Chapter 1275: Solant Plots

Chapter 1275: Solant Plots

A whirlwind of activity, a frenzy of organisation, and at the centre of it all, Solant dwelt, the eye of the storm, a calm and steadying presence who brought order to the chaos.

Washingtant rushed forward, a team of scouts behind her.

"General, we have three detachments of scouts arriving in an hour. They need deployment instructions."

"Speak to Leonidant, she has the details."

"I will, General."

Subutant stepped forward, with messages from the core shapers working below.

"Bella and Ellie send word that they have almost finalised the design for the Wuffers in tiers one to five. Soon, they'll begin promoting a few candidates to tier six to see where the evolutions take them."

"Thank you, Subutant. Congratulate the core shapers on my behalf and remind them to expend rare cores on every evolution. The wuffers are the key to this campaign. Without them at their best, we will surely fail."

"I will do so immediately."

Off she went, and Solant turned to look down on the battalion running through their drills in the chamber she was overlooking. She turned all of her lenses toward the fighting, each individual movement highlighted, not even the smallest detail avoiding her attention.

"Squads four through seven are a beat slow when turning. Have the battalion run through the entire drill another ten times. Even the slightest flaw will break the manoeuvre."

"Of course, General."

On to the next. Solant moved along the tunnel to the final drill chamber, speaking in turn to each messenger who rushed forward with another detail that needed to be sorted.

Each of these issues was dealt with in the same calm, logical manner as those which had come before. Then she turned her gaze down to the practising battalion. For two long minutes, she watched, her attention never wavering, while all of those attending her waited in perfect silence.

Ten thousand ants moved in perfect synchronisation beneath them, advancing, falling back, turning, swarming, rotating, each movement flowing flawlessly into the next. As perfectly choreographed as a dance, as flawlessly executed as a machine.

"My congratulations to battalion two-thirty-six," she said. "I see no errors at all. They are to be commended and rewarded."

She considered a moment.

"They will be the first battalion sent below. They'll perform an extra shift working alongside the construction crews."

The general in command saluted sharply.

"Thank you, General!"

"What do you think?"

Solant sighed. The two oldest carvers were experts in constructing and designing fortifications and nests, literally the best in the Colony, but they hadn't adequately adjusted their methods to suit the unique challenges of the fifth yet.

The entrances as designed would choke the number of ants able to move in and out of the nest to an uncomfortable level. It would take hours to move hundreds of thousands of ants in and out, harming their capacity to rapid-deploy in response to emergencies happening nearby, that much was true.

However...

"We cannot compromise on security," Solant stated calmly. "Even a speck of toxic mana entering the nest could be catastrophic, and every ant has to be counted in and out, every time, no exceptions."

"I know that, but you might have to go and talk to them again. I can see that they're trying to accommodate us, but they're still trying to find clever solutions which only serve to weaken the system overall. I want it so straightforward and simple that an aphid could figure it out. The error margin must be as close to zero as possible."

"Agreed. I'll speak to them tomorrow. Someone schedule that for me."

"Of course, General."

A single ant going missing within the fifth was a catastrophe of unprecedented scale. There could never be a miss. If a Krath managed to abduct an ant from within the nest, similarly, that would be a disaster.

Even if it weren't for the risk of Krath corrupting and enslaving ants, control over the nest would still need to be absolute. When the environment itself was a weapon, regulating it had to take priority, even if it meant great sacrifices in utility.

"Where are we on logistics?" she demanded, and a ripple ran through every ant in the command post.

It was the question she asked the most, and the one on which she was the most strict.

In a moment, data slates had been placed in front of her, each filled with numbers and details in neat, scented rows. A few seconds later, more slates, with diagrams of the tunnel networks and staging nests that needed to be built.

She pored over it for minutes, hunting down every detail, until finally she sighed deeply.

Every ant nearby braced.

"Not good enough," she declared, "not even remotely. First, item seventy-six..."

It would be another rough day for the logistics department.

"Then we need to discuss the schedule for allied soldier integration."

A very rough day.