Both chemical weapons and self-sacrifice weren’t unheard of in insects, especially social insects; insects that live in a colony, hive, or social nest.
Dedicated suicide bombers, though? That wasn’t something Alpha had seen before. Moreover, this wasn’t just ants spraying some intruder with venom or acid. They were somehow synthesizing highly effective and complex bio-explosives.
The only time the Federation had ever encountered legitimate bio-explosives was a particular plant that could use a nitroglycerin-related cocktail to launch their seedpods at extreme distances.
The AI would be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t interested in their… explosive personalities. It was just a matter of getting a sample…
“Hehehehehehehe…” Alpha laughed as the [Wasp] drone landed on one of the few remaining red-bellied honeypot ants.
Now, what was the best way to extract the sample?
One option was using the drone’s plasma cutter to make a small incision and extract what leaked out. That was likely a bad idea, though, if this stuff was as explosive as Alpha suspected. Another option was to attempt to purposefully detonate one of the ants and then collect the residue. Possibly… but it was unlikely any would survive the detonation. Or if it did, it would be altered in some way.
Or he could use the drone’s built-in syringe to suck it up directly from the sack.
Ya, that was probably the best way to go about this.
Alpha deployed the [Wasp] drone’s syringe and plunged it into the red-bellied honeypot ant’s abdomen filled with highly volatile liquid explosives.
BOOOOOOOM!
When Alpha finally reformed the [Wasp] drone, he found its frame had been thrown several hundred meters away by the explosion.
“Yaaaaa, I should have seen that one coming…” Alpha complained. “Mama always did say not to go stickin’ ma stinger in strange holes…”
It figured these things were on a bit of a hair trigger. Any rupture of the abdomen was enough to trigger a reaction and detonate them. Maybe through a chain reaction caused by something within the connective membrane itself? It was hard to speculate without testing. Either way, it meant that this method wouldn’t work; he’d have to think of something else.
Alpha flew the drone higher and surveyed the results of his brief experiment. As one might guess, the explosion had set the ants into a frenzy. Workers and soldiers rushed about in a seemingly chaotic mess, attempting to locate the new enemy.
To Alpha’s surprise, the carrier ant, while stunned, seemed otherwise unaffected despite the explosion having detonated most of the other red-bellied ants. Its carapace was slightly cracked and singed, but those cracks rapidly healed, and there didn’t seem to be any major damage.
That made some sense. It wouldn’t be good if you could be taken out by your own ‘weapon.’ Though Alpha suspected purposefully detonating the red-bellied honeypots wasn’t such a simple thing to do for most. Not only were the red-bellies protected by the forest of spikes on the carrier ant, but the protective layer of the red-belly’s abdomen was pretty durable.
It would take more than just a glancing blow from a ranged attack to trigger an explosion. As for getting up and personal, even if they got past the hulking carrier ant itself, Alpha had already experienced what fate awaited someone who tried to detonate one of the explosive ants up close.
Hmmmm… he really should come up with a better name than just ‘red-belly honeypot ant.’ That was a bit of a mouthful.
“Bomber ant?… Na, to generic.” Alpha considered.
“Boomer?” Alpha suggested to Alpha.
“While that would be funny, no. They are noble beasts! They demand a noble name!” came the response.
“Claymore roomba!” Alpha shot that one down instantly. It didn’t even make sense! It’s like the name was suggested just to meet some arbitrary word count!
Then it came to him.
Like the shadow of some distant, long-forgotten dream.
A resonance with something that spoke to his very soul! (Alpha was still coming to terms with having a soul, so maybe that was just a faulty circuit.)
The perfect name.
“I dub thee… the Nitropot!”
Proud of his awesome naming sense, Alpha flew into the air, landed on top of a surviving nitropot, and patted its head.
“You and I are going to be best friends; I can already tell!” Alpha said to the still ant as it clung to the back of the carrier.
Said nitropot ant, despite being totally unaware of the [Wasp] sitting on its head and having the part of its brain regulating self-preservation atrophied, felt a sudden chill run down its exoskeleton.
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Sometime later, the ants calmed down. Maybe they figured they had scared off whatever had attacked the nitropot, or maybe they just didn’t want to waste any more time on an enemy that refused to show itself. Either way, most of the workers got back to cutting the bear-sloths into more easily manageable pieces. Just because the giant creatures were dead (and, in one case, crispy) didn’t make getting at the tasty bits any easier.
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The ants were resourceful, though, and it helped that each of the five large creatures had two handy entranceways past the thick fur.
“… I have never been so thankful not to have eyes in my entire life…”
The sight of dozens of giant ants crawling into and out of the creature’s empty eye-sockets was something that would live rent-free in Alpha’s memory for a long time…
//Video-Log Deleted//
Or not.
And if any of the brass complain about missing footage later on, he could just blame it on combat damage.
The crispy bear-sloth seemed like it would be a harder nut to crack for the ants. Literally; the intense fire hadn’t so much burned away all the creature’s fur, as it had fused them into hard, black plates of char. Not only that, but it still radiated enough heat that the [Wasps] cameras were picking up distortions in the air. A small group of ants surrounded it, attempting to press in every so often, but it was soon abandoned in favor of the more… raw pickings.
Maybe they would come to collect it later. Or maybe scavengers would come and feast once the ants had gone. The circle of life and all that jazz.
A train of ants soon formed, with some groups dismantling the bear-sloths, others transporting the meat, and even some smaller bones, to the colony, and still others patrolling the area.
Alpha wasn’t totally sure if that last group was because of him or just something they naturally did.
The carrier ants also remained on scene, though they did little more than stand there, looking menacing. Then again, given what he’d seen them capable of, there was a good chance that was the point.
The ants were efficient in their work, and in only a few scant hours, four of the gargantuan corpses were reduced to literal skin and bones. The fifth one, the golden one that tried to escape, had only just cooled down enough for the ants to start working on and had barely been touched.
Regardless, as if on some unseen queue, the carrier ant Alpha was riding turned and started making its way back toward the colony. This, in turn, triggered many of the soldiers and workers to do the same. Soon, most of the ants had grabbed one last morsel and began returning to the colony, only a few stragglers staying behind to grab what they could.
The march back was uneventful and at a much more sedate pace than the mad rush that had seen them there in the first place. Alpha imagined that if some grand giant were to look down from above, it would very much look like just a normal procession of ants returning home after felling a couple of particularly large mice.
As they neared the tunnel entrance, the carrier ant did something unexpected.
While the other ants streamed past them, the carrier ant stopped.
“Strange…” Alpha muttered.
His confusion was cleared up the next moment when the surviving nitropots, who had until this moment remained almost comatose, stirred. The red-bellied ants rose from their spots, climbed to the tip of a nearby spike on the back of the carrier ant, and pointed their abdomens outward.
Then… expelled their payloads.
“Ewwwwww….”
Alpha watched in disgusted fascination as a dozen arches of red liquid poured out into the open air. Strange enough, the liquid didn’t immediately explode. Instead, it caught fire as it contacted the open air. The streams of fire broke apart into glowing mist before reaching the ground, turning into glittering embers that floated away on the slight breeze.
Soon, more carrier ants joined him, their nitropots also emptying their payloads. A river of glittering fire traveled through the air briefly before disappearing into nothingness. It would be an oddly beautiful sight… if you didn’t know what caused it…
For a moment, Alpha contemplated if he should take this chance to collect a sample before the liquid could ignite… then quickly dismissed that idea. He might have really wanted a sample, but he wasn’t that desperate.
Besides, if the nitropots were emptying themselves before returning to the colony, that suggested it wasn’t difficult for them to produce more. At the very least, it said they weren’t willing to store large quantities of the substance inside the colony proper. If he could find out where or how they produced it, then that would make for a much… cleaner sample.
After a few moments, the nitropots were empty, and the carrier ants started making their way toward the colony entrance.
As they entered, however, Alpha detected movement from the forest in the distance. He turned his attention in that direction and saw roughly two dozen humanoid figures emerge from the treeline. The figures made a beeline toward the charred corpse of the bear sloth, with a few others breaking off to poke at the husks the ants had left behind.
If the drone’s rangefinder was still accurate, they were small, with even the tallest being just under 5’5’’. They were like ants (Ha!) compared to the massive bear sloths. They were dressed in primitive clothing, even more so than the plainsmen Alpha had left behind. Mostly raw-cut furs and rough-looking fabrics, though the actual make was hard to tell from this distance.
Unlike the plainsmen, who seemed to be mostly made up of humans, these figures were most definitely not.
With rough green-brown, almost bark-like skin, pointy ears, and longer than normal, curved noses, most humans Alpha knew of would have found their appearance slightly offputting. Not that the humanoid, obviously sapient figures were overly hideous, mind you. Rather because, these features combined to create a distinct image that would cause many to ponder the same thing Alpha himself was at that very moment.
“Are those goblins?!”
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Pitdigger couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear. It worked! It had actually worked!
When he’d first brought up his idea to use the Demon Ants to deal with the encroaching Ironfurs, most of the other hunters had laughed him out of the hunting circle. That was something he was used to, at least.
Most of the senior hunters considered his methods dishonorable at best and totally insane at worst. To be fair, most of the time, that was true. While most hunters gained their scars during dangerous hunts or fierce battles against other tribes, the majority of Pitdigger’s came from failed experiments or traps.
Even his largest scar, a round one in the middle of his bare chest, which should have been a badge of honor, resulted from him falling into one of his spiked pit traps. Sure, the event had “earned” him his name after capturing a large Mawbeast, but it wasn’t one he was happy with.
But this! This had the opportunity to change everything! Maybe even earn him a new name!
The Ironfurs had been causing trouble on the outskirts of their tribe for months now. Their voracious appetites and territorial nature had driven most game out of the area, leaving the tribe in dire straits. The younger hunters wanted to do something about the creatures, but they were powerful, and even the four common Ironfurs would be enough to wipe out all of their hunters, let alone the greater beast that led them.
The elders, on the other hand, were talking about moving… again.
They had just been forced out of their home cavern! Now they were thinking of running once more?! ‘That is what it means to live as a goblin,’ they would say. Settling where you could and running away when something bigger and stronger moved in.
Pitdigger didn’t want to run again. This new cavern was far better than the one they had been pushed from! It was a land of bounty and promise! Sure, it was almost more dangerous, but danger came with its own rewards.
If the elders wouldn’t do anything, then he’d have to try something himself.
And so he did.