The Shadow Fighter is, like the Shadow Battlecrab, based on advanced organic technology. The Shadow Fighter is perhaps the fastest vessel ever seen so far. Only the Vorlon Fighter is capable of such a high speed and agility but the smaller size of the Shadow Fighter might be the key factor in a battle. It appears to have only one weapon, a "ball" of energy that it shoots out of the frontal opening. As the Fighter fires, it expands and contracts, earning its nickname "Spitfire". A Shadow Fighter can also phase in and out of hyperspace on its own.
This ship was the most feared weapon of the Shadows until the discovery of the Shadow Planetkiller. They are very fast and their slicer beam can cut whole cruisers to pieces. In addition to this very powerful weapon, the ship equipped with approximately 40 fighters. These fighters can be "spit" out by the mother ship in a battle.
Another great feature is the hyperspace fading. The Shadow ships do not rely on a jumpgate. Also they do not form a normal jumppoint, the ships "simply" phase into hyperspace and than back into real space, a more advanced and faster method than using jump-points. This gives them the advantage that they can appear very close to their targets and that they are very hard to track. This "phasing" is often mistaken for "cloaking", which it is not.
The Shadows buried hundreds of their ships under the surfaces of many planets after they lost the last great war in 1,200 AC. The ships were in safety and couldn't be destroyed. Time by time the ships were found and retrieved by the Shadows or by their allies. One ship was found on Mars in 2253. The PSI-Corps attached a tracer device on the ship and informed the Shadows or some of their helpers about the ship. A few days later a second cruiser arrived, excavated the ship and installed a new core. Both ships left Mars.
As mentioned before a Shadow cruiser needs a core. This core can be any intelligent life form (e.g. Humans). The persons acts a some kind of CPU which makes the ship more effective in battles. The core must be properly prepared before it is connected to the the ship. A non prepared core causes the Shadow cruiser to become insane. This happened when the PSI-Corps found another Shadow cruiser on the Jupiter moon Ganymede.
This time the PSI-Corps wanted to keep the cruiser for their own purposes. They installed a new, non prepared core. The cruiser went insane and destroyed the Ganymede outpost. The ship was later destroyed in the Jupiter atmosphere by the WhiteStar under the command of Capt. Sheridan.
Although the Shadow Cruiser is a very powerful ship it is not indestructible. It takes high amounts of energy to destroy a cruiser. The WhiteStar alone is not capable of destroying a Shadow Cruiser by its own. Even with all energy transferred to the weapons it still isn't powerful enough. In 2260 the Army of Light discovered that Shadow Cruisers can be stun by a telepath. The cruisers are life forms and therefor vulnerable for telepaths. This "effect" was used in the great battle in late 2260. Many refugee ships, that the Shadows wanted to destroy, were driven together in one sector. The Army of Light heard of this plan and set up an impressing armada to take on the battle against the Shadows. Many Shadow ships were killed before the remaining fled into hyperspace.
Many Shadow Battlecrabs were destroyed during the battle between the remaining First-Ones, the Shadows, the Vorlons and the Army of Light in the Coriana system. Together with the First-Ones and the Vorlons all remaining Shadow Battlecrabs left beyond the rim.
