Alpha Strike: [An interstellar Weapon Platform’s Guide to being a Dungeon Core] (Book 2 title)

For anyone else, the ride on a giant, spiky ant the size of a train engine, traveling through an underground tunnel at 70km/h would have been uncomfortable. For Alpha, it was just a matter of attaching the [Wasp] to one of the large spikes and hitching a ride. The drone’s augmented van der Waals force allowed it to stay attached to a surface even at speeds reaching Mach 3 and several Gs of force.

The particular ant that Alpha was riding was one he had labeled the carrier class. Nearly the size of the TAWP, these ‘carriers’ were hulking, spiky monstrosities that could put any porcupine to shame. Dozens of ants clung to the carrier class’s back and abdomen, clinging to the large spikes. These ranged from the typical, human-sized workers to smaller, dog-sized honeypots, their abdomen swollen with a glowing crimson liquid.

Two dozen carrier-class ants traveled down the same tunnel as Alpha, with more joining every minute. Other than the carriers, the tunnel was filled with soldier ants. Car-sized and heavily armored, Alpha could tell these creatures were built for combat. Between these ants were hundreds of ants of the various worker types. It seemed when the colony gave the call, everyone answered.

“The question is, where are we headed, and what could demand a response like this?” Alpha asked himself. “Guess I’m about to find out…”

Alpha noticed a light in the distance as they neared the end of the tunnel.

“That’s strange…” Alpha muttered, “The tunnel’s pointing downward. Where is the light coming from?”

The ants didn’t even slow as they exited the tunnel, and Alpha’s perspective flipped 90 degrees. Instead of exiting on the surface or a mountainside as Alpha had expected, the ants poured out of an opening high on a cliff side of a mist-filled valley. A massive forest sprawled out before him, stretching far into the distance before it was swallowed by the swirling mists.

“No… not a valley…” Alpha said. The drone’s camera followed the glowing moss growing on the cliffside. It stretched higher and higher until it was obscured by the ‘clouds,’ only the dim lights allowing him to track them. The moss continued upward, then over the valley.

Those twinkling stars in the ‘sky’ weren’t stars at all. They were patches of moss.

“Wooooooow…” Alpha whistled to himself.

This ‘valley’ wasn’t a valley; it was one massive cavern! One far larger than anything found in the colony so far. Hell, Alpha was pretty sure that some shenanigans were going on to make something like this even possible.

Alpha’s perspective flipped again as the ant’s march down the wall ended, and they reached the cavern floor.

“Man, this place really is a forest…” Alpha said.

Several kilometers into the distance, massive trees grew thick along the cavern floor, so thick the carrier-class ants would have to slow significantly to navigate the terrain. The scene reminded Alpha of those old videos of the ancient redwood forests of Old Earth, but dotted with giant mushroom trees. Though said mushrooms, the same variety found in the ant colony, were still smaller than the giant trees.

The space between the cavern’s wall and the forest looked like it had been clear-cut, with hundreds of stumps of both trees and mushrooms filling the area like a floral graveyard.

“The ants must forage regularly to supplement their own farms,” Alpha considered what he was seeing. “But ants are known for being exponential multipliers. The patch here is massive, but it’s just a tiny fraction of the entire forest. There have to be some checks and balances, right? What’s stopping the ants from stripping this cavern clean as the colony grows?”

As if answering his musings, another loud roar sounded from just inside the forest, a vast shadow moving within the mist.

The ants didn’t hesitate and charged the tree line.

Alpha detached from the carrier ant and flew higher. The [Wasp] wasn’t much faster than the giant, charging ant, but being above the action would give him a wider view of what was happening.

As Alpha approached the treeline, and the mist thinned, he finally got a look at what had the colony riled up.

“Yup… those are some big boys…” Alpha muttered, staring at a group of five massive creatures. Each was roughly twenty meters tall and appeared like someone had smushed a bear with a sloth. They were hulking creatures covered in thick, matted fur and walked on four muscular limbs. Their front paws were topped by vicious-looking curved claws. Claws so large the creature had to walk on its knuckles.

An army of smaller worker ants surrounded the creatures, ineffectively gnawing on the tough fur. Ants that tried to climb onto the creatures would inevitably get tangled in the thick mats of moss-covered fur until the giant creature’s long, sticky tongue cleaned them off. Every so often, when the ants gathered too thickly, one of the creatures would lift its clawed paw and scythe through the masses.

When you’re a galactic civilization capable of traveling between stars and terraforming entire planets, you come across many strange lifeforms. Sometimes, those strange lifeforms don’t like when you plop a base in the middle of their territory. As such, the Federation had devised a ranking system to determine the threat level of local wildlife to their ongoing operations.

The system itself was simple, even if some in the Federation argued it could be more detailed. At its core, it ranked between G-rank and A-rank, designating what kind of firepower and effort was needed to bring the target down in case of confrontation.

A G-ranked lifeform could be easily dealt with by a trained hunter using civilian-standard firearms. 

An A-ranked lifeform was considered so dangerous that the loss of life and equipment from a planet-side engagement was typically considered not worth it. Such creatures usually earned themselves an orbital strike if they became problems.

Or a visit from Alpha. 

Ranks beyond that, such as S or SS, were used for unique lifeforms capable of planetwide destruction and were often found in the void between stars. But such beings were exceedingly rare, so much so that one or two might be identified every century.

“If the toothy penguins are our baseline, below even G, then the Beast Lord would have been between F and E. Dangerous for civilians, but overall, not too much for a squad of soldiers. A transformed Hera, though, might have given even a full squad some trouble, putting her firmly into E-rank. These things, though… hmmm.” Alpha contemplated to himself.

For all their size and bulk, the creatures fighting the ants didn’t give off the same air of danger that Hera had. They were powerful, sure, dangerous even, but not at the same level.

“So between the Beast Lord and Hera, then? That’s still a pretty wide gap…” the AI considered.

The creatures weren’t making much headway against the seemingly endless tide of ants, but neither were the ants doing much against the strange creatures. It was a stalemate that didn’t seem like it was likely to break anytime soon, not unless something changed to tip the scales.

It just so happened that “something” was about to arrive.

The swarm of ants that Alpha had followed here melded into the back ranks of the ants already present. Several dozen large soldier ants stepped over the smaller workers and rushed the bear-sloth creatures. The bear-sloths, who had, until this point, seemed to treat the swarm more like a particularly fussy meal, stood on their hind legs and roared at the charging ants, spreading their long arms out to display their vicious claws.

The ants knew no fear, however. While each soldier was only twice as big as a worker, their armor was far thicker and covered in spiky barbs. While a single swipe of the bear-sloth’s claws could crush dozens of ants, it took two or three blows to fell a soldier. To make matters worse, the soldiers were adept at working together. While the bear-sloths focused on crushing a few soldiers, others would latch onto the creature’s arms.

They still couldn’t cut through the bear-sloth’s thick, matted fur, but the ants weighed the five creature’s limbs down over time. With each ant clinging to them, every blow came slower and with less power. This, in turn, meant each soldier took longer to kill, letting more ants latch on.

Soon, the bear-sloths were so heavily ladened they could no longer stand. One by one, the massive creatures were pulled to the ground. Then, just like that, the battle had shifted. With dozens of soldiers weighing down and pulling their limbs taut, the bear-sloths couldn’t defend themselves as the workers attacked their vulnerable faces.

A few bear-sloths tried to defend themselves with their long tongues and snapping maws, but the ants were unending. Not to long after, the roars of anger turned into ones of pain as giant ants attacked their squishy bits not protected by the heavy fur.

“Well, I guess that’s its…” Alpha said to himself.

He gained little from this brief detour, but the underground forest was a promising location. Just the sheer size of the cavern itself almost guaranteed he’d be able to find some choice mineral veins with a bit of scouting. That wasn’t even considering what opportunities and resources the forest itself might hold.

Alpha turned the [Wasp] around and headed back to the colony. He’d leave the ants to their prize, drop off the material samples he’d collected in the mushroom cavern, and then explore the colony a bit more. By the time he finished that, the nanite nests should be established and ready to produce nanites.

With any luck, he’d have some basic printers up and running by the end of the week! Things were finally looking up.

He’d barely started to fly back when a massive roar shook the cavern.

Alpha turned around to see something pushing up from underneath the pile of ants, roughly where the largest bear-sloths had gone down. The ant mound continued to rise into the air until, finally, a gargantuan figure exploded from within.

The bear-sloth that emerged had somehow grown to three times its original size, but that wasn’t the only change. Its eyes were gone, possibly having been eaten by the ants, and steaming red blood leaked from the holes, staining its muzzle.

The thick, matted fur covering its body had turned a bright golden color and had somehow untangled itself. It now streamed out behind it in long, silky tendrils that flowed on an unseen wind. Its long, curved claws had doubled in size and straightened, turning black and metallic in the bright golden light.

The now giant, golden bear-sloth gave another loud roar that almost knocked the [Wasp] of the sky and went berserk. Each swipe of its black metal claws shredded dozens of ants, and not even the soldiers could resist its blows any longer.

Once more, the tide of the battle shifted as the blind, raging bear-sloth began to cut its way through the surrounding army of ants toward the safety of the nearby trees.

The ants had one more trick up their sleeve, though, it seemed.

During the entire previous engagement, the carrier ants had stayed back near the back of the army of ants, as if observing, despite being several times larger than the soldiers.

This time, the carriers stepped forward. Though not far.

The carrier ants waded through the army of workers until they’d reached some arbitrary line. Then, as one, a dozen carrier ants flicked their large abdomens upward with enough force that Alpha could see their exoskeleton crack.

Dozens of red-bellied honeypot ants flew through the air at tremendous force, arcing over the workers below toward the fleeing bear-sloth. Alpha could have even sworn he saw several physically adjust their course by twisting in certain ways or splaying their legs.

For a brief moment, the air above the army of ants turned into a tapestry of red stars. Then these falling stars slammed into the golden bear-sloth…

… and exploded.

Hundreds of fireballs bloomed to life along the bear-sloth’s back and its surroundings. The golden light it emitted was overwhelmed by the bright hellfire, as burning globs of red liquid and ant bits clung to the creature’s fur. Its back erupted into an inferno as the bear-sloth screamed and fell to the ground, rolling on its back several times, only to push the everburning flames deeper into its fur.

Bang!

Another dozen carrier ants launched their payloads into the air. Like before, the red honeypots soared through the air, this time hitting a much more concentrated area now that their target was immobile.

The golden bear-sloth went up in a roaring fireball that cleared the mist for hundreds of meters and lit up the cavern for dozens of kilometers.

Alpha could only think of one thing as the giant fireball settled into a roaring bonfire with a charred black figure at its center.

“Did these ants really invent napalm?!”