The Excalibur-class is the apex of the United Galactic Authority Fleet's small craft inventory, and the only class in the registry whose performance figures are withheld from general reference. What can be stated is this: it is built on the Longsword airframe, and that is the entire extent of what the two classes share. Larger drives, heavier armament, upgraded shielding, and combat and tactical suites that exist nowhere else in the Fleet.

Excaliburs do not deploy as a matter of course. A supercarrier fields one wing of them, and that wing is not part of the standing rotation the way the numbered wings are; it is a called asset, held for the encounters the Fleet has decided require it. On the supercarriers they launch from the ventral bay, centrally located, larger than any other aboard, and shared with the transport traffic that carries every officer, delegation and inspector who has ever reported aboard. A section of that bay is partitioned and under guard. What is parked behind the line is the first thing any of them see.

Selection is not a matter of accumulating hours. Excalibur pilots come out of the same population as every other wing and almost none of them come out of it at all. They are permitted a flight suit no one else may wear, muted black with copper, and it is the only outward marking the class allows itself. Fleet doctrine is unusually direct on the subject and has never been amended: the Excalibur relies on nothing.