 Kane has perfected a new design for the Hatchet Fighters of the Draconian Realm, but in testing the empire s best pilots cannot control their ships, invariably resulting in their destruction. Ardala, determined to launch attacks on Earth, orders the capture of Buck Rogers, the one pilot in the galaxy who can possibly control Kane s new Hatchet Fighters. Using a dramatic ruse, Ardala succeeds in capturing Buck and Twiki, and prepares Buck for the debut of the Zygots, robot duplicates of himself. Strapping Buck into a bulky space suit, the Draconians record all of his abilities and transfer the data into the Zygot prototype, who is a near-perfect clone of Buck except for his mangling of some of Buck s 20th century parlance and his excessively happy personality. The prototype nonetheless succeeds in infiltrating Earth, but when the ruse is discovered, Ardala has three more Zygot models ready to fly Hatchet Fighters in an attack on a major Earth city, and when they engage the Intercept Squadron they slaughter Earth Starfighters as if they weren t even armed spacecraft - until help arrives in the form of a fourth Hatchet Fighter......