Chapter 1388 – 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!”

Solant was normally extremely strict on work hours. She didn’t want to lose any of her soldiers, from the most low-ranked scout to the highest officer, for even a single day of enforced rest. Yet, occasionally, as a special reward, an extra shift could be worked here or there without the torpor police growing more active.

Moderation was, as usual, the key.

“I’m returning to the command post,” she announced. “Sumant, how much longer until the next rest period?”

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“One hour and six minutes, General.”

“Perfect.”

It wasn’t far from the drill chambers to the central command, but Solant was again occupied answering questions and directing traffic the entire way. She had delegated as much authority as she possibly could, but no matter how much she trusted the competence of her officers, there were still matters that needed the attention of the ant in charge.

And there was no question who was in charge. Every part of this exercise had her scent upon it, down to the finest detail.

She followed the scent trails, though she knew the way by heart, and soon stepped into the wide open central planning chamber. In the centre of the room, a large-scale model of the fifth stratum below drew the eye. There was only so much the scouts could sense while being trapped within the safe-zone, but with their high-rank tunnel sense, pathfinding and prediction fusion, coupled with several far-finding organs and mutations, they could detect an awful lot.

As it was, they had a model that spread almost ten kilometres from the incursion site, though it was certainly not reliable at the outer reaches.