The pilots were all assembled on the flight deck of the Warrior awaiting an announcement from the TIE Corps battlegroup commander. The members of Kappa Squadron stood out amongst the crowd, all but one of them unable to keep still. Admiral Plif, upon receiving notice of the TCCOM's plans, had ordered the squadron's reserve of their revered Kappa Hype temporarily locked away. All but Lieutenant Colonel Tempest had gone into withdrawals from a lack of a sustained flow of the pungent liquor.
Admiral Plif stepped onto the deck just as the holoprojector began to display Fleet Admiral Elwood, whose massive figure projected above the assembled pilots. Everyone on deck snapped to a salute. Commander Leocadio saluted with such enthusiasm that he knocked himself onto the floor, prompting a few chuckles from the crowd. With a stern eye fixed on the fallen commander, Admiral Plif announced, "Warrior flight crew is assembled and awaiting orders, Admiral."
"Today we will start a training exercise where you will compete against the crew of the Hammer. In this exercise you will not be flying your squadron's assigned craft," began FA Elwood. Mumbling could be heard amongst the crowd. "The focus of this exercise will be dogfighting. To sharpen your skills, you will be put in our most vulnerable fighter craft, the TIE Line Fighter." Two pilots, Captain Sienar and Colonel Tempest, cheered as many began to boo. "Theses fighters have been modified by the Science Office for training purposes. The lasers and structural components have been weakened, while the cockpit has been reinforced. They should maneuver and feel like stock; and to an extent, take damage as a stock TIE. The cockpit's reinforcements make it virtually indestructible against the weakened lasers, but would easily be eaten up by our standard lasers. So if anything interrupts our training session, do not try to intervene in these training craft. You would be as effective as a tug with boosters on." The crew laughed at the thought of such a thing as Elwood continued. "Pilots will fly in flights against flights from the Hammer. The winners of those dogfights will proceed to the final round, a free for all that will decide our ultimate champion. Now get to it."
AD Plif stepped forward as the transmission cut out. "We will follow the roster for the first round. Kappa flight one, you're up first." Lieutenant Colonel Drachen and the rest of Kappa's first flight slowly walked toward the TIE racks and settled in to their assigned fighters. Drachen could be seen fumbling around with one of his boots as he sat in the cockpit. As the fighters launched a gulp followed by the familiar war cry of "Kappa Hype!" could be heard over Drachen's comm line. AD Plif shook his head as he watched Drachen's fighter do several loops and rolls before racing at full speed toward the training area.

The Hammer had decided to follow roster order as well, so Kappa and Alpha were the first squadrons to face off. It was an unfortunate choice for the Hammer as this put their least experienced squadron against one of the most experienced from the Warrior. Major Silvius had proven himself as a phenomenal missile boat pilot, but without his shields and SLAM drives he felt lost. The pilots of Kappa had all been around long enough to have experience in a wide variety of fighter craft. Even while guzzling down his flask of Hype, Drachen was able to easily evade all attacks with an erratic series of maneuvers. Lieutenant Colonel Iceman had taken a hit during the fray, though the shot was one meant for Lieutenant Colonel Repulsor, other than that the pilots of Kappa's first flight had defeated Alpha's lead flight without a scratch.
The second flights of Kappa and Alpha delivered more of a challenge to each other, but Kappa again prevailed. Colonel Aznable did not let them get away so easily, however, and managed to down all but Colonel Crespe. But the highlight of the match between the two squadrons was the final flight. LC Tempest was easily the most skilled in the TIE Line Fighter amongst the entire fleet. As Kappa's third flight exited the hangar, Tempest radioed to the rest of the flight, "Stay back. I got this." The other Kappas flew in lazy loops at the very edge of the training area while Tempest charged forward. The fighters from Alpha tried to blanket the space between them and Kappa's ace with an impenetrable wall of laser fire, but Tempest's mastery of the fighter was evident in the way he glided through the oncoming beams with the slightest of maneuvers. Tempest's fighter roared between the charging Alphas and circled around behind Commander Archensov and began to follow him. Colonel Pryde put Tempest in his sights and fired. The lasers embedded in the thrust nozzles of Archensov's TIE as Tempest snapped into a roll that put him directly behind Pryde. Archensov's TIE began to spin uncontrollably until he shut the engines down, effectively ending his round.
Commander Guant and Lieutenant Commander Thoros positioned themselves for a run toward Tempest and Pryde. At the last minute Guant broke left and Thoros broke right, both arching towards to side of the other TIEs. Tempest lazily tugged on the stick as the flanking TIEs fired, dodging the lasers and turning to face Thoros. Thoros instinctively aimed and fired, and once again Tempest dodged. The lasers meant for Tempest crashing into Guant's wing support, sheering it off. Thoros, angered that he was tricked into firing on his squad mate, began firing wildly as he chased Tempest. To the outside observer it would appear that Tempest was frightened by this, but inside his cockpit, he sat with his eyes closed seeming to randomly swat at the controls. With his decades of piloting, he had developed a keen sense of situational awareness and was able to survey the battlefield based solely on sound. Pryde had turned his fighter away to gain some distance for an attack run, when Tempest heard his engines start to change direction to make his run, he opened his eyes. He cut back on the throttle and looped in behind Thoros, then proceeded to roll around the edge of Thoros's TIE as if he were in orbit with it. Thoros tried desperately to shake Tempest, but was unable to do so. Pryde could not get a clear shot on Tempest, so he held back. Thoros, realizing he would not be able to out maneuver the ace pilot, cut his engines off. Tempest heard this and immediately pitched upward and broke off toward Pryde. As Tempest's TIE began to fill Pryde's viewport, Pryde opened fire. Tempest dodged low and Pryde followed him with fire. Several of the shots connected with Thoros, who was still accelerating from his stop. Tempest looped back behind Pryde and pulled his trigger for the first time, taking out Pryde's engines. The deck of the Warrior erupted in cheers, the various screams of "Kappa Hype!" drowning out all others.

After the resounding victory by Kappa Squadron's flights, the Warrior was eager for the match between Sigma and Beta. Lieutenant Colonel Len Eode lead his flight into the training area and set throttle to full. "Let's knock two and three out quickly and concentrate on Both," he said over the comms. Commander Jast replied, "Do you mean 'both', generally, or 'General Both'?" Colonel Eode grinned and answered, "Which ever you think will get you shot least."
Beta flight's lieutenants did not stand a chance. Within seconds Sigma's four pilots had converged and disabled both of the inexperienced TIE pilots. General Both and Lieutenant Colonel Kroan arched in opposing directions and looped back towards each other, hoping to both lure some of the opposing TIEs into the other's sights, but none followed Kroan. Kroan noticed this and snapped back on his stick to aid his commander. General Both's flying skills were beyond any of Sigma's entire roster and he was able to evade the barrage of fire long enough for Kroan to surprise Major Valic, sending the Sigma pilot into a tailspin toward the edge of the training area. Jast broke off to intercept Kroan. Both observed the arch of Kroan's movement on the scopes and turned to intercept, still being chased by Eode and General Kit. As the two Beta TIEs neared each other they unleashed a rain of laser fire. Jast was taken down by Both, but Kroan only managed to get a single hit on Kit's wing before his own was removed by Eode's fire.
"You still with me, Exar?" asked Colonel Eode. "Clipped my wing a bit. Some drag toward port and low, but otherwise fine," General Kit replied as he dropped behind his commander. "I got an idea. Drop back, I'll bring him to you." Eode waited until Kit was a klick behind to back off his throttle too, leaving Both to loop back and go on the offensive. Kit fired several shots behind Eode, which he dodged at the last second. The shots caught Both's TIE in the laser emitters just as he was firing on Eode, allowing him to only get one shot off before being disabled. Both's shot struck Eode's wing strut, but was not enough to disable the fighter. Sigma had advanced two pilots to the next round.
The seasoned pilots in Sigma's second flight unceremoniously dispatched with the rookies in Beta's flight. But that was the end of Sigma's good luck. General Golbez Harvey, easily the ace of his entire ship, pounded the third flight of Sigma into submission aided by an eager Lieutenant Alima. The Hammer finally had a win.

Sin and Delta were up next. Despite the two seasoned veterans in Delta's first flight, they could not overcome the combined experience and skill of the all veteran flight of Sin. In Sin's second flight was one of the pilots enthused with flying the Line Fighter, Captain Xavier Sienar, who knew the ship inside and out. Out of all the TIE variants, he found it to be the easiest to aim and control. However, he was the only veteran in his flight set against two veterans in Delta, Commander Arkson and Major Fenn. The two flights took different approaches to tactics. Delta chose to concentrate on eliminating Sin's rookies, while Sin focused on the veterans. Sienar knew Arkson was the biggest threat and locked on to him as he fired on two of Sin's rookies. Arkson downed one of the rookie pilots before being forced to evade by Sienar. Sienar cut throttle to half and lead out his aim before firing a dual shot directly in the center of Arkson's wing. The other Deltas had already downed the other rookie that Arkson had been attacking and were pursuing Lieutenant Darkblade as Sienar entered firing range. He fired on Fenn first, disabling his engines, but not before he downed Darkblade. The rest of Delta flight quickly fell to Sienar.
Though equal in rank, majors Nolij and Mauser were in no way equal in skill. This made the winning third flight a foreseen conclusion, but what could not have been foreseen is how Nolij was able to cut the flight in half before being shot down. He flew with a skill no one in his squadron even knew he was capable of, evading Mauser's assault for a whole minute while still managing to down the two Delta rookies. But the ace of Delta was not deterred and continued to hunt down Nolij until his luck ran out.

Next the nearly all veteran Theta entered the match against Epsilon. The outcome did not surprise anyone, as Theta crushed Epsilon with only the rookie in the squad being eliminated. Over half the Warrior's flight crew and a few flights from the Hammer had made it to the final round. After a quick change into new training TIEs, the majority of the best pilots in the entire TIE Corps were set to start the final free for all dogfight. The pilots started in a large circle around the edge of the training area and, after a brief countdown, rushed in toward the center breaking off to attack or evade as they got within range. Within a minute the fight was down to ten, with General Harvey in lead for eliminations, when a frigate exited hyperspace just outside the training area. Colonel Torres was the first to the comms, "We got trouble and it's blocking our way back." A pair of strike cruisers and several gunships hypered in near the frigate and started toward the Hammer and Warrior. The frigate remained and began launching A-Wings towards the finalists.
Alpha Squadron was first to launch. Their Spectres are the fastest ships in the fleet when their SLAM drives are active. In one long SLAM burst the eight missile boats weaved through the oncoming ships and fighters to reach the training area. The other pilots, lucky to be in their issued TIEs, began pouring out of the hangars of both Star Destroyers. Captain Spiffy lead the TIE Scimitars from Sigma on an attack run on the strike cruisers while General Polo headed the missile boats' runs on the smaller ships.
When Alpha's Spectres had entered firing range, the A-Wings had caught up to the training TIEs. The TIE pilots were putting on a good show of effort, but to no avail. The training lasers were just as ineffective as Admiral Elwood had suggested. Their evasion skills were being tested to the limit. One of the A-Wings landed a shot on Drachen, ripping his port wing off; just as the first of the Spectres' missiles rammed into the A-Wing. "Someone need an escort?" radioed Silvius. In moments the rest of the missiles connected and the A-Wings were gone. The Spectres moved into a box formation around the group of functioning training TIEs and guided them back to safety. The other squadrons had virtually eliminated the ambushing forces allowing the feeble TIEs to proceed undisturbed.

After the action had ceased, Admiral Elwood addressed the fleet. "I want to congratulate everyone on both a successful training exercise and fending off that ambush. Today we saw 'the best of us' saved by 'the rest of us'. This should show you that each of us is important, that you do not need to be among the best to make a difference. Many of you that were in the fight were in an alternate command, but performed as well as units flying for years together. Now go rest up. It seems we need to look for a new training ground."