Aggressor: Rise of Man

Chapter 10

Torfan


""When assaulting a fixed position, the shipborne infantryman is to make every effort to conceal himself, so that his attack may take the enemy by surprise. An effort to establish camouflage before the point of contact can pay dividends. In the discovery of ground-scanning radar, or evidence of IR imaging, the application of local mud can serve to dampen the attacker's heat signature, maintaining utter surprise..." -excerpt from Birdspotting, A Complete Guide to Finding the Parrots Before They Find You, unofficial infantry field manual circa Human-Turian War


The high whistling shriek of incoming ordinance came again in the too thin air of the moon of Torfan. The shriek grew to a tearing, howling thing as it bore in, truncated by a rippling series of detonations that shook the rocky ground beneath Shepard's feet. He threw himself down to the ground again, shielding the sensitive components of his radio rig with his pressure gloved hands. High speed fragments of stone raked his side and stung the back of his neck as the artillery blasted fresh craters in the sloped rills of rock that made up Torfan's northern highland plains. The bombardment ended after what felt like an eternity, the pirates dug into the jagged shouldered buttes up ahead likely stopping to replace ammunition or radiator stock. Which left just the groans of the wounded and a piercing ringing in Shepard's ears, which could be heard even through the thickly insulated radio headphones currently clapped over Shepard's ears. Slowly, he lowered his hand and peered forward. There was still a frightfully wide stretch of open, uneven, and treacherous ground between themselves and the steep sided hills that stood from the surrounding plains like a jaw full of shattered teeth. From his spot on the ground, Shepard thought he could see the flashes of reflected light off of metal poking in cracks that ringed the closest butte, though dazed as he was, it could quite as easily be a trick of the light or perhaps the twinkling of day time stars behind the hill.

"Sound off, who's not dead!" called the ragged voice of the squad sergeant leading their section of the Black Ops platoon forward. Voices crackled in over the platoon net, fewer now than since the last check in, ending in Master Chief Petty Officer Charles Humboldt, the Odysseus' Forward Fire Support Controller. The man Shepard had been assigned to as radioman, much to both NCO's chagrin. A half dozen black-helmeted heads popped up from the grey stone as no further shelling seemed to be on its way. "Up and on your feet, troopers!" the sergeant bellowed again, "We stay on this plain, we die! Chief, we need that artillery position gone, yesterday!"

"I'm working on it," Humboldt groused. He forced himself up to a knee and hauled out the dull tactical field green fire director computer. About the size of a suitcase and protected by thick neo-bakelite, the computer that linked into the platoon's support element network was more armored than Shepard was in his dark grey pressurized kevlar suit. "The damn jamming is thick as soup. Shepard, get up here! If I'm gonna be saddled with you, you might as well make yourself useful!" the senior NCO looked back at Shepard and glared through the bubble visor of his navy issue helmet. Shepard shuffled up to his own knees, sending chips of stone flying in the lower than earth gravity. As the FFSC's dedicated radioman, he should have been posted at the master chief's shoulder at all times to ensure a steady uplink, but the career fire director had put distance between the two of them at every turn, as if the Shepard name would rub off on him. As it was, the distance saved Shepard's life.

The radio crosstalk had masked the rippling, tearing shriek of more incoming rounds. Shepard's first warning of the pirate mortar rounds was the sudden backlight that shone through Humboldt's helmet, which for the barest of seconds gave the far from angelic face of the other man a flaring halo. There was a sharp crack that whipped through Torfan's wispy atmosphere and a blinding flash of light that triggered the darkening of Shepard's helmet. When the polarization faded and allowed Shepard to see once again, there was nothing left of Charles Humboldt but a pair of smoking boots in the center of a still expanding red circle almost five meters wide. The armored fire director tumbled end over end, skittering across the abused rock of the plain. The Black Ops team looked in stunned silence, first at the macabre pair of boots, then back to Shepard. For his part, Shepard ignored their stares, fixating on the still sliding computer case. He leapt for it at the same time the sergeant started bawling 'you're up, Petty Officer!'

Dread clamped its heavy, clammy grip on his chest as his eyes followed the bouncing computer come to rest against an outcropping of rock. He pushed it aside, trying to force the fear from his mind. Groggily, as if recovering from a night at the bar, he forced himself to wobbly legs. A voice in the back of his head that was apparently still working whispered that he was pretty close to the pressure wave and probably risked a concussion by hopping in the low gravity towards the director. He slapped the voice down, focusing his effort on putting one foot in front of the other. The case was within an arm's reach when either gravity or unconscious orders from his hindbrain set him into a dive. The kevlar of his space suit rasped on the stone as his rubberized boots lost traction and he slid to a halt. The computer was centimeters from his finger pads. The thick case was scarred by the explosion and dark with carbonized blood. Shepard wormed forward and snatched it from its resting place. The blood crunched in his grasp. With held breath, Shepard undid the clasps and wrenched it open. The screen within was cracked but functional, though the flicker of white text revealed it to be rebooting. Likely the explosion had knocked its brain around at least as bad as it had Shepard's. He let it run its boot cycle and busied himself by plugging his radio set into the thankfully unblocked port on the computer's side.

Around him, the squad rose to its feet and crept forwards, pushing the only cover available to them, the shell holes and craters that the previous bombardments had punched into the stone. Shepard trotted along behind them; eyes glued to the progress bar that filled agonizingly slowly. Thick white dust, powdered by artillery strikes, puffed up around his ankles in lingering clouds.

"Get down, you fool!"

Shepard was pulled from his feet by a trooper crouched in the lee of the crater just in time to dodge a streamer of fireflies that leapt up from the hillock up ahead. The streamers whipped up the dust, dragging miniature tornadoes through the cloud.

"Great, they got a couple of HMGs up there as well. So much for just rushing them and feeding them a brace of grenades," the Sergeant spat, "Where's that fire support?"

The fire director computer trilled its startup alert and the blank screen resolved into a list of available assets. Judging by their markers, there was a flight of Hornets loitering over the battlefield a kilometer to the south. He dialed into their squadron channel, letting the signal scrubber find its way through the jamming as he laid in the director's integrated range finder. The circuit hissed and then popped, signaling a thready connection. Shepard slapped down on the transmit key. His eyes double checked the call sign of the Hornets, then the controller ID assigned to the now atomized chief.

"Uh... Bullet 3-1, this is Bravo 1-7, radio check, over." He held his breath for a dozen heartbeats, willing the flight leader up above to receive the request and respond. Relief filled him as the white noise broke again, letting through the flat, clear voice of the naval aviator circling the battlefield.

"Bravo 1-7, Bullet 3-1, roger, over."

Shepard took in a steadying breath and gave a small whisper of thanks to whatever force had found a gap in the thick blanket of electronic noise. He thumbed the transmit key again.

"Bullet 3-1, requesting immediate fire support mission at grid coordinates, uh... Romeo six by Yankee nine nine, distance seven hundred meters. Target is hardened artillery position; I'm showing you loaded with bunker busters. Over." The machine guns stitching their position was drawing a tighter bead with every long, stuttering burst. Rock flakes pattered against Shepard's helmet and pinged off the back of the fire director as the high velocity flechettes chewed into the lip of their cover.

"Negative, Bravo 1-7," the aviator replied, his voice never rising above a conversational cadence, though he may as well have shouted the words, such was their impact. Shepard reeled in shock. "Those bombs are to be released by the Naval Forward Fire Support Controller only. You want them, put me through to Master Chief Humboldt. Over."

"Say again, over." Shepard called, not believing what he had just heard.

"Look, Bravo, I got eight bombs and a whole lot of engaged infantrymen who want me to blow something up. If the Chief thinks your little anthill is worth knocking over, he's got 'em, but until you put him on the horn, you'll just have to wait in line. Over." The flyer cut the line, leaving Shepard looking incredulously at the flashing screen. It wouldn't be long before the artillery crew on the hill hand their pieces back in line, and while their cover was just barely enough to protect them from the machine guns, it made them a perfect target for the high angle mortars.

"Humboldt's dead, Bullet, this is his dedicated radioman. My squad is pinned down in a killing field. We need those bombs now!" His fingers clenched around the computer hard enough to cause his knuckles to pop under their hardened gloves.

"Then get me his signifier code," the pilot shot back, "back of his FO patch, over."

"Humboldt's a fog, sir," Shepard ground out through gritted teeth, "Now..."

The pilot cut him off. "I've got flying to do, if you don't have the signifier code, there's nothing I can do for you. Get off the line, Radioman."

"Belay that, Bullet 3-1," the baritone of Captain Anderson stomped on the rest of the flight leader's reply, "This is Odysseus Actual. My FFSC just called for a fire mission. Those bombs are free on my orders, do I make myself clear?"

"Roger wilco, Captain," the pilot snapped, voice suddenly free of its languid ease, "Fire mission at R6-Y99 imminent, out." The pilot dropped out of the connection and up in the sky, a quartet of bright stars separated from the constellations above and wheeled around to make a run on the butte. Shepard watched them come, his eyes flicking between the incoming fighter-bombers and the enemy position, urging the aviators on, praying he would not see fresh mortar shells blossoming from the fat stone mushrooms.

"Shepard, Chief Humboldt was a good FFSC, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to step into his shoes for the duration of the mission," Anderson continued, shocking the junior NCO. Sheepishly, he looked back over his shoulder to where the master chief's boots were still steaming. He gulped. "Make sure that position ahead of you is reduced, then attach yourself to the Sentinels moving past you to the west. Major Alenko believes he's found the central hub of the pirate's operations here."

"I, uh, yes sir," Shepard responded, though a gnawing feeling was growing in his stomach. The Captain seemed to read his trepidation, because he responded firmly, yet warmly.

"I have every faith in your abilities, let's get this done. Odysseus out."

The bright lights in the sky resolved into the swept wing forms of four Hornets that screamed out of the dark. Bullet Squadron's Third flight arrowed in, waggling slightly as they released the heavy bombs nestled close to their bellies. The dark precision munitions fell silently though the thin air, the only evidence of their passing the bright puffs of RCS fuel that corrected their courses. They hit the hill up ahead with a dull crack, their impact somewhat anticlimactic after the struggle to pry them loose from their pilots. At least, until the penetrator heads burned through to their preset depths and unleashed fire beneath the Asari's feet. There was a sudden eruption of white dust from every crack and firing port in the butte, which seemed to heave as if taking in a huge breath. It ballooned, cartoonishly, until it looked fit to burst. Fire belched from its western side in a sudden violent eruption and the hill deflated into itself, the white stone collapsing backwards in billowing waves. The firing from within the hill ceased utterly and a stormfront of stone shards and pyroclastic dust swept out over the plain.

"Fucking A," the trooper who had pulled Shepard down exclaimed, clapping him on the thigh. "Watch 'em pop."

"Yeah," Shepard whispered watching the afterglow of the destruction he had just called down burn out, "yeah." He looked back, one last time to the smoking boots behind him. Guilt chased elation chased a deep sense of impending doom across his features. "I'm sorry, Chief..."


"...but it sounds like we're stuck together on this one."

Shepard winced as Humboldt dropped a pair of pressure boots unceremoniously on the desk before him, rattling his partially disassembled radio, a scowl that could melt neo-bakelite twisted his face. The Master Chief Petty Officer was maybe a decade older than Shepard, but his face bore enough scars to double that gap in apparent age. He kept the dark blue sleeves of his work utility uniform rolled to the elbows, revealing more hard-won scars.

"Quite," the older man responded tersely, "get your kit sorted out. Final briefing in the hanger bay in twenty. I expect you to be in full battle rattle and ready to take notes."

Shepard bit down on a sharp remark, despite the bite of the Chief's likely pointed insult. It wasn't like he hadn't heard it all before about his rating. He'd been accused of being a phone answerer before, though never so directly, nor by an immediate superior.

"Aye aye," he managed, though his heart wasn't in it. That seemed to strike the forward observer as equally insulting, because he rounded on the junior radioman.

"Look, son, I didn't pick you as my assistant. I have a very capable second in PO Chesterton. But I'm not taking her down to this blasted alien moon, I'm taking you. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you're a hell of a phone operator, but what I need is someone who is combat trained. The brass might be convinced that a Forward Fire Support Controller is just a secretary for fighter jocks and artillery park brats, but let me tell you, it is not a job for a desk driver. But it is what it is, some four-eye thinks you're some kind of good luck charm, so here we are. Just try not to get in my way, and maybe I'll be able to bring you home in one piece." And with that, he whirled and stormed from the room, leaving Shepard stewing.

"Laptop jockey." The radioman glared across at the vacuum boots so rudely dropped on his table. They were worn, likely pulled from the surplus stores aboard. They had likely been a dark blue when they were new, but they had been rendered a dull slate grey by layers of scratches and ingrained dust. They were of heavy, ceramic construction, topped in thick, rubberized cuffs. The rest of the suit, dumped in a bin just outside his quarters, was much the same, from its sandblasted shin plates to the open bubble helmet that reminded Shepard so much of Earth's early space explorers. He'd hated the vacuum rated gear ever since basic training, where it had become forever associated with his disastrous brush with Luna's Micro and Zero Gee Training module. At least Torfan had more gravity than Luna, closer to Mars' if the pre-briefing intel was to be believed. Still, as he squirmed and shrugged into the heavy suit his stomach began to turn over rebelliously. He looked up at his desk chronometer and felt a thrill of panic run through him as he saw that ten minutes had already passed. It was at least five minutes to hurry on down to the hanger bay in this get-up, and his radio gear was still in pieces on the desk, the partially deconstructed etherwave radio purloined from the Batarian Embassy wired into an open port by hand.

With a flourish of cursing, he yanked the painstakingly soldered wiring from the radio's casing and began to reassemble his rig with rapid, practiced motions. The final plate clicked into place and he hoisted it onto his shoulders, where it perched uncomfortably over his breather pack and made him look like some kind of ungainly hermit crab. Looking around the room, Shepard racked his brain for anything left behind. His eyes alighted on the flattened nose of Lieutenant Montoya's Deadhand nestled in its low-slung true-leather holster. He snatched it up and belted it on rather more inexpertly than he had the radio. The buckle snapped together and he burst from his quarters, a scant four minutes to go until the briefing started. He hurtled down the empty hallway like a heavily padded comet, wheezing under the weight of his assembled equipment. He threw himself into the elevator and counted the seconds until it disgorged him out into the bright lights of the hanger bay.


The blinding bright light of the burning pirate strongpoint slowly faded behind him. He clasped the fire director in one gauntleted first. It bumped against his thigh as he walked to hopping, ungainly walk of a low-g hiker. It was leaving a greasy smudge of Humboldt on the kevlar wrapped armor plate with every rhythmic thump. Around him, the surviving members of 7th Squad fanned out, their Razor carbines up and ready. None had risen to challenge them since the Hornets had put an end to the hardened artillery position that had pounded them since they had jumped from the Odysseus' Ravens for what had supposed to have been a simple reconnaissance mission. Had remained as such right up until the anti-air artillery had unmasked itself and started to pour tungsten rods up into the sky from every hill, ridge, and ripple in Torfan's bare, striated surface. In the distance the skyward reaching fingers of the Asari's defenses still painted fire in the dark. Every now and again, a faint vibration ran though his boots as ordinance was exchanged. Bombs dropped, aircraft clawed out of the sky, they were all made similar by distance. He'd stopped leaping up to try and locate the source of the impact. There was only the march.

"Everyone get down and shut up," the squad sergeant hissed over the link, "Hickman, Combs, you're up. 3 O'clock, flank wide."

Two dark clad forms rose and broke away from the pack. The tall, broad-shouldered Hickman cradled the squad's sniper rifle. The equally tall Combs was his spotter, and a competent markswoman in her own right if the notches on her pistol could be trusted. The two of them moved like hunting big cats, their dark armor melting into the shadows. There was silence for a long, tense span of seconds that set Shepard's teeth on edge, then the retort of a single shot.

"Target down," Hickman's broad Texas accent rolled over the comms.

"Single Asari, looks like our girl was wounded and moving on her own. Pack of them must have gotten into a scrape with some of ours," Combs voice was raspy and tinged with a harsher Scottish inflection, "didn't end to well for the Asari, looks like."

"Then we're probably close to the Sentinel team's location," the sergeant said, "hold position, we'll come to you. Slow like," he clarified for the squad around him with his final words and cut the connection. The ground up ahead was broken and treacherous looking as it slanted up and away in a hump backed ridge that divided the moon's upland plains. From images of the planet from orbit, Shepard knew that beyond the shattered terrain lay a rift valley, and beyond that another, squatter rill of upthrust rock. The whole arrangement reminded him of a fish he'd seen being gutted back home, its back broken and its wide scales turned into wild disarray. That fish had been dangerous too, with hidden spines laced with poison and more fight in it even after it had been filleted. All of Earth had become more dangerous after the Chimera had come. Shepard looked up at the hills. They likely held poisoned barbs as well, lying in wait to snag the foolish that fought that still meant dead. Regardless of the danger, the sergeant ordered the squad into the broken ground, and Shepard followed along dutifully. They ascended, careful to pick their way through rubble strewn slopes, until they came upon the sniper crew. Hickman lay sprawled on his belly, helmet visor pressed to the eyepiece of his vacuum-rated CL-15 Deadeye sniper rifle. He had the deadly hypersonic plasma weapon trained on a jagged pinnacle of rock across a sinuous ravine.

"Tex thinks he saw something move across the way," Combs filled the sergeant in as the squad shuffled into place. "Looks like someone over there is trying to get us on laser range finding."

Shepard peered across the space. Then he saw it too, the telltale red flicker of laser light. It wavered a little, wiggling back and forth. Odd, almost like they're trying to get our attention, he thought to himself. Then he saw the brief flash of light on cup shaped metal and it clicked in his mind. He bent and shuffled forwards, reaching back to his pack as he went. He brought his hand back with the curved metal receiver dish and pointed it towards the light. The transmitted message flashed across instantly. Shepard smiled.

"It's the Sentinel team," he called, "that's not a rangefinder, it's tight beam. Major Alenko reports contact with the enemy and advises radio silence outside of extreme short range squad net pulses. He says he's tracking our advance and to authenticate; Ottowa."

"Send; Striker," the sergeant replied.

Shepard punched in the short message and aimed his own laser wand at the cup shaped receiver the Sentinel team had propped up on a rock alongside their apparent position. A black-gloved hand reached out from behind the rock and scooped up the little reflector. It was shortly followed by a boot, and then the familiar orange shroud of a Sentinel's force screen. Then another. A third and fourth force screen emerged from a narrow defile that Shepard hadn't even spotted. And finally, Major Alenko himself rose from a covering position, wreathed in a thin bubble of static electricity that raised a nimbus of white dust around his feet. The squad formed up with the easy cohesion of a dance troupe, forming two pairs behind the Major as if performing a long-practiced maneuver. They trotted down to the far side of the ravine as Shepard's Black Ops team reached theirs. Shepard linked their two squad nets instinctively, wrapping them in a tight bubble of nigh-impossible to intercept communication.

"Sergeant Derosette," Alenko nodded politely, "Glad you could make it. Rough country in these parts."

"I grew up in the Alps, sir, let me tell you, you haven't seen rough country. Less Greys in Grenoble, though," the older man chuckled darkly, "unless you count that Cloven cell we busted up." The two leaders shared a laugh. The distant sound of thunderous impacts gave the little sound a grim underlining that was quickly matched by the expression on Sergeant Derosette's face. "Where's you alien friend?" he asked suddenly. Alenko grimaced.

"Scouting ahead, he says," he replied, "Says he's pretty sure he saw one of the Asari's bolt holes up ahead and wanted to go sniff around for an entrance to the tunnel network they seem to be using to move around in. I guess he's seen a base like this before, thinks that we can wipe out every surface bunker and landing pad and leave eighty percent of their infrastructure intact and ready to fight."

"Pah," the Sergeant mimed spitting, "perhaps it is more like Grenoble than I first thought. So, are we coming to you, or are you coming back this way? It's a hell of a jump, either way."

"Jumping is the only way, I'm afraid. This ravine runs almost a kilometer to the North and the South is still crawling. Have your men give it a run up, I'll catch any that look like they're going to fall." As if to underline his point, the bruise purple static discharge of biotic power flared around the heavy amplifying collar. The rest of the Black Ops squad muttered darkly, though the dismay seemed fairly good natured, at least on the surface. Still, no matter how much the individual soldier groused, they still shook out into an even line on the rocky plateau. The back of Shepard's neck prickled uncomfortably. He looked nervously around, scanning the landscape for a sign of someone or something crawling up behind them. He saw nothing, yet the feeling of being watched persisted, in fact, it redoubled. He tried to shake it off, focusing instead on the line of men and women ahead of him.

Derosette tapped the first man on the shoulder, setting him off in a loping run. He reached the lip of the ravine and bent his knees, springing off in a flying leap. He soared in the low gravity, gracefully going through a smooth arc until he landed in a gymnast's slow-motion roll. The Sergeant was already tapping the next in line, a shorter woman who carried the squad's anti-armor LAARK rocket launcher. Her run was much less even and her jump mistimed, her foot dislodged rocks from the edge of the canyon as she made to make her own leap. She tumbled through the air, flailing as she struggled to keep her grip on the launcher. Kaidan stepped forward to pluck her from the air, but there had been power in her leap and she landed inexplicitly on her feet, stumbling, but keeping her footing as she ran off the rest of her momentum. Hickman and Combes followed closely behind, leaping together to land evenly in mirrored crouches. Sergeant Derosette looked backwards and pointed at Shepard and the man behind him.

"Shepard, you follow me. Rook, you're Tail End Charlie." The Sergeant turned and made a standing leap, throwing himself across the rift. His short jump took him only halfway across the span. Light danced across his back in blue-black coils and he his downward arc was suddenly slowed and then reversed as the older NCO swooped up and over the far lip. Kaidan lowered his hand and Derosette dropped lightly to his feet. Shepard took a deep breath to steady his thundering heart and stepped up to begin his run. Just as he made to take his first step, the earphones sheltered within his bubble helmet squawked sharply with a gust of violent feedback. The sound jolted Shepard from his concentration and his boot skated across the dusty rock rather than biting in. His leg went out from under him and he tumbled to the ground. His face reddened furiously as he looked up to see both the Black Ops troopers and Sentinels across the way doubled over in unheard laughter. The still shrieking yowl of electronic noise blatted out any sounds of mirth that might have filtered through. Shepard slapped at his wrist mounted control unit in an attempt to cut the feed. A firm hand clamped down on his shoulder and he was suddenly looking up into a pair of focused grey-green eyes beneath a brow knitted by... was that concern? Rook was talking, his words lost in the electronic gale. His worried eyes winced. So, he was hearing it too. Shepard motioned towards his headset and made the sign for radio trouble. Rook nodded slowly and leaned forward, bumping his slit visor to Shepard's bubble helmet. He had a warm, mirthful voice that came through the touching hardened glass as if across a great distance.

"You okay, PO?" he asked. The sound still rang in Shepard's ears. He tapped furiously at his wrist. The sound cut away suddenly, leaving only a ringing silence. Still, Shepard let loose a relieved sigh.

"Feedback in the lines, I've cut our channel until I can clear it out." He accepted Rook's offered hand and was hauled to his feet, helmet still pressed to helmet. Rook had a few inches of height on him, which caused his boots to leave the ground in a tiny bunny hop that made his stomach swoop. "Might take a second."

Rook looked around and returned his helmet to Shepard's. "Right, you get that line cleaned, I'll hop over and tell the others. You watch my back, okay?"

Shepard nodded appreciatively. Rook unclasped his gloved hand and turned away, preparing to make his run. Shepard's eyes followed him, his heart still pounding. Something about the blanketing wall of noise struck a sickening feeling of familiar dread in him, though his brain refused to place it. Instead, he watched Rook make his first couple of bounds towards the lip. The other man knew his way around a low gravity world, hopping as naturally as a skilled biotic would. The way the Asari back on New Eden had. The bottom fell out of his stomach. He tapped furiously at the control tablet, calling up the previous workaround that he'd run during his last tussle with Asari pirates. Rook had just reached the lip of the gorge when his program executed, flooding his ears once again with a grainy hiss, but also the voices of his squad mates.

"Look out!" he croaked, causing Specialist Rook to look back as he made his own soaring leap. It was too late.

The bubble of biotic force that struck the specialist wasn't so much a ball as a rippling bow wave that sliced through the air with all the menace and deadly intent of a shark fin. Its leading edge was near invisible, dark purple against the blackness of space, but the energies that followed behind it like a searing ribbon were a crackling blue. It didn't slice where it intersected with his abdomen. A slice would have been kind. Instead, it clawed its way into the hapless Rook's belly in a roiling, churning turbulence that immediately painted the purple-black a frothing red. And Rook screamed. They had left him enough of his lungs to scream.

"Merde et sang!" Sergeant Derosette swore loudly. His team opened fire around him, aiming or more likely vaguely pointing their weapons down into the ravine from which the biotic attack had been launched. Their weapons clawed at bare rock as a dark shape separated itself from the uneven floor and catapulted itself into the air. And it wasn't alone. Suddenly, four, no, five, no, six shapes spun, tumbled, and leapt through the air. They unleashed a veritable tide of violence. Thin biotic lashes that beat down amongst the scattering human soldiers, blasts of concentrated force that pulped the arm of the LAARK bearer, some kind of automatic shotgun that launched wild patterns of white-hot needles. And the SRPA forces met them.

Major Alenko spun his arm wide above his head and wove a sheltering hurricane of biotic force. The Asari flailed against it for a moment, and then broke in five directions, each of the pirates trying to get around and under the defensive umbrella. The thin stuttering blasts of Razor fire sent flickering trails of angry red plasma spiraling out at the madcap raiders. Shepard watched the big man he knew had to be Jenkins stoop and gently pull the LAARK from the thrashing grip of its wielder. He hefted it to the sky in one hand, balancing its tube on his shoulder. It erupted in fire, sending a lance of destruction out on a swirling tail of burning propellant. It caught one of the leaping Asari full in the chest and turned it into a brief and very gory starburst. And then the four survivors where down amongst them, surrounding the beleaguered Sentinels and their Black Ops escorts. Four. Had another been hit? Shapard saw no further corpse. A light thud signaled the alighting of his missing Asari.

Basic training was a distant memory, but his experience down on New Eden had been a powerful motivator to brush up on the tenets of marksmanship. He rolled over, hand already reaching for the handgun at his side. It cleared leather with a satisfying rasp. The Asari was maybe two meters from him. The alien hunched, cat-like, prowling foreword with a one of their curved blades in one hand, an oversized pistol in the other. Shepard lifted his gun, aiming one handed at the approaching pirate. The Asari regarded it coolly, it's rilled helmet bobbing as if curious. Shepard squeezed the trigger. The Deadhand erupted with red fire, plasma streaking out. The Asari reacted fast, blindingly fast, jumping up into a cartwheel. Shepard tracked it, rolling onto his belly to keep it in his sights. With a sudden blur of motion, the Asari changed direction, auguring in on him. Shepard fired again, his aim quickened by panic and sending shots wide. He walked it back, forcing himself to exhale with each shot. He landed one shot, two shots, the Asari would be upon him before he even broke through its barriers, three shots. The Asari made as if to pounce, its legs gathering beneath it and extending again in a perfect, graceful leap.

Shepard closed his eyes and readied for the burning pain of that knife sliding into him. But it never came. He opened one eye. The Asari floated there above him, pirouetting cartoonishly in a cartoonish low gee gymnastic routine. Blue blood sailed in thick globs from the harpoon wound in her their stomach. Behind them, a figure descended on white puffs of propellant. A figure wielding the long, brutal Batarian State Arms Kinshok. Balak landed beside him, taking a knee as his weapon whirred through its reloading cycle. He pivoted smoothly at the waist, sending another long tungsten rod downrange towards the Asari still harassing the Sentinels. It sailed into their midst, spearing an Asari through the thigh.

"Still breathing, human?" Balak asked.

Shepard nodded. He reached and scooped up the handgun where it had fallen as he'd drawn his arms in front of his face to ward off the death blow that never came and propped himself onto his elbows. Balak gripped him by the shoulder straps and hauled him too his feet.

"Good, there is still much to do."


The dead and dying were strewn across both sides of the deep ravine. There they would stay, minus whatever weapons or ammunition that could be salvaged. The day was still young, as Balak had said to the recriminations of the survivors. But that was an argument to save for the barracks. The order of the day was the mission, and the next step in completing it was staring the short squad in the face. Sentinel Goto stepped away from the head of the deep shaft carved in the rock, the entrance to the Asari tunnel network that had been just another conical outcropping of rock until Balak had spotted it rising from the stone to disgorge our ambushers.

"Place crawls, Major, but the Spectre is right," Goto said, "this is likely our best way in."

"I hate tunnel work," Jenkins groused.

As Shepard stared into the black pit leading down into the hostile moon, he couldn't help but agree.


INTEL

Avro-Nobusuma SF-77 'Hornet' Fighter

The Hornet is the premier strike fighter of the EDE Navy and pride of the Three Power Pact's aeronautic industry. Produced by the Avro-Nobusuma Zaibatsu, the Hornet shares the legacy of both the Japanese turbine engine that allowed its fighter craft to mount a devastating air campaign against the Chimera over China, but also the famous CF-105 Arrow. Multi-role capable and equally maneuverable in atmosphere or vacuum, it serves as the mainstay for carrier air groups and ground-based Air/Space defense squadrons alike. The SF-77 is flown by a single pilot, although many flight tasks from navigation to engine control can be offloaded to the onboard VI.

The Hornet bears a strong family resemblance to its distant ancestor, the AV-12 Space Harrier. Like the Harrier, the Hornet is fully VTOL capable and possesses powerful afterburners that while unable to match the maneuverability of ME-equipped craft of similar size, is at least able to keep up with them. It's unique vectored trust design also gives it certain advantages in high energy evasive maneuvering, something that surprised a number of Turian aviators during combat operations.

The Hornet is armed with a pair of just off-centerline rotary plasma cannons in its stock configuration and mounts a variety of munition pods beneath its atmo wings. Depending on loadout, the Hornet can provide interception, close air support, and limited anti-capital ship duties. This versatility comes at a price, with Hornet's not excelling at any one mission profile. Its defensive package is also lacking, at least compared to its ME peers. While the Hornet can mount multi-vectored force screens, their use in atmosphere degrades performance. This fact has been partially compensated for with a thickly armored skin and honeycombed internal structure. In addition, the pilot sits in a heavy neo-chobham 'bathtub' that closes to fully envelop them in the event of an ejection.

Several of the EDEN's most famous formations fly Hornets, including the UPP's Nacht Hexen Bombing Group and the Three Power Pact's Rogue Squadron.