Synteletrix woke to the rhythm of alarmed feet. All around her, her sisters felt the message and filed outside. After exiting their exterior tunnels, she looked up at the horizon. She spied the green sphere. It was blurry, but lit up in full sunlight.
There, next to her, was a sighter. Blessed with great vision, these big-eyed ants could sense small changes of things in their field of view. Their eyes also had a clear bubble over them, which they could deform to give more telescopic sight.
Synteletrix watched their antenna as they signaled numbers to her. These were very crude estimates of distance, using ‘colony length’ as a unit of measure. Wildly inaccurate—they were only space ants, not astrodynamicists.
She stood there in the void and relayed many sixties, signaling that Green-Sphere was still over sixty colony lengths away. It also reported two direction numbers relative to the horizon.
Another pair of ants sat on the colony’s main rock, doing much the same. The node of dreamers used these differing perspectives to calculate a parallax and gained an average (but more accurate) idea of where they were in relation to the enemy.
Several signalers clung onto the thread that held the two sections, relaying information back up to the center of the colony.
Synteletrix finally received a new number. 59 for distance and then a new direction. In a few moments, 58 and slight change in direction. Synteletrix watched her watcher, and did not see the Green-Sphere accelerate toward their colony.
Fifty-five, then fifty-one. Synteletrix continued to relay. Another signaler on the colony rock took in her information and relayed the information directly to the Node of Dreamers.
Forty-four.
Thirty-three!
The colony node came to the same conclusion: Incoming!
The message was relayed out seismically through the walls then visually through the void. Other workers at both ends of either line tugged or loosened the silk to counter for Green-Sphere’s adjustments.
Green-Sphere was close. It still aimed for the colony’s main rock, which wobbled not far off the barycenter. The other end, the counterweight, was within striking distance. Its sharpened point glinted black as they came down from behind the barycenter.
Synteletrix received the reply: Brace for Impact.
She clutched the rock with every fiber of strength and tried to warn her sighter. Hold! The impact was several more moments delayed than what she initially thought. Spikes of the great green sphere rushed past them right before they impacted.
Thwomp.
The counterweight slammed with the force of a sharp rock thrown at a watermelon, enough to pierce the skin, but not enough to obliterate it in a shower of pulpy flesh.
Synteletrix was whiplashed off her small rock. She was flung toward the green sphere and her body struck the middle of a spine, snapping the spike in half. Then her body cartwheeled end over end before hitting more and striking the ground. She bounced off the green skin and floated back up. Stunned, she floated weightless. She was also needing air as the collision knocked it out of her.
She was caught in the underside of a thicket of spines and floated no further off.
Panic set in. Death would be soon. She wiggled her antennae, trying to orient herself. Around her, bits of broken spines, green skin, and their shattered counterweight all weightlessly floated by. It was as though she were in a dream, where their tiny brains tried to simulate an unreal world.
The counterweight had struck the sphere off-center. Both objects, now conjoined, reacted to the new spin together. Meanwhile, Black-String’s main colony rock, still connected by thick strands of larva silk, rebounded chaotically. Now the center of mass was based on two tightly connected objects and one loosely bound rock.
Light passed into shadow, and now Synteletrix saw nothing, but she felt air leaking out from a large crack. She climbed underneath into a small chamber. She got her torso fully inside, and her bulbous abdomen sealed her from the exterior.
There, she tested the air and the pocket with her antenna. It seemed good, so she breathed in. It was too thin. She clawed at the wall and stabbed her foot through the fleshy interior, and felt air rush back in.
Ah.
She crouched in the darkness for several more moments. Then light returned feebly through the green skin, but enough to faintly illuminate the chamber. At the bottom was a small circle, possibly the opening of an interior stomata. She did not have the instinct to investigate and did not want to linger in case tiny ants swarmed her. She compressed the air back into her exoskeleton, removed herself from her hole, and searched for her sisters.
Inside the counterweight, the ants had formed a Buckeyball shape, a cage of sixty ants each interlocking their legs into a springy and impact resistant structure. Each ant of the cage survived, though the greenhouse ants did not. They died slowly as their extended abdomens suffered mortal wounds.
A few moments after penetrating the skin, Black-Sting’s warriors reconfigured themselves into a fighting force. Even the single door-ant joined in; it’s absolutely massive size allowed it to tower over any green ant, (although its many orbits of immobility did not make it a good fighter).
The survivors assembled around the broken remains of the counterweight, which formed their fort.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Synteletrix staggered to the top of the broken rock. As leader of the assault, she organized her sisters. Hold rock!
Darkness rolled over the battlefield. A few enemy ants emerged from the small holes past the impact point. Most crawled around looking for instructions they could not see. They wandered into death.
Kill! Synteletrix whipped her long antennae between allies like some conductor guiding a bombastic orchestra of blood-thirsty killers. Fall Back! Her touch commands ordered, and she cohered her force around the only defensible terrain.
The counterweight’s strike had quaked the entire sphere, and killed many of the smaller ants under the impact zone. Silver light from the moon lit up the field. Only a few ants of Green-Sphere tried to counterattack, but the ripped skin and exploded internal rooms left few good approaches. There was insufficient space to swarm.
The workers of Black-Sting did what workers do, they labored. There in the fissures, they shoved in any tool they brought. They levered and wedged open the cracks, and as they hit new pockets of trapped air, those violently extended the fissure’s length. With each new catastrophic rupture, a green ant or two which tried to counterattack was propelled off into deep space, and the ground became more defensible for Black-Sting. Other workers carried fresh spikes or shards and further fortified the impact zone’s perimeter.
Full light returned and with each passing rotation, Green-Sphere’s outside numbers soared. Probing assaults were attempted at every angle around the counterweight fort.
There! Synteletrix commanded. Now there. She redirected her sister soldiers when she saw a counterattack begin. Each time, three or four of their warriors repositioned, legs side-by-side with another to blunt the swarm’s counterattack.
The hordes assaulted, practically piggybacked three high on a single approach. Obsidian blades glinted in the sun as Synteletrix and the sisters slayed the mobs who attacked the fort. Tiny ants floated off, dead or soon-to-be, a cloud as thick as the ice geyser that pelted them earlier.
Two allied workers also dug straight down from the central impact point. When they encountered a pocket of air, the duo wedged a thicket of spines down. They alternated pushing and pulling, trying to lever the entire structure open. Though their task was comically miscalculated, they succeeded in puncturing ever deeper into the chambers and tunnels of Green-Sphere.
Inside, alarmed warriorkers tried to bite the spines instead of obeying the general order to attack topside. Chemical trails laid down in the interior air dissipated, and the counterattack of Green-Sphere faltered. Whenever Green-Sphere’s internal big-headed ants felt a loss of pressure, they plugged the tunnels and further hampered the swarm. But did they quit? NO! They’re space ants, for God’s sake. They didn’t come this far to be eradicated by bigger ants. They did not survive so long by giving up at the first sign of battle or the first setback. Eventually, the signal of mass alarm spread through Green-Sphere and the entire colony assembled.
Synteletrix monitored the battle. She commanded certain workers to cut and saw off slabs of the green skin. The chunks floated off to be captured later. Now Black-Sting had transformed the battlefield. They continued to cut large holes and expand the cracks into chasms, which made a better defensive line for Black-Sting. More workers poured in over the silk line, bringing with them bits of previously harvested spikes, and placed them into the exposed green skin, forming thickets the small ants could not penetrate.
Green-Sphere, deprived of an open field, and still in shock, halted their attacks and reformed their own defensive line. They came out and around, but stopped short of where the skin was cracked or ripped.
Another full rotation flashed its varied lighting.
Synteletrix calmed the warriors near her. Then she gestured back to the colony’s main rock, which by now had floated much closer. Another signaler acknowledged her.
She saw the humps of many allied ants climbing down the line before they disappeared into darkness. The chaotic rotation played with their eyes. In a few moments, silver light reflected off the ice moon. When would the assault happen? When would she finally know the battle’s outcome? Would she taste victory or death?
More allies descended, and each stayed close to their makeshift rock fortress. They waited and balanced on everyone and stood in formation. Other signalers came to keep their brood together.
Move! Synteletrix shoved a careless warrior who stepped on her antenna.
Below the impact site, where many interior tunnels were pulverized and collapsed, Green-Sphere was busy. Synteletrix put her antennae into the gaping holes below and felt the vibrations. It was as though a million mandibles were chewing simultaneously.
Tunnelers! She squeezed herself farther down and tried to sense where the green ants might push through. Death from below?
Full light returned. Synteletrix looked out into the distance, past the pulverized spikes, and in where the thicket returned to fullness.
There they all saw the masses of Green-Sphere, which acted as one. They chewed.
Synteletrix crawled around the perimeter, again keeping her warriors at the ready. On all sides she saw the same thing: an entire circle of tiny ants chewed under the green sphere’s skin.
Blackness doused Synteletrix, and the scene disappeared. She tried to contact the deepest workers, who were still trying to lever with the spines or other crude tools. Everywhere on all sides were the continuous vibrations of chewing.
The silver light returned and cast gray shadows everywhere. She looked up and saw the white moon. It filled the entire horizon. Ahead, a geyser reached up to their orbit. They were going to collide with a massive wall of ice water.
Incomin—
Tat!
Ouch! Ice struck her antenna.
Tat-tat. Bang! It hit her exoskeleton.
T-t ta-tat. She held on.
The silver rain pelted friend and foe alike. Several allied ants on the line were knocked off into the black death of deep space.
The seismic rumbles of the ice plume strike died. Silence returned, except it didn’t. Below their makeshift fort, the vibrations of chewing never ceased.
Sunlight returned along with warmth on Synteletrix’s exoskeleton. She was excited and even glad to have the warm sunshine bathe their battle.
Hold. She kept all her eager warriors back around the fort as more reinforcements poured in from above. She expected the pivotal battle to begin shortly, as soon as a critical mass of warriorkers appeared, enough to swarm the entire base, or spring from the tunnels below.
But that did not happen.
The faint rumble of chewing suddenly stopped.
Darkness returned. Synteletrix felt momentum transfer.
The stars circled in slow arcs.
Then the silver light returned, and she saw the white moon’s surface rotate slowly. Synteletrix and her warriors realized they were suddenly floating free.
They each tried to circle their antennae with the zero-g instinct to correct their rotation, only to realize the ineffectiveness of it. They could not stabilize the lump of rock and detached skin they clung to.
Green-Sphere had decided for a neutral strategy. Stem the loss, and literally chew the enemy off their home.
The chill of darkness greeted Synteletrix. She tried to signal back to her caste along the line, but the colony already understood and hauled everything back to their main rock.
Stabilize, she saw the command relayed in the silver moonlight.
It took many movements, but she whipped her fellow ants into one direction, and they stopped spinning. Synteletrix looked off into the distance. There, ahead and above, the green sphere floated away. Small puffs of steam jetted out from behind Green-Sphere as they tried to climb into a higher orbit. It still rotated, and she saw a large scar of white flesh on it.
Back home, Synteletrix was mined for memories. The dream ants assembled again. They survived another orbit, but now their sighters reported alarming news. They had fallen in. Impact was inevitable. Death would follow.