Once they were in their Mecha, the three Pilots just waited to see how the battle was going. The Koleska should be able to handle this on their own, and the Destroyers would keep the Arisen away from the planet, so chances are they wouldn't be needed unless there were additional ships beyond the once Cruiser Class Arisen ship, which had arrived here already.
The Arisen backed away from the Destroyer when they realized that it was protecting the planet and engaged directly with the Koleska Mecha.
That was the best-case scenario, to convince the Arisen that they were a defensive force and that they would only attack when they were provoked. It would make things harder on the Koleska, but as far as the Arisen knew, Cleansing Light and Shattered Pride were part of the Station's defence force, so they wouldn't be shocked to see them during the assault.
"Waiting is boring. Tell someone to fire a nuke at them." Nico complained, making Max laugh and Khalil wonder just how crazy the tiny researcher really was.
The Koleska had switched up their tactics this time, compensating for the lack of the two human Mecha, and had sent four elite squads on the flanks around their main formation, harassing the Arisen army and shooting the War Walkers in the back whenever possible.
Going by the radio chatter, that was a highly satisfying endeavour, and the elite units were happy to take the additional risk if it meant they got to do it every battle. Their kill counts were way up from their usual role stationed within the semi-circle since they had the whole main force to serve as a distraction, and it looked to Max like the Koleska army was finally getting the hang of working in smaller units instead of as a collective.
"Those aliens are actually pretty good. We heard that they were getting stomped out here, but it looks like they are holding their own." Khalil commented as the two main forces collided.
"They have gotten much better since we arrived. We gave them new training technology, and they started emulating our strategies, and it has turned the battles from massacres to nearly equal matchups. At first, their casualty rates were more than ten times what we're seeing here today." Max informed the Sergeant.
"And their species survived? That alone is impressive." Khalil responded grimly.
"Humans endured worse. Even the Tapani, who were on the border with the Klem before they were brought into the fold and ceased to exist as a nation, suffered heavier annual casualties than the Koleska. But I am not sure how fast the Koleska are reproducing. We never really got to talking about families much." Max explained.
"Fair enough. You only need to know so much about the sex lives of alien species. But it would be good information to have if we're going to be here a long time. It would suck to be standing next to a dying species who can't replace their fallen warriors and not do anything about it."
After that, they watched the battle in silence and made notes on the Koleska combat strategies to forward to Commander Yuri. He wouldn't take it personally that they had made a comparison to how the humans would have deployed or the suggestions that Max and Nico created for him. He would actually consider them and how they would work for his troops.
If they were good, he would add them to the training and try them out once he was sure that his soldiers were ready to use them in a real battle.
Now that they had a load of learning machines on the Station, as well as the Arcade, they could really start expanding on their strategies and skills. The results were already obvious in this battle, with even the rookies doing much better than expected, but given some more time, they would be incredible Pilots.
Max was looking forward to the first waves of new soldiers who would be coming from the planet's surface as well, now that they had the Academies up and running. He knew that the Ministers and Bureaucrats were annoyed with him for having the Terraforming Array build them and send out the message that they were ready for use, but he was not annoyed enough to change the schedule.
So, the students were well on their way to completing their training, as close to a special forces level of expertise as they were capable of obtaining, and once they were in combat, Max was hoping that there would be a full turnaround of the situation for the Koleska Empire.
The Arisen ship gathered up the War Walkers and retreated as expected once they had taken a bit over fifty percent casualties, and the Koleska had managed to get the shields down on the ship. It was reassuring to see that they were back to their customary attack and vanish routine and not continuing to ramp up the conflict with more and more ships.
Perhaps they had decided that a slow, grinding death was the best way to deal with the Koleska after the mass assault hadn't worked. Max couldn't get enough of a read on the thoughts of the Arisen to really grasp the nature of their strategies, only their basic motivations, so his guess was just a guess this time.
Nico compiled their notes about the battle, since they had the time to watch it from a distance for the first time, and added a nice bit about the casualty rate, which was a bit higher than their best battle, but still significantly lower than the average and trending downward over time.
[Thank you, Commanders. The troops will appreciate your kind words for their improved skills. They are resting now, but I will put it in the notes for tomorrow's daily briefing.]
Commander Yuri was an easy man to please, so Max just left it at that and powered down Cleansing Light. If the Arisen returned, he would go back on standby, but now that he was awake, he might as well get to work on the structural analysis after the first round of testing again.
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