The Nihil corvette New Elite, Milliko's flagship, later fired its weapons at a nearby group of Skywings, while another Nihil vessel also released reactor by-products from its engines that poisoned the pilots of the vessels the substances came into contact with. As a result, several Skywings were downed alongside a number of Republic vessels. In another encounter, two Skywings and a Longbeam tailed a Nihil ship at high speed and as such were unable to evade the gray-brown sludge released by it. The liquid was ignited by the Republic ships' engines, engulfing them in flames.

By the time the Jedi Order had joined the battle, the New Elite had already shot down a number of Skywings. The fighters continued to engage Nihil forces as the battle progressed. When Eye of the Nihil Marchion Ro activated the Path engines of the Nihil ships, they began to appear in and out of hyperspace, putting themselves in the paths of Republic and Jedi vessels and crashing into them, Skywings included. By the end of the battle, which ended in a Jedi-Republic victory and the death of Milliko, several Skywings had been destroyed, with their pilots' bodies floating in space. Kronara later reviewed the battle via a hologram projection with construction workers Joss and Pikka Adren aboard the Starlight Beacon space station, watching as the Republic ships, Skywings among them, combatted Nihil vessels, as well as the Longbeam and two Skywings that were affected by the gray-brown sludge.

That same year, following the battle, a pair of Skywings was stationed aboard Starlight Beacon when Jedi Padawan Keeve Trennis and her Jedi Master, Sskeer, landed there in a Jedi Vector to meet with Master Avar Kriss, the station's marshal.

In 232 BBY, Skywings were stationed at the Republic Outpost above the planet Ord Mantell. When reports arrived of Nihil activity in the Bright Jewel system, several Skywings and Jedi Vectors took off from the outpost to engage them. Although losses were endured on both sides, the Jedi and the Republic emerged victorious. Jedi Master Yoda ordered the remaining ships to set course for Ord Mantell's junk moon, Quantxi, and alert Starlight Beacon for reinforcements, as they had received a distress signal from a communications tower on the moon. At Quantxi, the Jedi battled with the Nihil forces on the ground and defeated them.

In 230 BBY, Skywings were part of a Jedi-led task force intending to capture Nihil member Krix Kamerat at his base on the jungle planet Dol'har Hyde. As the Jedi and Republic battled the Nihil, Kamerat was successfully captured and taken into Jedi custody. That year, multiple Skywings accompanied Jedi Master Emerick Caphtor and Detective Sian Holt. They attacked a Nihil convoy, and multiple Skywings were shot down while Caphtor and Holt boarded a freighter.

In 229 BBY, Skywings were kept aboard the Longbeam cruiser Gios. Ordered by Commander Velko Jahen, the pilots of the Republic's Firebird Squadron manned and flew them during a conflict with the Nihil at the planet Ballum, supported by the Vectors of Jedi Terec, Ceret, and Ai-Dan Yelooc. In the battle, Firebird Three, who was flying beside Ceret's Vector, and multiple pilots in the squadron were shot down by the Jedi starship Ataraxia, which had been hijacked by the Hutt Clan enforcer Lourna Dee and renamed the Lourna Dee. After an alliance between with the Hutt Clan and Jedi was secured, Skywings engaged the Lourna Dee together with Hutt skiff fighters to help to recover the ship and prevent its escape, with at least one more Skywing being shot down in the process. Trennis ultimately secured the vessel and took Dee prisoner. The Republic and Jedi received orders to return to the Republic's capital planet, Coruscant, but Trennis decided to take the ship into the Nihil territory of space known as the Occlusion Zone against those orders.

That year, eight Skywings were stationed aboard the bay of the Pacifier-class sector patrol cruiser Tractate. The Tractate arrived in the Ribento system to witness the Nihil bombard the planet Ribento. With the Republic and Jedi intending to capture the Nihil member leading the bombardment, Melis Shryke, Captain Amaryl Pel then ordered the deployment of the Skywings, which exited the ship and split off into two squadrons. During the battle, one Nihil fighter and another ship fired upon the Tractate. Four Skywings tailed the fighter, caught it in a tight pincer move, and destroyed it with cannon fire, while the rest circled around the patrol cruiser and chased down the other ship. As the battle progressed further, four new Nihil fighters engaged the Skywings around two larger Nihil ships. The battle ended when the ship leading the Nihil forces, the Cacophony, with Shryke aboard, fled when reinforcements from the RDC arrived.

In 228 BBY, multiple Skywings formed part of an RDC-Jedi strike team deployed from the planet Eriadu that raided the prison ship Korvix Vorn. With the rescue of the prisoners aboard serving as the mission's goal, Vectors would draw the ship's fire while the Skywings and the Vector of Jedi Master Fleur Ridleg targeted the shield generator, then the engines, followed by the ship's inventory of blister bombs. However, during the mission, Admiral Kronara, who commanded the RDC forces, ordered all fighters to cease firing upon the shield generator due to the prisoners being present on the Korvix Vorns in close proximity to the generator. The Jedi then successfully boarded the vessel and made their way to the Yard. The Longbeam cruiser intended to transport the prisoners was damaged in the battle, forcing the Jedi and Republic to use their own fighters to retrieve them. After the strike team was successful in the effort and the Korvix Vorn was destroyed, all forces returned to Eriadu.

Z-28 Skywings were created for the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia project. They first appeared in Charles Soule's novel Light of the Jedi, published on January 5, 2021 as part of the project's Phase I. They received a visual depiction in the first issue of the The High Republic comic-book series. The issue was written by Cavan Scott, illustrated by Ario Anindito, and published by Marvel Comics the day after the novel's release.

The fourth issue of the 2021 comic-book series Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures, written by Daniel José Older and illustrated by Harvey Tolibao, features a design for the Skywing that originated as a fan-made design. When this was pointed out by the creator of the design, Tolibao responded that he did not have any reference when designing the ship for the comic. He created original designs for work-in-progress artwork and found the fan design via the Google Search search engine. Tolibao apologized to the original creator and stated that he was unaware the design he found was in fact fan-made.