Fighters can be designated as being on Escort Duty. This means that the fighters are swarming around the ship they are protecting, defending it from attacking ships and fighters, acting as the first line of defence. These fighters are not taking the fight to the enemy though, so their offensive clout is very much reduced.

The rules for this are as follows:

In the Initiative phase (segment 2 "Reform/Disband squandrons"), designate fighters as being on Escort Duty. They must start off in the hex with the ship they are going to defend. Facings and speed need not match, and the fighters need not come from the defending ship.

Place a counter to the fighters on Escort Duty to signify this.

The escorting fighters will move with the ship they are defending, and will stay in the same hex.

Escorting fighters will Not initiate combat at all. They will not leave the ship they are escorting, not even to dispatch a crippled ship in the next hex. However, any attacking fighter must attack the escorting fighters first at a ratio of at least 1 attacking fighter flight per escorting fighter flight. Excess attacking fighters may attack the escoting ship at will. Escorting fighters are considered to have a 360 degree arc of fire for this purpose.

Attacking ships using their primary batteries need not engage the escorting fighters.

Escorting fighters not engaged in attacking other enemy fighters may attack enemy ships that attack their escort. The fighters are not moved, so the enemy ship must be in shirt range. This is the only time the fighters may target another capital ship. However this combat is out of the normal combat sequence for fighters. In this case, the fighters will conduct their combat when their escort ship would fire.

Finally, any fighter flight not engaged in attacking other fighters or ships may be used to attack incoming missiles. Each flight engaged in this role is treated as a secondary battery in the anti-missile role.