After a few days, we were given giant versions of the medals and ribbons. We were 30 times the size of a human. They were all made to scale. When all of the A.L.I.C.E. prototypes made their maiden flights, P02-Beta was chosen by their series to go to Mr. Jacaab Mortimer II. Why he was able to finance such an obviously shady deal was beyond me. Jacaab personally wanted one aeromorph of each gender so that he could cross breed them together into a personal fleet. The military was not going to let that happen for clear reasons. Sending 2 females did not mean that his plan could not come to fruition. In theory, he could pay off some other force to get his hands on a male aeromorph. Not all of them were for military purposes after all. It would, of course, lower the fighting capabilities in the offspring. He could still have a fleet of his own. We got some training and practice drills to do. As per our orders, the next morning we attended flight trials. Pitted against stealth jet models currently in active service, we were all tasked with demonstrating our unique capabilities. We did it all.
Being that brass had put faith in us, we had to do the work to show them what we were made of. The neighboring airfield (well...neighboring in flight terms) was tasked to keep us on our toes with challenging us. Mock dogfights, high-speed maneuvers, and a battery of sensor tests filled the itinerary, lasting hours. Fortunately for us, after the last week's escapades we had returned to our prior gracefulness. No sign of tampering remained -- barring the faintest pock marks on our shiny armored plating, but few would notice unless performing a full physical inspection. By the time we had completed the trials, we'd been put through our paces about six times over. It was really tough. Relaxed, having performed excellently, we nonetheless felt the aches of constant activity in our frame. Joints creaked -- devoid of oil. Motors whirred faintly, their coils brimming with electromagnetic discharge. Our jets had darkened from carbon scoring after such a long time in the air. The prototypes were altogether wrecked from the day's events. I was no different. We did our best in everything we did during tests.
Calling it a day made several of us sigh in relief. It was finally done now. Base control told me and my P02 counterpart that we were needed in the main hangar. We were a bit upset that we were not getting time to rest, but there was nothing that could be done when base control called you up. Us 2 Alphas made our way there. "Good work out there. Your series was doing fine. Not as good as we were though." he said cheekily. "Maybe, but we have the bravery and the medals. I think we know who really is running this." I said. He gave me a playful shove. When we got in front of the officer that dealt with us prototypes, we saluted him. He put us at ease and we relaxed. "All of us are really impressed with your progress. When it comes to the bar we set, you keep raising it." he said with a smirk. Praise must be this guy's specialty. I really liked him. "We're almost ready to send some of you out for missions. The brass wants to see what you can do in some real combat scenarios. However, there's other matters to attend to first." I wondered what that would be. "The Brass wants the first iteration."
