Antelligent Design

75. War Council, Part 1

“Welcome back, eldest,” Victoriant, the budding queen to be, greets me.

At the scent of her voice, the others turn their antennae toward me, signalling that their attention is with me as I crawl down the wall and onto the floor in the centre of the chamber. There are a few soldiers present, I note, to keep the spawning monsters out of our carapace long enough for the council to take place.

“It’s good to be home,” I tell them as I settle in place, observing the first generation of my grand experiment. The twenty haven’t changed much in my absence. Perhaps a few mutations here and there, but none of them have taken the next step and reached evolution. I suppose they hadn’t wanted to hog resources that were needed to grow the population of the colony.

That’s something I can respect. The twenty did not use their seniority to benefit themselves. They thought only of the best for the colony as a whole. It’s the kind of unselfishness I’ve come to see as normal within the colony. The workers, the queen, every member, thinks only about contributing to the collective and not about empowering themselves.

I suppose, as the only true ‘non-ant’ in the colony, I’m the sole exception to that rule. It would be unlikely or improbable for any one worker to come into the kind of resources that I lavish on myself. The sheer wealth of Biomass I’ve consumed, the cores I’ve absorbed and the experience earned, most workers would have donated much of that to the colony. I suppose in some ways, it makes me a selfish member of the colony, but at the same time, it allows me to contribute to my new family in ways that would have been impossible had I not reached these heights.

Which is something I will have to consider in the future. We don’t have the resources, and likely never will, to raise every ant in the colony the same way I’ve raised my pets and invested in myself. Maximised cores and Biomass, special cores absorbed to go beyond capacity and push the evolutionary potential to the limit. It simply isn’t feasible when we’re talking about two hundred individual monsters being born per day.

My minimum standard will have to be enforced. Every worker will generate a core rather than evolve in a weakened, dead-end state, and each worker will be given the opportunity to reinforce their core before evolving. But I have to consider whether it would be beneficial to pick out individuals for exceptional reinforcement.

It fundamentally doesn’t seem fair to me, but I can’t discount the possibility. After all, I’m just one individual with more resources poured into them than average and I’d been able to change the destiny of the colony completely by changing our species. Who’s to say another, similarly resourced ant couldn’t do the same via incredible prowess in battle or magical research, or through crafting?

For now, I don’t intend to make any changes to my hatchling rearing policy, but I will have to continue to think on it if we survive this crisis.

“Scouting to the north was… interesting,” I open up.

I try to keep my tone light, but the twenty clearly detect something as each member’s antennae droop low at my words.

“Would you like to elaborate on ‘interesting,’ eldest?” Wills the scout asks, almost visibly bracing for an impact.

“Look, I want to say up front that it wasn’t my fault!” I say defensively. “If anything, I did a good job as a scout by identifying a major threat!”

At my declaration of a major threat, the antennae droop even lower, almost touching the floor as I confirm their worst fears.

“How big is the threat?” Sloan the general enquires tiredly.

“Dinosaur sized?” I hazard. What sort of size scale are they working with for threat measurement?

There is some confusion rippling through the gathered ants and I realise they have no concept of what a dinosaur is or how large it would be.

“Okay. I was able to identify the nature of the destruction occurring to the north, as well as locate the source of the strange monster behaviour, and the raids that have been sent our way through the Dungeon.”

The twenty all perk up at these words. This is good stuff so far.

“The unfortunate part is that the creature responsible is a gigantic monster crocodile and she’s coming our way to stomp us out, along with the human village.”

And now they’re deflated once more.

“They’re also bringing a horde of thousands of monsters and a powerful mage lizard with its own sorcerous attendants.”

If the scout Burke sinks any lower, she’ll melt into the floor.

“What are our chances of avoiding the danger?” Frances the healer ant speaks up. “Is there a chance we can deflect this threat onto the human village or retreat into the Dungeon?”

I shake my antennae. “I don’t think so. The lizard is capable of scrying magic and probably knew we were here before I even left to scout. Now that they’re coming this way, I think they’ll work to hunt us down. Since they can control Dungeon monsters somehow, moving into the Dungeon would be too dangerous. Our best bet is to make a stand with the humans and try to fight them off.”

“That’s going to be difficult,” Brendant the soldier mutters. “We’re only just now beginning to ramp up our growth. Active hunting outside of Vibrant and her group only started two days ago. The queen has been laying at full capacity since then, but those workers will only be fully grown and ready for deployment in a week.”

“We have slightly less than a week to prepare,” I inform them. “They’re moving fairly slow and taking the long way around. I can’t be exactly sure why, but I clapped eyes on them myself before returning.”

“That’s something, at least,” Burke mutters and turns her eyes toward Wills, who nods and rushes out of the chamber.

I twitch an antennae, curious at the exchange. Burke fills me in. “Wills has gone to organise our scouting regiment. We’ll need trails laid farther to the north and eyes on the horde if we can get them.”

“Be careful,” I warn. “That magic lizard is no joke.”

“We’ll be careful,” she assures me.

Hmm. I suppose having as constant a flow of information as possible will be a great first step.

“We are going to have to fight this,” I declare to the council. “We can’t afford to wait until they get to us before we begin to inflict damage. We need to start chipping away at them as they advance. Does anyone have thoughts on how we can do this?”

The generals and soldiers flap their antennae for a moment as they consider their options before Leeroy speaks up.

“I suggest I lead an advanced unit to—”

“Rejected,” I say.

“You didn’t let me finish!” the offended soldier replies.

“Alright then, go ahead,” I sigh.

“As I was saying. I lead an advance unit to engage the enemy and die in glorious battle, sacrificing ourselves to buy more time for the colony to prepare. My very guts will rise up to entangle the foe!”

THWACK!

I slap down on the ant’s head in retribution for the nonsense she’d spewed.

Dammit Leeroy… Get some sense in your head!

“Any serious suggestions?”

Tungstant uses one leg to rub her mandibles. “We should limit ourselves to the ‘hit and run’ tactics the eldest taught us during training. It should be feasible to attack using tunnels, pitfalls and prebuilt defence networks that we can abandon and flee. Cobalt and I have cooked up a few ideas in that direction already.”

“Do we have any ants that can do damage from long-range?” I ask. All of the workers were born with acid glands, just as I was, but the range isn’t exactly stellar.

“The scouts have a dedicated group with range and damage mutations on their acid glands,” Burke says. “We’re experimenting with ways that scouts can contribute to pitched battle, and using them as an artillery battery in open areas is one of the concepts we’re developing. We’re soldiers, after all.”

It is true and easy to forget. The scouts are one of three offshoots of the baseline soldier variant and are therefore beefier than all of the other castes. It would be a mistake to think of them as anything other than a battle asset alongside being a scouting force.

“Fantastic. What else can we get done?”