Aster accelerated his mobile frame, pushing his machine’s thrusters in quick, rapid bursts of acceleration that adjusted his course of his DMF-09 Arvan in rapid, jerking motions. The sudden G-forces rocked him, but they allowed him to dodge the fast bursts of paint bullets that appeared where he had been mere moments ago in the underground and artificial skies of Alsium Two. His pursuers, two of them following close behind him, sent burst after burst of paint shells that tracked his every movement.

  He managed to camouflage himself among the cloudy sky that offered him some concealment, but the bright blue of his thrusters was an obvious tell of where he was. Much the same as for the hundreds of other mobile frames that skrimished against each other around him, in the skies and on the ground.

  He glanced behind himself, memorizing the position and patterns of his foes behind him as he quickly turned vertical, twisting his machine in a sharp jerk upward that took his pursuers by surprise and made them rush after him without a thought. He turned his eyes away from the center of the center point of his cockpit’s 360-degree display in front of his seat after clearing the last few layers of clouds. Then, a blinding light filled his mobile frame’s cockpit.

  But it also filled the cockpits of the enemy pilots of the machines following him too.

  Aster thrusted his machine into a backflip, pointing his kinetic rifle's barrel straight downward, putting the full thrust of his mobile frame’s backpack thrusters to work as the enemy mobile frames quickly came to a stop, staggering in the air with their arms shielding the main cameras in the heads of their mobile frames, their pilots no doubt stunned by the sudden light.

  He fired several bursts at each of the mobile frames, taking advantage of their disorientation before they could recover. His bursts hit each of them dead on, painting them in a bright assortment of colors reminiscent of the rainbow. He grinned as both of the mobile frames slumped forward, the arms and legs of their humanoid bodies going slack, simulating a kill. Two more marks for him in this particular skirmish. The painted mobile frames then departed in a direction away from the fighting, back to the Rakaila that hung nearby, some miles away, hovering over the ground.

  The artificial dome that made up the ceiling of Alsium Two was damaged and undergoing repairs, but was still in good enough condition to simulate an artificial sun as good as the real thing. Though there were still many dark spots where the paneling and substrate of the dome itself were exposed.

  The DMF-09 Arvan he was using was good. No. More than good. It was great even.

  The mobile frame was the current mainstay of the Gaia Sphere Federation. A current generation model that reiterated and built upon all those that had followed it. It was nothing like a first-generation mobile frame like the GMF-03 Exan, many of which busied themselves with the ongoing reconstruction work of Alsium Two in the far distance. In it lay incorporated all sorts of technologies that put it heads and shoulders above prior generations.

  His cockpit was a 360-degree display that simulated in perfect resolution the outside world via cameras situated throughout the mobile frame’s exterior, which gave him unparalleled situational awareness. The sensors were the best that could be mass-produced and accurately tracked the positions of his friendly and opposing mobile frames and other objects in real-time on the digital overlay of his 360-degree cockpit, despite the density of proto particles that filled the simulated battlefield.

  The machine itself, from head to toe, was lined with synthetic muscle fiber that ran throughout the mobile frame under the harsh and angular armor plating along the metal skeleton of the humanoid machine. From major joints to small ones, from elbows and knees to its fingers, the artificial muscle fiber gave the machine a flexibility that was reminiscent more of a living biological being than any metallic machine.

  But the most notable thing of all was the control interface. Though the control interface was still the same as prior generations, even a first-generation GMF-03 Exan, with analog control sticks and foot pedals, but there the cockpit itself could detect the electrical impulses that were in the nerves of its pilots and then transmit those to the machine itself, increasing its responsiveness by leaps and bounds ahead of others that didn’t have it. A version of the mind-machine interface, though inferior to the more advanced versions that connected the machine directly to the pilot’s mind. Still, it was enough to make the machine more like an extension of the body. At the very least, it was able to lift the combat ability of the average pilot to a higher standard. It was probably the intention behind it as a design choice for the machine.

  All in all, it was an excellent machine. Fast. Responsive. Refined. It was a combination of design choices that Aster agreed with. Not an absolute cutting-edge machine with the best technology that could be put into it, but the best of what could be mass-produced with a clear focus on simplicity, effectiveness, and mass production on a wide scale.

  He certainly enjoyed piloting it. He loved mobile frames. And this one sang to him. It was as if its arms were his arms. As if its legs were his legs. As if it were his body flying in the underground and artificial skies of Alsium Two, not the machines.

  He took a moment in his own little lull amidst the chaos to breathe as he studied the battlefield on his mobile frame’s interface, the graphical representation of the world around him displayed on the 360-degree field of view cockpit. Missiles and rockets filled with paint exploded and airbursted around him, in the skies and on the ground, as if they were displays of colorful fireworks. Mobile frames by their lonesome, in pairs, and in groups, tried to flank and maneuver around each other. Thousands of paint-filled shells flew every which way in bursts and sniper fire.

  Several hundred mobile frames struggled against each other, with no other goal than to knock the opposing enemy team's mobile frames out by scoring a simulated kill. It had been a long time since he had been in a combat simulation of this scale.

  The exercises weren’t anything special. As opposed to other goal-oriented exercises, this was simply a way to see how individuals fared by their lonesome and in groups. There was no point in winning other than bragging rights, as individuals were assessed for their performance in battlefield decision-making and teamwork. There was no set path to scoring well. No right or wrong decision. The entire battlefield was being recorded by warship Rakaila, through Alsium Two’s surveillance equipment, and the mobile frames themselves. And all would be assessed by their conduct in their own particular circumstances.

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  Though Captain Rakaila did promise to reward the team that won with a batch of ice cream that she herself personally made.

  It was a hobby of hers. She had gotten so good at it that she had become known among the Federation fleet for making the best ice cream and having the best ice cream on her ship. He really wanted to win this and eat that ice cream. He had heard stories of how good it was. And some stories of the lengths that people would go to try and get a taste of it.

  The captain had made it known that she had locked it up in the most secure parts of her ship's body, though that didn’t stop people from trying.

  The warship Rakaila hung over the ground in Alsium Two, a few hundred meters above the ground, miles off in the distance. Despite how large the underground agricultural district of Alsium Two was—a few dozen miles long and several miles wide and tall—the warship Rakaila was large enough that it filled a significant portion of Alsium Two. It was motionless as its launch catapults were extended from the massive, open hatches of its hangar bays in addition to its open cargo doors.

  Mobile frames marked as killed returned to it, returning directly to the extended catapults runways and open hangar doors.

  A flood of smaller transport craft embarked and disembarked from it in a continuous stream, moving people and cargo to and fro within Alsium Two in the busy work that was currently in progress to reconstruct it after the damage it suffered.

  He could even see people taking the time to observe the spectacle of mobile frames from the warship itself with their own eyes or a display of some kind.

  As an assault carrier-battleship hybrid, it was still one of the advanced and capable vessels that made up the Gaia Sphere Federation fleet. It was an obsidian wedge of armor and firepower; it bristled with countless particle cannon emplacements on turrets and recessed into the armored wedge itself. Close in anti-craft turrets littered it in overlapping fields of fire on every angle, above and below. And missile tubes were scattered in batches all along its surface in key spots.

  The warship featured a total carrying capacity of several hundred mobile frames and several thousand crew. It had enough launch catapults to launch those mobile frames quickly and efficiently. It also had the storage volume needed to carry all the equipment, fuel, and spare parts to maintain them, as well as all the supplies for its large crew, so that the warship could operate independently for extended periods of time if needed.

  But the most notable thing about the warship Rakaila was Captain Rakaila herself. As the spirit of the warship itself, the warship acted as her body. If needed, she herself could operate the warship all by her lonesome without the need for a crew if the situation ever arose, as if he were moving his own human body. Every particle cannon, every turret, and every missile could be operated by her just as he moved his own limbs and digits. Just as he could walk and run, so too could the Captain move and propel herself with the vessel’s fusion engines and the countless thrusters and verniers on it.

  In many ways, the warship Rakaila and Captain Rakaila represented the pinnacle of the Federation’s technological and arcanological prowess for better or worse.

  It was a bit overkill. Though he couldn’t fault the decision to ensure the safety of Selenia, a princess from the Settlement Front Alliance, from those who had thoughts of harming her.

  What was the saying?

  Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight?

  Well, he supposed the saying don’t bring a mobile frame to a warship fight applied here.

  And the Rakaila looked just the same as during the End War in the vision he had seen of the past in his fight with Captain Lelesia…

  And…

  Staring at the warship, with its storied history, his mind drifted back to what he had seen. Of the flash he had seen of the End War. The Rakaila, in the midst of war, launched a special machine that was notably absent. Something called a…

  Gaiadan.

  A special machine. One that looked so different from other mobile frames like the DMF-09 Arvan he piloted now. One that felt so very different. One that had soared out amidst the stars, a beacon of light and hope in the middle of a battlefield. Something about that machine called out to him. He felt a tingle go through him at the memory of it.

  A warning alarm of an opposing mobile frame blared at him, and a small bright light lit up his display to his side to signal him of the direction of the oncoming enemy machine.

  Aster snapped his head as he turned his machine, jetting off to an oblique direction as the machine had caught him offside. He raised the shield of his mobile frame, blocking several bursts as he dodged several more. But the opposing machine maneuvered with speed, having built up significant momentum in its flanking movement that he found it hard to reorient his own machine against.

  He gritted his teeth as the opposing pilot circled him, the barrel of the kinetic rifle loaded with paint shells pointing straight at his exposed backside. He was going to get taken out!

  As it was about to fire, the head of the opposing machine turned upward to see several bursts of paint shells fly straight downward at it. Unable to react in time, the opposing mobile machine was hit dead on and splashed with a rainbow of colors. Its limbs went limp as it quickly flew away from the battlefield to the Rakaila, its pilot no doubt annoyed at the loss.

  Aster thrusted up and away, regrouping with a friendly machine, clinking arms together with it in a show of solidarity.

  “Thanks Arnis,” Aster said, over his short-range comm.

  “It’s nothing,” Arnis replied. “What are you spacing out for?”

  “Sorry,” Aster said, glancing around. “I just got distracted.” He spotted a few squadrons of mobile frames headed their direction at speed.

  “Well, now's not the time to be getting distracted,” Arnis replied. “I, for one, would like to score a few more kills before the combat simulation is over. At the very least, I want to get some of Captain’s Rakaila’s ice cream!”

  Aster could sense his friend was smiling in his cockpit in that easygoing manner he usually had. He smiled back as they both sent themselves and their mobile frames head-on against the opposing machines headed their way.