The Aegis Initiative · Chapter 12

Mission start· beat 1

Chief Engineer Elena

Rustfang engineers learned exactly nothing from Grak. They've built a foundry that FEEDS on dormant corrupted plating — and their test units are waking the samples up.

Jane Doe

We cut the head off this thing and they're growing it a new one FOR PROFIT?

PILOT

Greed always finds the loose wire. Raid the camp, kill the experiments, salvage what's stable.

Chief Engineer Elena

And do try not to lecture them mid-firefight, Jane. I know it's tempting.

Authored floor 18 marker· beat 2

This conversation uses an older floor number than the current mission length. It is included here for story reference; its original timing may differ from your playthrough.

Jane Doe

Experiments neutralized. And I only lectured them a LITTLE. At gunpoint. It was very educational for everyone.

Chief Engineer Elena

The overhaul rig they built is genuinely brilliant — reactive salvage plating with stabilized corruption response. In responsible hands, it's a shield. In theirs, it was a bomb.

PILOT

Good thing we have responsible hands.

Chief Engineer Elena

We have BETTER hands. Responsibility is a strong word for people who fly the way you two do.

Mission start· beat 1

Chief Engineer Elena

Salvage protocol: everything the Corruption stole, we take back. Starting with the tech vaults it swallowed at Meridian Deep.

PILOT

Looting the swarm for a change. I could get used to this direction of theft.

Jane Doe

Careful. Dying animals bite hardest, and this one is finally dying.

After floor 9· beat 2

Jane Doe

Found a sealed shelter pod in the vault. Life signs. ELEVEN life signs. Colonists. It kept them ALIVE under there for two years.

Chief Engineer Elena

The swarm does not keep prisoners... unless something inside it still remembers protecting people. Get them OUT, and gently.

"Observer"

Told you. Failing at its job. Not forgetting it.