NOVEL SIMPLE B2 – Lesson 3: “Greet the neighbors.”
“Riiiiiibbit…”
Alpha stared at the blue spotted, frog-like creature through the [Wasp] drone. The red-eyed ‘frog’ stared back at him.
“Riiiibb—”
“Nope!” Alpha said.
The [Wasp] drone shot into the air just as the frog tensed and opened its mouth. A long, purple tongue shot out, tracking the drone’s trajectory. Alpha stopped the drone just in time as the long tongue shot past. Only for the tongue to make two sharp 90-degree turns in defiance of all laws of physics.
Alpha dodged again, but the tongue made another sharp turn and tracked the drone. Six turns and more tongue than should have been possible later, Alpha dodged one last strike by the frog. The tongue pulled taut. The entire thing fell to the ground as one, like gravity had just that instant realized it was a solid object. Alpha hovered above the pile of extruded tongue and laughed.
“Ha! That’s what you get, you overgrown tadpole!” Alpha mocked while wiggling the drone’s rear end at the frog.
The frog narrowed its eyes and inhaled. Its long tongue was sucked back into its mouth like a gory noodle. Alpha was pretty sure frogs weren’t supposed to do that…
“Oh no you don’t! We’re not doing that again!” Alpha pushed the drone downward and activated the small plasma cutter on one of the drone’s legs. The drone zipped past the retracting tongue, and the frog released a high-pitched Reeeeee!
The frog fell backward, bleeding from a flailing stub of a tongue. It rolled on its back a few times before righting itself. It turned to Alpha and hissed through a mouth full of blood. Alpha taunted the frog some more with the drone, several meters in the air. The frog’s hind legs tensed, and it lept. To Alpha’s surprise, the frog leaped quite the height for a creature of its size…
Until a dog-sized ant snatched it out of the air, having caught its attention with its cries of pain only moments before. The frog struggled, but a quick squeeze from the much larger ant’s mandibles ended any resistance. The ant mulched the small frog’s body and smeared it along the base of a nearby mushroom tree, not even bothering to bring it to one of the composting piles.
Such was the circle of life in the ant’s mushroom forest.
Alpha flew the [Wasp] drone down to the remains of the tongue and snipped off a sample. Its elasticity was quite surprising. Far beyond what should have been biologically possible, not to mention the strange movements it was capable of.
“Why do I feel like I’m getting used to the insanity of this planet, though? Am I going native?!” Alpha asked himself.
Alpha had spent the last day exploring the mushroom forest in a [Wasp], and already he was realizing the strangeness of the prairies might not be an isolated phenomenon. The more Alpha studied the ant’s ‘farm,’ the more he realized it was its own little self-contained ecosystem. Sure, the forest itself was artificial, created by the ants to harvest their giant mushrooms, but plenty of other lifeforms had learned to take advantage of it as well.
Various types of insects fed either on the compost that the ants had gathered or on the mushrooms themselves. The first was likely necessary to turn the various bits of rotting flesh and plant matter into useable compost. The second type could be more antagonistic. Alpha had watched several farmer ants whose entire job was to patrol the forest and clean the mushrooms of various parasites.
Many small creatures similar to mammals, reptiles, and avians also inhabited the cavern, feeding on the insects or each other. None was very large, however. The frog-like creatures, roughly the size of a rat, seemed to be the apex predators here, barring the ants, of course. Anything larger was quickly caught and composted by the patrolling ants. Whether this was because the ants understood that the smaller ones helped to control the mushroom parasites or they were simply not worth the effort of hunting, Alpha wasn’t sure. Even the larger frogs were sometimes caught if they strayed too close to an ant.
The ants themselves were the obvious overlords of this domain.
Workers would tend to the various ‘trees,’ adding compost or cleaning sections as needed. When a mushroom was ready for harvest, a team of ants would work together to chew through the base of the trunk and then carry it off for processing in a connected cavern. From there, the processed mushroom would be carried throughout the colony. The mushroom samples showed them to be rather high in moisture and fiber for a fungus. The oil they produced was especially interesting.
Alpha noted one particular parasite of the mushrooms had a habit of… popping while under distress. The [Wasp] landed on a small shrub across from a mushroom tree with several of the parasites covering it. One of the tender ants stopped at the tree, their antennae twitching. It brushed several of the insects off with its antennae.
Pop! Pop, pop!
The thorn-shaped shell of the parasite shot off with surprising force, pinging off the ant’s hard, metal-infused carapace. The sound even startled several nearby parasites, causing them to launch their shell as well. With their shells gone, the small, beetle-like insect underneath spread its wings and took off into the air before the perceived threat could react. The ant moved around the mushroom’s trunk, brushing and triggering the parasites that it could reach.
The ant was pretty much immune to the thorny missiles, but Alpha had spotted some of the smaller creatures sporting nasty wounds he was sure were made by the mushroom parasites.
Alpha moved the [Wasp] toward one of the discarded shells. Most of them shattered on impact, being little more than a thin carapace, but the tips were surprisingly sturdy. A quick analysis showed the inside was still covered in a burned, oily substance. Interesting.
Chemical weaponry wasn’t anything new to insects, but using the mushroom’s oils as a propellent?
There was potential there. Alpha would have to study it further.
For now, there were more things to see.
The [Wasp] drone pushed off and flew deeper into the colony.
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The next few chambers Alpha visited weren’t all too exciting. For the most part, the nursery was about what he’d expected. It was well cared for, and while the silk and wax held some potential, it wasn’t anything he could make use of yet.
The wooden ‘farm’ with the scaley aphid-like creatures was more interesting. While the walls appeared to be solid at a distance, closer inspection showed they were actually thick bundles of woody roots woven together to create a surface strong enough to support even the larger ants.
Maintenance ants would periodically trim growing roots or weave back damaged sections.
Alpha found a bare patch of wood and took samples. A quick sonar scan showed the root structure stretching far into the distance, beyond the [Wasp’s] weak sonar could reach. The ants hadn’t just weaved a chamber out of roots but bore into a preexisting root structure. Strange…
“I don’t remember seeing such a large plant when I teleported in…” Alpha muttered to himself.
A root structure this size suggested that the accompanying plant was massive, but from what Alpha had seen as he fell, the surrounding area was mostly mountains. Nothing suggesting a plant that big was anywhere nearby. It was possible the plant was mostly subterranean, with a massive root bundle and only a small surface protrusion, but until he could get back to the surface or deploy a stronger sonar, there was no telling.
The scaley aphids covered most of the exposed root bundle, and the ants were highly protective of the creatures. Alpha’s drone was nearly eaten at least twice by overprotective ants. Unlike the mushroom forest, this place was almost entirely dominated by the aphids, their ant protectors ensuring that any intruders were quickly dealt with.
Despite their efforts, Alpha still watched several rodent-like creatures burrow through the root bundle and snatch an aphid before escaping back into the roots. The maintenance ants were quick to patch up any such holes, though.
“Now… how am I going to get a sample of the golden liquid? It has to be a product of the scaly aphids themselves. The samples taken from the roots showed nothing like it.”
The Aphids only seemed to extrude the golden liquid for the ants, and if he tried to grab a sample while the ant was drinking, they would attack. If he was quick enough, he might manage it. The question was, did he want to risk the [Wasp] right now? It would still be a few days before he could start producing more, and it might take just as long to extract the drone from the ant’s internals if it got eaten.
The next moment, all thoughts of the golden liquid were wiped from Alpha’s mind as the ant colony exploded in a frenzy of activity.
One moment, everything was calm, then the next, dozens of ants rushed out of the nearby tunnels, heading toward the large open highway Alpha had been brought through. The few dozen soon turned into hundreds as ants rushed forward, the sound of their mandibles clicking echoing off the walls.
Alpha followed close behind, landing the [Wasp] between the spikes of one of the larger ants.
As the swarm moved down the passage, growing thicker by the moment, another sound joined the chaos.
Distant roaring.
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