Chrysalis

“Hah! I like the way you think. What do you reckon, Sloan? Fancy adding a floating fortress to our arsenal?”

The general looks a little sour, but can’t quite manage to conceal the excitement quivering through her antennae.

“It would allow us to do a lot. A mobile defensive platform. We could use it to fend off other islands that attack the mountain, or launch attacks against our enemies. I can’t deny it would be extremely useful to have, Eldest.”

“It sure would. Shame we can’t get one for the moment.”

Both Solant and Sloan droop at my words, their antennae slumping to the ground.

“Be a little realistic, you two,” I scold them. “That dragon has a stronger core than I do, and in case you don’t remember, it flies. I can get up there, but I’m not exactly graceful. There’s no guarantee that I’d be able to win and seize the island for us. Besides all of that, don’t we have enough on our plates right now without having to take and operate our own flying castle?”

“The carvers would kill us if we asked them to fortify an entire island right now,” Sloan sighs. “They still haven’t completed work on this mountain to anything like their own satisfaction. There’s whole sections which haven’t been touched since the termite occupation.”

“Right. It’s a great idea, Solant, but we need to put things in order. Finish work on the mountain, fend off the wave, then we can look toward getting into the skies.”

The little general nods as if agreeing with me, but I can tell her little brain is still ticking over. Good. She’s meant to be an independent thinker. Doing whatever the ‘Eldest’ tells them is a weakness the rest of the Colony has fallen into a little too readily for my taste.

the flying menace has been dealt with, we may as well repeat our previous exercise a couple times. We’ll rotate around the mountain, doing a different segment with

Solant agrees, a little absent-mindedly, and I’m tempted to administer a

over the next few hours, giving me a break in between to recharge

in everything like a little sponge, constantly twitching this way and that as thoughts spark in

Know thy enemy, eh?

We’ve completed a circuit of the mountain.

“... You’re very strong.”

right? Nono, surely you have a

think on them a little more,

good idea, but we don’t have time

Aren’t

on! Besides, did you think this

portion of those the Colony is fighting off, the rest are swarming below ground, filling up the tunnels and caverns carved by the termites and spawning

we’re going to see an assault by the toxic murder creatures from below. In fact, it may not even be far

real battle is! As it should be! Tunnel fighting is what we

a grand, central chamber in the bowels of the mountain. From here, Victor has been overseeing an omni-directional war, managing the hundreds of chokepoints, fortified

scouts rush

beleaguered general points with one antenna and I turn to see