Back aboard the Koleska station, the consensus was the same. The two groups were at war with each other, and their battle had simply happened to appear here as they maneuvered to gain an advantage. historical

The unknown force had been uninterested in their planets, and that was a relief, but the new technology shown by the Arisen Army during the battle was greatly concerning. There were hundreds of strategic meetings among not only the combat units on how to deal with these new threats should they face them but also among the senior commanders.

Commander Yuri, as head military officer of the station, addressed the gathered officers. "We owe the humans for going to engage and sending back their sensor data. We wouldn't have learned nearly as much with the interference from the battle, and now we have practical data on the defensive capabilities of the Arisen Cubes, as Command has decided to designate them.

Unoriginal, I know, but it will do for now. The new weapons technology is particularly concerning to our War Machines, as analysis says that our current armour technology won't stand against it and will be eradicated in layers by the beams.

One shot or even two is no real danger to the main armour, but it will quickly eat through the flexible joints and connections, rendering the units immobile long before the main armour is depleted."

The news was not good. They already knew that the Arisen could take down the energy shields on their units with relative ease, and now they had to worry about new patterns of weapons that could disable without completely destroying their equipment.

Even with the new training programs for the soldiers, they might not be able to make up for any of the imbalance if that equipment started to come to them.

The Minister of Defence sighed and looked around the room. "I have a proposal, and I'm not sure if my superiors in Central Government Management will approve it, but I would like to ask the humans for more help.

They presumably have lighter patterns of their War Machines that they call Mecha. If we could get that technology programmed into our Template Constructors, I think that we would be able to fight back more effectively.

There really is no question that they are better at war than we are, and we now know for sure that the Arisen are assimilating other technologies into their army, so I have hope that the proposal will be approved."

The proposal raised a lot of questions among his peers and the government ministers. The humans could likely make controls that they were familiar with, but switching to new equipment was a big task, and this plan had a crucial question mark in front of it.

Would the humans even agree to trade military technology with them? And if they did, would it be effective against the various permutations of the Arisen Army that they had seen today?

What none of them knew was that Max, who had just returned from battle to his hangar aboard Santa Maria, could hear their thoughts as they discussed the proposal to beg the humans for weapons technology.

"It looks like they're planning to beg us for light Mecha to add to their Constructors. They upgrade mostly by lucky finds, so this fits with their strategy, and our light Mecha would be an improvement on what they have. Plus, we can tailor the weapons to use against the Arisen." Max suggested.

Nico smiled as she considered the possibilities. She might be without her drones here, but if they had more competent allies, it would help.

The Reavers never sold current-generation technology, but even two generations old still made their gear more advanced than it had been when the two of them introduced their first Mecha to the Kepler Military, so it would be better than what the Koleska were using.

"I think that we can work a deal. I'm not sure what the payment terms will be, other than their agreement not to turn on us and to protect the Anomaly, but we can certainly get them some Mecha for their armies.

Even if we just trade them some new weapons, I think it will help a lot. Their actual War Machines aren't terrible. They're at least on par with the old-generation gear from our training days, and both Stalwart and Tarith's Rage were great units. So if we just programmed some new guns in for them and trained the Pilots, they would get a huge bump in combat effectiveness.

The Arisen Army has gotten good at matching their shielding to their enemies, so I think that a random phasing Ion Cannon would be a good start. With every attack on a different frequency, they can't optimize against them, and then we can upgrade the Koleska close combat weapons to go with their training and see how far that gets us in casualty reduction.

Two weapons technologies would be far less disruptive to the process than changing their entire army's main Mecha." She suggested.

Max smiled at Nico's initiative. That would be much easier to convince the leaders to adopt.

"Come up with something that matches their design scheme and get it ready for presentation. We can send it to Commander Yuri and the Minister of Defence as soon as you are finished since they will be in meetings for the rest of the evening.

If we go in person, it will only make the process take longer, so we can let them do the negotiations on our behalf and upgrade our allies as soon as possible."

"I will get right on it. Should we just go with one ranged and one melee weapon to start and then upgrade them again if the Arisen adapt to the new weapons?" Nico asked.

Max smiled at Nico's plan. "Yes, keep them coming back when things go wrong. It's the best way to keep the Anomaly under heavy guard. If they need us, they need us safe."