Chapter 1602 – Cracks

Reports came flooding in from all over the Colony at a frantic pace. There were problems everywhere. Tunnels were overflowing, channels were breaking, the hospitals were filled with mana-poisoned soldiers, supply lines were stretched and the platforms were being pressed harder than ever before.

Solant was in her element. She synthesised the information at a carapace-warping speed, making decisions to address the problems she could fix and working to mitigate the ones she couldn’t. Supplies were redirected, stores were drawn down, reserves were committed, room was found, tactics adjusted, resources reallocated.

She had built the systems around her to be as robust as she possibly could, and they were now being strained right to their limits, but they were still holding. The decision-making processes needed her direct intervention more and more often, events continuing to diverge from the carefully prepared responses she had crafted in the buildup to the invasion, requiring novel and untrained responses.

Perhaps for any group outside of the Colony, it would have been impossible to hold on in these circumstances, but the ants were unique in their temperament. She knew every one of her sisters had complete and total faith in the others and they would hold the line, do the work and get the job done, no matter what.

All except one.

“You aren’t going to get them?” the troublemaker asked, disbelieving.

“I am not,” Solant replied. “Senior themself agreed with my decision. Going out into the fifth is too dangerous.”

“Who cares about dangerous? Everything is dangerous! Dangerous is just another way of saying interesting!”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It is if you’re BRILLIANT!”

“It still isn’t.”

“Bah! That kind of attitude is going to hold you back in the long run,” Brilliant scoffed. “If you want to progress, you need to take chances! You need to be bold and brave! You need to accept a little danger.”

Solant tipped her head to the side.

“Where do you think we are right now?” she pointed out.

Brilliant went to speak, then hesitated for a moment, looking around the chamber. It was in a state of chaos, hundreds of ants running in and out every second, the air so thick with pheromones her antennae itched. Of course this command chamber was in a fortress that had been built deep within the fifth stratum, known to be a deathtrap across the entirety of Pangera.

“Your point is well made,” Brilliant conceded, but only for a moment. “If you understand the need to take on risk, then you should be perfectly happy with my rescue plan! We can pop out there, nab the Senior, then pop back, no problems at all!”

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“Your dimensional magic doesn’t work as well in the fifth.”

“I can fix that,” Brilliant laughed, waving off her concerns.

“How?”

Brilliant cackled.

“You want me to explain how dimensions are stitched together and the tricks I intend to use to get around the corrupting influence of the fifth?”

Solant nodded.

“Yes.”

For once, Brilliant didn’t quite seem to know what to say.