Aggressor: Rise of Man
Chapter 11
Tunnel
"The SGM-13C 'Vesuvius III' is the very latest and greatest from the UAC's proving grounds on Titan. It's the kind of weapon system they load up in the cruisers' big Spire guns, guaranteed to turn a molehill into a mountain of rubble. Waste of money, if you ask me. You want me to assault some alien's underground base, crawl aboard one of his flying saucer? Give me a good, sharp bit of steel and a .44 magnum if you've got one going spare. The knife's killed more tunnel rats than one of those nukes, I guarantee it. It's a lesson Uncle Ho taught the Chimera back in the War, and Comandanta Ramona taught the birds on Gilligan's Planet, and it's a lesson I'm happy to extend to any Johny come lately Grey looking to start a fight." -Commander John Bradford, EDE First Encounter Assault Recon, 1st Division "Xenonauts"
"Loud or quiet?"
"We go loud, there's no way they didn't hear that little skirmish. Goto, prep the door knocker."
"You're the boss, Boss."
The click and hiss of the flashbang charge echoed in the narrow rock shaft. The flickering light of its live fuse spiraled down, lighting the unevenly cut tunnel in frenetic arcs. It hit the ground far below with a sharp, metallic crack and bounced up. It erupted in a wall of sound and a blinding flash. Major Alenko's orders followed immediately after, a sharp bark rendered tinny by the team's hearing protection.
"Down the chute, go, go, go!"
Sentinel Goto leapt up and over the low lip of the access shaft and spun to mount the polished steel ladder mounted in the wall. Her outline wobbled as she disappeared below the rim. She slid down into the darkness in a rapid descent. Niemeyer went in behind her, short barreled PDW in hand. Williams hopped in after, working in tandem with Jenkins to get the cylindrical case of a heavier weapon down the narrow ladder. Which left Shepard standing beside Alenko at the head of the ladder. The dark-haired officer gave the younger man an appraising look.
"You know, Radioman, no one would fault you for remaining topside. I'm taking the rest of your squad in, but there's a full platoon of marines coming up behind us. If I had a volunteer, I could post them here to guide the boys in and ensure good connection with the Odysseus." He pulled his heavy framed revolver from the wide, flat holster at his hip and checked the red-tipped high explosive rounds chambered within. Shepard looked back. He knew it was a kind offer, a rare offer. Even with the blood of the Black Ops soldier that had likely saved his life by taking his place in line still drying on his boots, he would still have been expected to do his duty and follow in the squad he was attached to, and any other officer would likely have expressly ordered him too. But Alenko had given him an out. The shame of it coiled in his gut. Why should these brave men be ordered into the black while he got to sit out?
"Negative, Sir," he said quietly. Alenko cocked his head, as if he hadn't heard the near whispered response. Another out. Shepard's cheeks burned red. In lieu of repeating his answer, he stepped past the biotic officer. His hands were clenched under his gloves, fingers curled so tightly that they shook. The little sally port, carved from the rock, yawned open before him, a hungry mouth with truncated, flattened teeth. He threw a leg over the lip and found the ladder behind it. If he was to descend into the depths, he'd have to do it fast. Before the gnawing doubt was able to grow into an unmanageable monster. He took a step down to the next rung, careful to keep his radio set from banging against the walls. Had he been less encumbered, he might have been able to replicate his comrade's rapid descent, but with barely any clearance on either side he was forced to go hand over hand in the tight space. The walls closed in around him, dark and unfinished. Small outcroppings in the rock reached out to dash against his shoulders as they rose unseen from the uneven shaft. Shepard's breathing rapidly grew heavy, the ragged exhalations roaring in his helmet. His exertions echoed in the narrow passageway as his shoulder lamp rang against the steel rungs of the ladder. And then, just as the climb seemed to be growing unbearable, his foot hit solid ground. He stumbled backwards into a pool of low, grey light. Someone caught him by the sturdy handle set in the side of his radio set and spun him around. He found his feet and pulled the pistol from its stays.
"Easy there, Navy," a voice hissed, low in the catacomb-like tunnel, "Clear the way. We've got people waiting to come in behind you." The hand, still stubbornly refusing to make itself visible, gave him a sharp push and set him off down the tunnel. The underground tunnel was barely visible outside the widely spaced overhead lights. These anemic lamps cast scant oases of vision on the rock beneath them, revealing a tunnel much smoother than the ragged passage down from the surface. The walls flowed and undulated, lending the passageway and almost organic look. The walls were the same mottled grey stone of the surface, the floor a thin metal grate over loose sand and gravel. Dust drifted from the ceiling in time with the steady rhythm of the bombardment up above.
Shepard felt his way forward, shuffling in the sightless gloom. Behind him, he could hear boots thumbing to the deck as more troopers dropped in behind him.
"Radioman, your night vision," a man's voice whispered.
Shepard could have kicked himself. He reached up with his free hand and flicked the switch at the base of his helmet. There was a click and his view took on a sickly, greenish cast. Shepard stifled a yelp as the ghostly image of a soldier in blackened armor solidified into Jenkin's bulky form with abrupt suddenness. Had he shuffled forward just a few more steps, he would have slammed right into the other soldier's back. Jenkin's jovially yet firmly lowered Shepard's pistol for him. The younger man flashed him a big smile and pointed to further down the tunnel. Shepard followed his gesture. Williams was set up a few meters down the hallway, kneeling with Bullseye trained on a faint light at the end of the corridor they had found themselves in. Shepard's eyes went wide as he saw a pair of Asari skulking around a hatch leading deeper into the tunnel network. Jenkins brought his finger back to his lips, signaling for silence. Shepard nodded and shrank back against the wall as further footfalls sounded softly behind him.
Major Alenko and Balak crept up. The Major leaned in close, peering down the passage and nodding. In eerie silence, he unleashed a rapid-fire flurry of hand signals. The Sentinel team flowed into action as if they'd practiced the maneuver a hundred times. Jenkins leaned forward, hefting the tube-like weapon case in one arm while he rapped out a short pattern on the back of Williams' helmet. The kneeling riflewoman popped up and moved forward, perfectly in step with the other Sentinel. The air in front of Shepard rippled as something moved in the tunnel past him, near invisible. Shepard could have sworn he heard the faint sound of humming as the shimmer passed. A thin stream of dust fell from the roof as yet another impact slammed into the ground above, the sprinkling of rock flakes momentarily outlined the shape of a feminine figure until the thin breeze knocked them aside. The two visible Sentinels stalled halfway down the passage, dropping back into matched crouches and trading their longarms for strange, rounded handguns with enormous barrel shrouds. They waited there, near motionless, apparently waiting for something. Shepard was about to turn to the Major and ask what that was when there was a sudden flurry of motion around the hatch.
The invisible shimmer that had passed Shepard by dissolved into a checkerboard of white squares, a screen that collapsed to reveal the kneeling form of Sentinel Goto. The slight soldier snapped up in a sudden burst of kinetic motion. A white bladed knife flashed in the gloom as it plunged up and though the armor plates in the lefthand Asari's back. The Asari let out a wheezing sigh that carried down the hallway like a mournful ghost. Its partner didn't have time to react to the sudden attack, as the weapons in Jenkins' and Williams' hands both coughed in unison, dull flashes strobing in the darkness. The twin slugs whistled downrange in a barely audible ripple, colliding with the Asari within moments of each other. The first slug pierced just below the Asari's ribcage, bringing forth a frothy spume of blue-white bloody foam. The second one tore the throat from the unfortunate sentry. The two new corpses tumbled in slow motion to the ground.
"Tango down," Goto reported across the squadnet.
"Impressive," Balak said exuberantly, all but clapping his hands in the tunnel that had quickly returned to silence, "Almost up to SIU standards, though not nearly as messy. We find that the damage to morale is worth making a little carnage."
"We find that being able to clean up behind ourselves to reduce the chances of getting caught worth a little discretion," Alenko replied calmly, "Excellent work, team. Niemeyer, bring forward the Black Ops team. Goto, secure the hatch. I wan..." he was cut off by a sudden bright flash that overwhelmed Shepard's night vision overlay. The flash was accompanied by a fizzing hiss that rose to a roar as the helmets the Asari wore burst in blossoms of fire.
"Yikes!" Goto yelped as she leapt away from the sudden flame. She disappeared into another shimmer, though the licking flames revealed her retreating form.
"What the hell?" Jenkins exclaimed, "They blew up, just blew up."
"Settle down," Kaidan cut through the chatter, "Kasumi, stop burning the charge on that cloaking screen. Niemeyer, move up and check for further incendiaries. I don't want any other nasty surprises. Derosette, hunker down and watch our six. If anything comes sniffing after that explosion, you're our tripwire. This mission is only just started, people, let's keep the momentum rolling."
Shepard didn't know what he had been expecting the underground lair of the Asari pirates to look like, but it definitely hadn't been what was on the other side of the airlock bulkhead. The chambers beyond were smooth, spherical, with round passages to more smooth, spherical chambers. Shallow pits in the ground held thin mattresses, their walls studded with shelving and small storage lockers. The walls were decorated with hand painted hangings that swathed the rooms in layers of wildly eccentric fabrics. The motif of yellow circles on black dominated, clustered in tight constellations, three or four to a cluster. The otherwise spartan quarters gave an impression closer to a hive of insects than the palace of the piratical raiders that had descended on New Eden.
"Don't go in for the life of luxury like you'd think, eh?" Jenkins said, matching words to Shepard's thoughts. "I think I have more junk stuffed into my quarters back on the Odysseus."
"Junk food, you mean," Kasumi chided, "next to your quarters, this place is an SPRA clean room. Pretty sure your locker is in breach of the Armistice." The small recon trooper swept the chamber with her short-barreled weapon. She shuffled ahead, looking out through the nearest opening in the smoothed wall. "This room looks the same as this one. There's a big door like the one we just came through on the outer wall."
"Sounds like we're at an intersection, maybe a guard post or something," Williams piped in.
"Makes sense," Alenko agreed, "Word topside is that the tunnel entrances are growing denser as our forces push west. This must be the outer perimeter of their primary base camp. Based on contact report, we're looking at a radiating set of outward spokes joined by a whole mess of cross-tunnels, like the spokes of a wheel."
"Or a spider's web," Niemeyer added in clipped tones, "only itsy-bitsy spider has found herself a bazooka and psychic powers. I suppose it is our job to start throwing stones and bash the spider out?"
"Negative, we are going to maintain an infiltration footing. Command wants whatever intel we can find on the New Eden attack brought back intact. That's going to be easier if we don't spook some pirate into setting more burner charges. We push ahead, quietly." He eyed Jenkin's weapon case meaningfully. Jenkins chuckled sheepishly. "Shepard, how's our connection to Odysseus?"
Shepard looked down at his wrist controls. The connection was thready, patched through a series of relays and a landed dropship back at the F.O.B. that had been established during their descent. "We can talk, but anything more data heavy is going to be a problem. I can probably boost the gain on the signal, but bandwidth is going to take a hit."
"Translation?" Williams asked.
"I can send files through, but it's going to take a while," Shepard elaborated.
"Noted," Kaidan responded, "take a note, secure hardcopy wherever you can. Paper, OSD, datapad, whatever it is these pirates use to keep records."
Shepard's radio gear warbled. Text scrolled across the screen of his wrist computer. "Major, our reinforcements are on their way down the ladder. Lieutenant Taylor is asking for direction."
Alenko nodded. "Send this, post a squad at the ladder, then continue on. Relieve Sergeant Derosette and have his squad follow us west. Then post up at this intersection, with fireteam strength tripwires out to the north and east. Send. Team, we are moving."
Rocks tumbled in the tunnels up ahead. Their impacts sent clattering echoes down, underlining the bass rumble of encroaching artillery. Figures moved in the dark, dusty passageway, hunched and leaping. They let loose quick, fluted shouts and ululating cries as they ran past the narrow opening leading down to one of the connecting side tunnels.
Shepard pressed himself into the shadow of the wheezing air circulator mounted in the wall above him as the tail end of the ragged column passed. The groups were coming closer together now. And they were getting bigger.
"Taylor's in for some more guests, hope he's dug in well. Would be an awful shame if we were to return to find the back door slammed on us, eh?" Sergeant Derosette muttered.
"Taylor's solid," Alenko shot back, "He's not going to cut and run on us." The Major cocked his head, as if listening for the retreating feet of the Asari patrol. Satisfied, he motioned for the squad to move out. Black Ops soldiers slipped quietly forward, stealthy as rats. The Sentinels followed them, and Shepard went with them. It was growing cold in the tunnel, colder even than the thin air up at the surface. Too cold to be natural. It reminded Shepard of his time in the far north, the expedition to the ruins of old Chicago where the snow clung to the ground late into April. He imagined that where he not wearing a sealed vacuum rated suit, he would see his breath hanging in the air in a glittering cloud. But still, it left him with a burning question. He asked it.
"Hey, Major. Thessia's a tropical planet, right?" He asked. He had to duck beneath a collapsed pillar of rock that lay across the tunnel ahead. Up ahead, Major Alenko looked back.
"I believe so, why?"
"It's just strange that they're chilling these tunnels, is all," Shepard replied. The words seemed to strike the Major still for a second, as if the information was taking some time to process. But the reaction of all four Sentinels was almost immediate, and much more severe. Their heads swiveled as one, though not towards Shepard. Instead, they looked down the tunnel, deeper into the installation.
"Do you hear that?" Jenkins whispered; his voice unusually hoarse. Shepard heard nothing, but Williams joined her voice to her comrade's.
"Yes, it's quiet but..."
There was a sound in the tunnel that drew everyone's attention forward, though with a shock, Shepard noticed that Major Alenko's hand was gripped tightly around the butt of his big magnum. But the sound shocked him from whatever thought process had been going through his head, and his grip slackened. The sound came again, a scraping, screeching sound of metal on metal. Someone was dragging something heavy through the tunnels towards them. A motion from the Major sent his party scurrying to either side of the tunnel where they pressed themselves into whatever folds in the rock they could find. Shepard stepped back behind the collapsed pillar and laid the Deadhand over its craggy cover. They waited in the tunnel for long seconds as the scraping sound grew closer.
It was then that the shooting started behind them. The Asari patrols had found Lieutenant Taylor's platoon at the intersection. Shepard could hear the deep thrumming of distant plasma weapons and the sharp sounds of ME flechette rifles. The echoes intermingled, but from what Shepard could hear, the Marines were giving as good as they were getting. Whoever was up ahead must have heard the fighting too, for the intermittent scraping became a steady scream. It grew closer, and closer, and then it came around the turn in the tunnel.
Four Asari burst into view. They carried between them some kind of heavy, crew-served weapon. It had a long, fluted barrel and a dull sheen the color of bronze. The gun was mounted on a wide, four-legged stand whose frontmost clawed feet scraped across the ground. The source of the frightful sound. If they had seen the SRPA troops lying in wait for them as the turned the corner, they did not or could not react.
"Fire!" Alenko bellowed. The order to move forward stealthily abandoned, the foremost troopers let fly with a scarlet storm, the suddenness catching the Asari by surprise. Their biotic barriers were down, or at least not at full strength, because the two pirates carrying the front end of the heavy weapon were felled with the opening salvo. The sharp chatter of the Razors filled the air between then with red fire, drove burning plasma through the Asari's colorfully painted armor plating. The bright colors blackened, the metal beneath cracked, warped, broke. Their fellow freebooters following behind, however, reacted with blistering speed. They let go of the back of the heavy weapon and allowed it to fall nose first against the metal grating before they leapt back around the corner. The Black Ops fire followed them and chewed molten bites from the grey stone walls.
"Up and at them, don't let them escape to warn the others!" the sergeant yelled. It was most likely a futile gesture, the Asari likely had radios of their own, probably better ones that would pierce even the rocky tunnels, but the soldiers followed the man's orders with a will. They surged ahead, keeping their weapons up and ready to give fire should the Asari stick their heads back around the corner. The pirates were not so accommodating, though. What came around the corner was not an Asari, but a small silver sphere. It pinged off the far wall before it bounced towards the charging men with no more inherent malice than might a children's toy. To the experienced soldiers, however, it was as fearsome as the appearance of a Leaper of old.
"Grenade!" the leading man cried out in a quavering voice. The men behind him dug in their heels, their rapid advance immediately checked, but they had moved up too far. The grenade came to rest at the leading man's feet, Hickman by the voice. The big Texan gave it a single glance, looked back to where his spotter, Combs, stood at his side, and then threw himself down on the grenade. It exploded with a dull and reddish glow and Hickman's body leapt like it had been hooked to a live power cell and the back plate of his armored vest bucked like a wild animal but was not pierced by whatever shrapnel the grenade had thrown off in its concussive fury. As if in sympathy, his dropped Deadeye twisted, its frame folding around the stock as its power cell imploded. Hickman lay still.
"Shit, shit!" Combs swore. She reached for her own belt and reached for one of her own grenades. With a single, smooth motion, she brought it up, pulled the thin metal ring, and threw it underhand. The grenade sailed in a well-aimed arc... and exploded violently against a violet barrier that blocked the tunnel. The Asari had returned, preceded by a whirlwind of biotic force. One of the alien defenders held their hands up ahead of them, pushing forward the shield dome. Behind them, their partner dashed ahead and placed both hands on the carrying handles at the heavy gun's rear. They hauled back on it, bringing the fluted barrel back into battery.
"Get down!" Alenko barked, "Sentinels to the front!" The black clad serum soldiers rushed forwards; their orange force screens suddenly alight in the tunnel. They pushed together, shoulder-to-shoulder to form a phalanx of hard light. The Asari depressed the firing stud of the heavy weapon with obvious relish on its exposed lower face. A bright stream of glowing tracers leapt up in a blinding river of half-molten tungsten. The thumb wide penetrators lanced out to strike against the interlocked faces of the force screens.
The recovering Black Ops troopers took up their weapons and piled on a stiff return fire. The plasma wasted itself against the barrier that still covered the mouth to the passage forward.
"Major, these pirates have some serious hardware. They keep us pinned down like this, they're going to chew us to pieces!" Williams called back. Alenko nodded.
"Right, Williams." The short phrase must have been an order, because the severe looking brunette smoothly stepped out of line and raised the long, finned rifle that she carried. He comrades spread out with equal smoothness, making sure to keep their coverage. Dangerous red status lights flashed on the back of their force screen projectors. Williams trained the weapon on the machine gunner, then shifter her aim right, at where the Asari maintaining the barrier lurked just around the corner. She fired, loosing a stream of sickly green colored bolts that bounded forwards with a ringing sound. The first bolt crashed into the rock at the corner and splashed in a sudden flower of coruscating particles and then continued on through, lancing from the far side of the rock without slowing in the least. It struck at the Asari's flank and brought forth a pained yelp.
The Asari jumped aside, moved behind its own barrier. Williams tracked it, sending emerald bolts splashing through rock until they collided with the barrier itself. Here, rather than lancing through they expended themselves against its shimmering dome. Williams swore, but Alenko was already adjusting his plans.
"Jenkins, the LAARK!" he barked.
Jenkins stepped back; his place quickly plugged by a returning Williams. He dropped the weapons case he still carried, firmly closed, and shrugged the long tube once held by the unfortunate woman who'd caught an Asari warp bubble up above. He flicked on the bulky optics pod on the side and raised it to his shoulder. It unleased a sharp pop and suddenly the tunnel was filled with a rushing roar and a column of smoke as the contained missile rocketed forwards. Jenkins had not aimed for the barrier, but the roof above. It hit the roof with a crash and a bright flare of armor penetrating explosives. There was a rumbling sound and the roof above the cracked. The Asari did not notice, their focus still keenly, rabidly on breaking the Sentinels. The heavy machine gun continued its chainsaw shriek, heavy rounds pounding against the force screens. Niemeyer's was the first to fail. The tall woman let out an abbreviated huff as three rounds punched through her abdomen. Bright puffs of blood sprayed from her back and she went down heavily. The burst of fire continued, driving explosions along the floor right towards Shepard's position. He closed his eyes, and there was a mighty crash.
The Asari penetrators did not reach him. With an almighty rumble, the roof above the Asari position gave way, falling in massive chunks. The pair of aliens disappeared beneath the falling rubble and a wall of white dust swept down the passing. Shepard was plunged into blindness. The thick dust robbed him not only of his sight, but had a deadening effect on his hearing as well. He could hear a dull thumbing from somewhere up ahead, though whether it was more falling rocks or further weapon's fire he did not know. The fuzzy orange glow of the Sentinel's force screens winked out one by one, leaving Shepard with nothing but the eerie green projection of the soupy air around him.
He stumbled forward, missing the surety of the tunnel wall almost immediately. In a daze, he brought up the radio link. It crackled with the sharp static that often followed major outbursts of biotic energy. Still, the cross-chatter of the amalgamated squad burst across his headphones.
"Niemeyer is down!"
"Bring up the symbac, now!"
"Did we lose any more?"
"Jenkins, check the rubble!"
It all flowed around Shepard, underlaid with the steady ringing in his ears sparked by the hammer blow of the rocket launch so close to his position. His vision blurred at the edges and he fell to a knee as a rush of sudden dizziness swept away his sense of balance. All of a sudden, he had the fierce urge to vomit, though a little voice in the back of his head bleated that such an act would carry disastrous consequences. Shepard forced the compulsion down with every fiber of his being.
When the dust began to settle, he was still on all fours, dry-heaving. He wanted to take off the bubble helmet, but the air still swirled with the choking dust even as visibility seeped back into his vision. The scene that met Shepard's eyes as he collapsed back into a kneeling position was one of utter destruction.
The corner up ahead had collapsed inwards, scattering rock and rubble meters down the tunnel and leaving a pile of larger chunks of rock almost up to the roof. Sticking from the pile was the twisted bronze nose of the heavy machine gun and below it, a dubious dark stain spread from beneath the stone. The Sentinels crouched in a close clump halfway down the passage. Alenko was with them, stooped over the still form of his demo expert. A pair of drained symbac ampules already lay haphazardly on the ground, a third was in Alenko's hand. He plunged it into the fallen woman's chest and sent the thick yellow liquid surging into her system. Niemeyer spasmed as the metabolism boosting serum drove her hybrid healing factor into overdrive. She howled as the wounds in her gut stitched themselves back together.
Behind them, the Black Ops troopers of Derosette's squad were equally battered. Hickman's sacrifice had saved the squad from being obliterated by the Asari grenade, but shrapnel had still taken their toll. None of the troopers had avoided injury, all bore dressings already spotted with bright blood. One of them lay very still, his pale face exposed as Combs worked furiously on the ragged wounds in his side and Derosette held a small bottle of oxygen to his lips. His helmet lay to the side, heavily dented by a side-long blow. A strike from the heavy machine gun had driven a wide furrow through the meat of his thigh and a long flake of stone protruded centimeters from just above his hip. He took shallow, rapid breaths and his eyes bugged madly as his squad mates held him down. Shepard cast his eyes away, unable to look at the scene. He scrambled to his feet and scrabbled to retrieve the handgun that he'd dropped in his panic. He turned to find Balak watching him with all four eyes.
The Batarian's armor was stained with the thick dust, but otherwise he seemed completely unscathed. He chortled as Shepard regained his balance. "I see you are still the first to get knocked down, Human. Though you got up all by yourself this time. There is something almost... Batarian in striving ahead despite your... impediments."
"No thanks to you," Shepard responded, more bitterness in his voice than he had intended, "Did you even fight?" he added accusatorially.
"I am but an observer, you know," Balak chided. His helmet covered all but his four, red-rimmed eyes, but Shepard knew he was smiling that damned shit-eating grin. "Besides, there was little I could have added to that little skirmish. There are a few ways to get around a biotic barrier of that strength, though most of them would leave us dangerously close to the blast zone. Your little roof knocking might have been the safest method, for what it's worth."
Shepard's response was bitten back, his thought interrupted as Niemeyer screamed again. Alenko was on his feet again, directing men forward and up onto the rock pile. Jenkins was already atop the stone, hauling rocks from a widening gap. It would take some time to clear a path wide enough to crawl through without leaving their weapons behind. And all through it, the bombardment overhead went on.
INTEL
XD-1-17 Personal Force Screen
Perhaps the most important innovation in the realm of personal defense amongst EDE troops, the XD-1-17 is widely regarded as the device that closed the gap between humanity and its ME derived kinetic barrier using enemies. The force screen is derived from the defensive shield of the Chimeran Auger rifle in a similar manner to the Chimeran War era Wraith burst cannon. However, unlike the large, power-intensive module that powered the Wraith's defensive shield, the XD-1-17's small shoulder-mounted projector is easily portable by the common soldier. The force screen itself is sufficient to deflect most kinetic projectiles, from infantry small arms to small crew-served weapons, though sustained fire will quickly drain the power cell, requiring its replacement. Against directed energy fire, the force screen is somewhat less effective, generally deflecting rather than stopping incoming fire. One curious feature of the force screen is that its repulsive effect is unidirectional, its force applied only to objects coming in from the front surface. This allows the soldier carrying the screen and those posted directly behind them to fire foreword while remaining protected.
The XD-1-17 has become a piece of standard issue equipment for the SRPA's Sentinel program, with rollout for select Black Ops formations currently in progress. However, its prohibitive cost and the fact that it shares production lines and bottlenecks with both the Auger and Phantom has led to it being unavailable for EDE Regular and National Armies.
Author's Note:
The fight for Torfan continues! I don't have much to add to this chapter, but I do have a bit of an announcement to make. I have partnered with my long time beta reader and sounding board, user CrepeSquid to produce a series of short vignettes set in the universe of Aggressor: Rise of Man that will be covering the backstories of various characters. I have worked with CrepeSquid to ensure that these stories are in canon with mine. If you have the time, please give his work a look.
