Following the Gurzorath Incident of 2113, XSWAT's famous 9th Squad was disbanded. After the fighting, the Wall around Omega Sector was gone, and thousands of scattered Entities still roamed the surrounding Sectors. In response to this ongoing threat, XSWAT Director Renuka called upon Lieutenant Malachi Brogan and Master Sergeant Tyger to hand-pick the best Entity-slayers XSWAT had to offer and organize them into a single unit, known simply as the Entity Busters.
For several years, the Entity Busters served with distinction; they had the highest ratings in XSWAT in numerous categories: casualties, decorations, field promotions, annual expenses (per officer), and of course, Entities killed. The program was extremely controversial, and there were rumors that its commanding officer was some kind of monster, but it got results. Director Renuka defended it for as long as she could. But by 2118, the deodorant known as 'success' began to wear off.
As the Entity Busters made Omega Sector safer (or less dangerous), more and more people managed to find their way in, and back out, with their sanity intact. And eyewitness accounts, however unreliable, began to trickle out, that the Entity Busters had weapon caches hidden deep within Omega Sector, containing ordinance which contravened the Treaty of 2088. In many parts of Omega, recording devices still refused to function properly, so none of these allegations were ever proven. A number of interdepartmental investigators, and journalists, lost their lives searching for proof that Brogan had cached weapons left over from the Enochian Incursion of 2112, without finding anything.
For his part, Brogan never admitted to any wrongdoing. Considering how well he got around inside Omega (he never suffered a moment's disorientation there) he could easily have moved any cached weapons before anyone else could find them. To this day, navigating in Omega remains problematic, so the truth may never come out. However, the political damage to XSWAT was done—the Entity Busters were an easy target for the agency's critics, and they played the Omega Scandal for all it was worth. In the end, something had to be done.
In 2119, Director Renuka gave Brogan her thanks on behalf of XSWAT, saying the Entity problem in Omega was now 'manageable' without the need for a dedicated Entity-slaying unit. The Entity Busters disbanded, and Brogan found himself in need of a job. Madam Director didn't take long to give him one, for which he was uniquely suited.
Omega was slightly less dangerous after being mostly purged of Entities, and partly reclaimed, with a newly-built, much smaller Wall around it. What remained, though, was still 'terra incognito' as far as the rest of Angelus was concerned. And it was still too dangerous for most people to explore, but Malachi Brogan could do it, with a modest budget and support team. For the last three years, he's been making regular forays inside the New Wall, not just to kill Entities, but to try to map the streets and buildings, identify the dangers and figure out how to deal with them. He has also recovered a number of extremely dangerous and valuable magical artifacts inside, which now reside in the Vault at XSWAT HQ. And of course, he still kills a lot of Entities.
Angelus: The Volunteer Defense Forces
When he wasn't working for XSWAT, Malachi Brogan gave considerable attention to the organization known as the Angelus Volunteer Defense Forces. While it began as an unofficial group of volunteer fighters during the Enochian Incursion of 2112, over the years Brogan has worked to turn the AVDF into an organized community service effort. The results have been decidedly mixed.
While the Angelus Volunteers have been instrumental in raising funds for many worthwhile programs in Angelus' low-income neighborhoods, their 'crime-prevention' initiatives often border on outright vigilanteism. The AVDF also has a long-running rivalry with Sentinel Watch, which sometime boils over into violent confrontations when the two groups encounter each other. Sadly, Brogan has done little to nothing about these problems.
In 2122, the AVDF is considered a widespread but mediocre community service agency which has never lived up to its full potential. They're active in nearly every neighborhood in Angelus, sponsoring youth programs, mentoring, gang prevention, and neighborhood watch groups. In some areas, they work well with the APD and sector officials, while in others, the APD is occasionally called upon to break up fights between the AVDF and Sentinels or local gangs. These are, for the most part, high-crime areas where the AVDF members and other locals complain that the APD aren't doing their jobs well enough, and taking the law into their own hands. It's a mess.
9th Squad: The Old Guard
Malachi has kept in touch with everyone from 9th Squad—even Yiska. Jamadigni Renuka is his boss at XSWAT, of course, and for the last seven years, has been his daughter-in-law as well. Tyger had some trouble with the 'zero system' for a while, and had to be taken off the Entity Busters roster. Brogan had a few choice words with the engineers who designed it, and made sure nobody else got messed up like that. Ever. Tyger's back to his old self now... he still talks to his power armor, but it doesn't talk back any more.
Brogan stayed in contact with Yiska after the founding of IOTA for two reasons—he needed espers for the Entity Busters, and besides that, his budget included a line item for 'consulting fees', most of which went to Yiska's friend Scanner. Now that Director Renuka was in charge, XSWAT could use her expertise, and Brogan was glad to have her help.
For Nathan Carpenter, Brogan was yet another point of disagreement with the Order of Enoch. Like his daughter Elizabeth, they see Malachi as another "lost cause" that Nathan refuses to give up on. And Malachi doesn't mind telling Nathan that the Order is, in some sense, correct. But they're still on speaking terms in spite of these differences. Probably because he keeps telling Nathan that Elizabeth will turn out just fine.
As for Richard Hemelshot, Brogan keeps a close eye on him, if for no other reason than he might learn something! He's not half the administrator Hemelshot is, but more and more, that's what is required of him, so he's paying attention. In return, Hemelshot has a contact inside XSWAT other than the Director, who can give him a slightly different perspective on what's going on there.