The Aegis Initiative · Chapter 6

Mission start· beat 1

Chief Engineer Elena

Say hello to the Aegis Alliance — Horizon, Aurora, even Rustfang clans, one banner. Turns out an enemy that eats everyone is remarkably good for diplomacy.

Jane Doe

A year ago these people were shooting each other over border moons. Now I'm supposed to trust them at my back?

PILOT

You trusted me, and I was a stranger with a gun.

Jane Doe

You were a stranger with a gun pointed the RIGHT WAY. ...Fine. Alliance it is. But I'm keeping count of who runs first.

After floor 7· beat 2

Jane Doe

You want to know why I don't flinch anymore?

Jane Doe

Perimeter Six had four hundred people who believed all the right things. Mercy. Rescue. That even monsters follow rules, if you're good enough, if you deserve it enough.

Jane Doe

I buried that belief with every single one of them who held onto it a second too long.

Jane Doe

What's left standing is just me, a gun, and one truth nothing out here ever bothers to argue with: the universe doesn't owe you a reason. Not the Corruption. Not the desk that wrote my colony off in a memo. Not the stars themselves.

PILOT

So what do you believe in now?

Jane Doe

...You never once asked me to believe in the universe, ghost. Just in the person standing next to you. Turns out that's a much smaller thing to believe in. Small enough I might actually get to keep it this time.

Authored floor 15 marker· beat 3

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.

Chief Engineer Elena

First joint offensive: three corrupted staging grounds burned, zero colonies lost. The command core you recovered will network our whole defensive grid.

PILOT

And the Alliance brass? Still holding together?

Chief Engineer Elena

They argued for six hours about whose flag goes first on the memorial. Then they all signed the same battle plan. It's the most hopeful thing I've ever seen.

Jane Doe

Hope. Huh. Forgot what that tasted like. Don't tell anyone I said that.

Mission start· beat 1

Chief Engineer Elena

The samples from the Source respond to Zenith shield harmonics. Ladies and gentlemen: the Corruption can be REPELLED. There is finally a "how".

PILOT

That is the first good news this campaign has produced.

Jane Doe

Do not spend it all at once. Hope is ammunition. Ration it.

Chief Engineer Elena

Jane, today we are ALLOWED one good hour. Engineering order.

After floor 8· beat 2

Jane Doe

...The harmonic barrier held. It actually held. Sixty seconds of the swarm hammering it and it HELD.

PILOT

Was that a positive sentence, Jane? On the record?

Jane Doe

Delete the log.