Synteletrix woke and was summoned void-side for new duties. There she joined a sighter, the literal definition of ‘bug-eyed,’ an ant with the best vision in the colony.

The sighter was fixated on the ice moon below them. Synteletrix could see the surface zoom by underneath. She had the second best visual acuity of the space ants. Though she did not know the significance of what she saw, the surface had impossibly long streaks of jagged lines punctuated by huge round craters.

She placed her front right leg under the watcher’s back foot. Every so often, the watcher would step back, signaling her to increment her counter. It was slow work, and she stood silently in the vacuum for many moments and watched nature’s ballet below. One time, she saw a massive explosion. Another time, there were long strikes in a line. The silent spectacle of orbital bombardment was beautiful from their distance. After the impacts, she saw long white wisps of ice rising from the ice moon’s surface. A silver rain. Ahead, in the direction of their orbit, she spied that thin sparkling curtain extend up to their altitude. It looked like her colony would fly through one.

The diffuse crystals were still enough for her to feel a faint impact against her exoskeleton. Tap.

Ta-tap.

It was unnerving at first, feeling sounds in the void. It was also strangely beautiful; not repetitive, yet not chaotic. It was Creation’s improvisational music; life’s jazz.

Finally, her watcher had counted to sixty. Another signaler came out and Synteletrix returned inside and caught a breath of fresh air. Then she reported her sixty to the network node.

After a rest, she was summoned again to outer space. There she saw numerous workers holding on to the colony rock with their back four legs. They waved nets of insect silk in the blackness of space.

Synteletrix returned to a different watcher and began the count anew. She was there for only a moment before she experienced the thickest shower. Ahead was a massive curtain of silver flying up from the surface of the ice moon, so dense she could not see any blackness through it.

It looked like they were flying into a wall!

Tat. Something struck her.

Then the sky opened up with a rapid fire tat-tat-tat as their colony flew through the ice plume. TAT-TAT! Larger bits of ice hit her carapace.

Bang! The tone changed as she was almost knocked off. She clung tight and low to the rock—she did not appreciate life’s music anymore. Bits of ice struck the chest of other ants and deflected back onto the surface of their colony (hopefully without killing the ant). Other specks were stuck in the silk threads. Most ice simply deflected off into a new trajectory and went uncollected. But this was the best strategy present to hydrate the colony.

When the colony flew through the plumes, it encountered drag. This new impetus slowed the colony down and regularized their orbit around the moon. The pursuit of water, a substance all life needed to survive, had led to them being captured. They were no longer in a horseshoe orbit, and even if they jettisoned everything, Black-Sting could not return to the Lagrange points. Space Ants were trapped, at least for many generations.

After the plume strike, all was calm, and the sky was jet black. The colony had collected enough water to survive.

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The day had come to execute the colony’s idea.

The signalers were called up first. They received their orders and passed on the colony’s command to the masses of waiting workers.

Legs marched in unison. First ones or twos, then threes or fours. Synteletrix and the signalers kept them in line and going the same direction on the outside of their rock.

She felt a force. Her claws dug deep into the rock and substrate. Though it was so light a pull and so slow a rotation, and was in no danger of being flung off, her body was still alarmed from the geyser fly-by. She looked up and noticed the horizon rotated, or rather, their entire colony did. They were spinning now, and the force experienced was centrifugal.

The central colony rock was the only one being deliberately spun. Other rocks, connected by masses of insect silk, trudged lazily, but reluctantly followed along. It was slow work and very little spin was created, which worked fine for now, as workers were still rearranging. Weavers were reconstructing the colony’s parts into two clusters. Space Ants had previously altered their center of mass to freely change their trajectory at Lagrange points.

Every time the rotation’s speed increased, weavers would cut, sew, and lengthen the insect silk that held the two masses together. The smaller mass contained several old husks, which were mined and stripped of any value, and loaded with waste ice. The counterweight was nowhere near as heavy as the colony’s main rock, and the entire structure rotated at a point about one sixth the distance from colony to counterweight.

Synteletrix received posture communications from another sighter-signaler pair. They had spied the green sphere and sent an update on direction and velocity. The colony then attempted to alter their rotation, so the circle of the counterweight’s traversal was in line with the direction of their enemy.

Workers came, marched one direction, and adjusted the spin. Now it was victory or death, though death had two options. The slow death of evasion or the quick death of slaughter.

The standoff lasted for almost one mini orbit. The colony saw Green-Sphere altered its course and closed the distance.

Synteletrix was ordered into position. She climbed up the long braided silk line to the tethered counterweight. Below her, soldiers followed. This could very well be a one-way trip. The colony might decide, in a moment of panic, to cut the line. That would give their home a sudden change of direction which they might need to evade Green-Sphere, but this was no suicide squad. They did their duty to accomplish the task that gave them all the best chance of survival, and needless death was not in the plan.

Past the center of mass, she felt the pull of invisible force. She looked up and saw far away, down the silken path, was her home. Down was the smaller hollowed out rock, their makeshift home. It was fifty shades of white, black, and gray, with the bluegreen pf two small greenhouse ants.

Then all went black. The white moon eclipsed them. A small dark circle appeared on the atmosphere of the Jovian-sized planet. Red light reflected off the cloud tops, bathing them in shades of crimson. Meanwhile, sunlight streaked through the penumbra opposite and lit the geysers in white bright light.

Synteletrix was focused on her climb, and only saw the silk glow in a rose-silver hue. It was beautiful, if only because it was a shade of color she had never seen. She did not have time to relish the immense celestial dance; she had a mission. If this be her last orbit, then at least it was the most visually memorable orbit of her life.

Full sunlight suddenly returned. Below them they saw the thin crescent of the moon’s surface pass far below them; it appeared larger with each passing mini orbit.

Ahead of them was Green-Sphere, though none could see it. The direct sunlight hid it. No doubt those enemy ants could see Black-Sting’s colony lit up by the light and its silver, gray, and black colors—unsuitably obvious in front of the red and brown swirls of the gas giant. They probably looked like a juicy prize, especially with the bluegreen of their greenhouse ants or the verdant holobiont eggs, which betrayed an otherwise dead exterior.

Synteletrix reached the counterweight. Outside, workers affixed obsidian to the front (according to the direction of the spin). She dove inside and breathed a little of the very thin air. The interior was a single room. Two greenhouse ants bulged out the bottom, supplying their tiny fort with a little oxygen.

More warriors came in, and each settled down and slipped into torpor. Synteletrix folded up her antennae and also fell into sleep. Tomorrow, victory or death awaited.