The mineral ants were done in a day, having eaten to their hearts’ content while creating a larger cavern that sat at a lower layer, connecting them to the tunnel system.
The new cavern started to look more and more like an underground hangar bay, with the mineral ants leaving to and fro while Hayden and the other members carried crates of supplies and piled them along the side.
If I consider the mineral ants as the starfighters, then this would be a great launch bay. Kyle considered how to integrate the mineral ants into his fighting force. Right now, he was manually commanding them with the help of the artificial hive core, but if the ants could be trained or domesticated to take commands from their human partner, it would be as though he had suddenly developed an airforce of his own.
This would give him increased operational capabilities, able to pull off more hits and move faster as well. However, the mineral ants were not invincible as of yet. Kyle was getting a bit too ahead for himself, so he had Drake, Hayden, and Feldon sit down with him to plan while the rest of the members familiarised themselves with the area.
The mineral ants also began to cover up the shaft they used to enter, forming pillars to ensure the cavern’s ceiling would not collapse on itself. Their natural instinct to construct hives under the ground was coming into full use here.
Kyle laid out what they had now:
Eight warrior mineral ants Four venom-spitting hornets Ten human members
“How are we doing in terms of food?” Kyle asked Drake. Drake had experience leading a village, so he was far more competent in ensuring the survival of the members. He also had a good rapport with the ten members, so Kyle planned to use him as the mouthpiece moving forward.
“Not good, we’ll run out in a week. We can ration the canned food, but it’s not going to last that much longer if we’re planning to stay here long-term. We can try to forage around and see what we can find.”
“Water?”
“Water’s fine; we got an old well we can use. The groundwater seems to have regenerated over the last fifteen years.”
“Okay. We got the basic needs covered temporarily. We’ll have to work on weapons and armour next.”
“Before we move on – I know we agreed to follow you. But can I hear the specifics directly from you?” Drake interrupted. “I am marginally aware of how both you and Hayden seemed to be revolutionaries, but for what purpose? Can’t we just live out our lives in a quiet, peaceful zone?”
“Drake, I –“
“I’m talking to him, not you.” Drake dismissed Hayden, obviously still slightly angry at Hayden’s former intention to leave the village without telling him. Hayden fell quiet, her expression gloomy.
“You’ve seen the end results of what happened when you tried that route.”
“The village wouldn’t have been attacked if you didn’t arrive. In fact, I suspect it’s a ploy. You had been observing the village for a while before making your appearance.”
“Wrong. I knew the military was going to attack you regardless; my arrival simply sped up the process.”
“Because we were ‘illegal occupiers’?”
“Exactly. You did not have the strength to defend your rights; hence you were overwhelmed. If you lived in a world where laws were respected, then it’s fine to be as pacifist as you want. But violence is necessary to protect the peace you so dearly seek – something you forgot to wield when the Versian military showed up.”
“And you want us to fight back against the government with just us? None of us here are willing to sacrifice our lives for such a meaningless conflict. It only brews a cycle of hatred, one that would continue down the ages.”
“I want to fight back!” The young teenager interjected, eavesdropping on the meeting.
“Jaden, you have no idea what that means. You’re talking about killing others!” Drake rebuked the young teenager.
“So, we just sit back and be killed when someone else doesn’t like where we live?” Jaden shot back. “I am a Versian, too; why does the company suddenly get control over the whole forest!”
“I don’t like it too, but violence is not the answer. We can always talk it out peacefully.”
“That did not seem like how your village meeting went.” Kyle pointed out. “In fact, your peaceful discussion was easily overthrown by a single agitator.”
“Then what would you have us be? A dictatorship?”
“And what’s wrong with a dictatorship?”
Drake stared dumbfoundedly at Kyle. “You want to rule Versia as a dictatorship?”
“No, I plan to install Minister Dekar as the new head of state.”
This threw Drake off even more. “You are fighting for someone to be a dictator? What?”
“Dictatorships can go both ways. It all depends on the dictator. A ruthless short-sighted dictator can easily ruin the country, but a wise, benevolent dictator can easily uplift the entire country too. Look at how your village meeting went. In your attempts to foster equal discussion, those who were more vocal and violent won instead. Equality never exists in a vacuum – if you want such a discussion, you must have the force to ensure it.”
“Then what if the dictator uses force to suppress those who speak out against him?”
“That’s what rebellions are for. Ebb and flow. Go too far in one direction, and nature will reign you in, which is exactly what we’re doing now. You made your choice when you left the village to join me. You can leave if you want to.”
“Except you’ll hunt us down.”
“Do you know what would have happened to you if I did not show up?” Kyle suddenly countered. “The military would have enslaved all of you and had you work for Tenar Logging Incorporated, earning nothing. There is no middle ground here – fight or be enslaved.”
“Or run away.”
“To where? Raktor? As an undocumented Versian? You’ll be dead on the first day. The world runs on violence, and I intend to stay on top of it. You’re not living in an isolated place any longer. Choose wisely. Hayden, with me.” Kyle left the meeting, motioning for Hayden to follow.
The two of them walked away while Jaden was still arguing with Drake. “Sorry, Drake is a pacifist at heart. I think he still hasn’t gotten over how you killed the entire village.” Hayden remarked.
“Yet he did not stand up for the village nor complain.” Kyle scoffed. Pacifists were abhorrent to Kyle – it was the complete antithesis of human expansion in the Galactic Era. Those who continued to reminisce about the past and advocated for demilitarisation were all fools to him. Similarly, those who preached the ideal of equality and that every human has a vote was completely flawed in their viewpoint.
Kyle was naturally partial to technocracy and elected monarchies. The Galactic Era had long proven the concept of superior genes, that no human was created equal. A wealthy family such as Kyle’s parents could easily purchase a designer gene package, creating a top-class human.
Education was also unequal, with cranial implants and accelerated learning disrupting the status quo. Only S-class states had the resources to ensure equal advancement, but even then, they were ruled by only the smartest among them instead of a shared vote and referendum on every single decision.
Why would Kyle ever give a vote to those who knew nothing about how a country works? It was like asking a specialist in forestry to vote on whether a shipyard should be built in a polar orbit or an equatorial orbit. Why would his vote even matter? As long as the limitation of time and expertise existed in all humans, true democracy could never work, only remaining as an ideal.
Kyle had already lost track of the countless numbers of star nations that tried to implement such equal representation, only to eventually devolve into civil war and fighting between interest groups as the more dominant humans took over, subverting the original intention. Of course, most of this would have been solved by neutering human emotions, but that was illegal under the Council.
“Let’s move on. Show me the workshop equipment.”
The workbenches were old and rusted, with many exposed metals already corroded from the ambient water vapour reacting with it. Some of the steel bars were still usable, but it was hardly enough to make a full armour set or do any sort of equipment. “So, the tools and materials are missing.”
“The furnace is still working fine – I can get that up and running easily. But yes, we’re missing nearly everything necessary to make anything steel related.”
Kyle felt a sense of dejavu, recalling the days of setting up the steel factory in Raktor just a month ago. But this time, he had a much bigger helper: the mineral ants.
“We’ll use the mineral ants to source for the crude iron and coal; they should be able to mine a lot faster than our members. There might be a few small veins here. Where is the closest town?”
“Closest? If you’re okay with another ten kilometres, there’s Desham. We could probably get some supplies from there, but we would have to cover our tracks.”
“Not a problem, it might be better than having the mineral ants dig. Take a rest first; we’ll start later.” Kyle dismissed Hayden, returning to plan further.
There were a couple of objectives that he had to hit now that he had a fairly stable base location. Even if the enemy found the area, Kyle was confident that he could easily defend the base given the widespread guerrilla tunnel networks. Coupled that with the airborne or underground nature of the mineral ants, it was as though he now had armoured vehicles that could do anything.
The objectives were simple:
Train the current members to fight in tandem with the mineral ants, using repeaters and handguns. Armour the mineral ants to make them highly resistant to external damage and allow for extended flight. Create a supply network to allow for continuous manufacturing of weapons and armour in this new base Find his old allies, such as Dekar and Zayin. Create a personal arctech exosuit.
Objective five was a bit harder to obtain, seeing that he did not have a spine with him. However, he could make a simple prototype armour first that would augment his abilities even more. With the energy source of the advanced-quality arcia crystal, he could run the engravings on the armour at a far higher duration than normal.
The most important objectives that were critical now were objective three and objective one. Kyle had to figure out how he was going to create the supply chain to the nearby town, where he could extort or upend a few local criminal gangs to gain access to the black market.
Ten kilometres is a bit too far… Kyle calculated how much his mineral ants would have to dig to clear that in a week. Or… I could do the same method as the goblin dens.
Kyle did not have any existing tunnel network to work with, but he could split up the dozen mineral ants into different sections and have them dig together through the shafts. This way, each mineral ant would only need to dig about a kilometre each.
The tunnel was only one part of the equation – he would need to mask it and ensure that it was not obvious. He had no doubt that Nest would have some hitmen and operatives present in the city, so rooting them out would be the first order of business. Next would be to establish a powerbase and gather more followers, so he could ramp up his power base again.
Kyle explained the plan to Hayden and Feldon before leaving the tunnel system on a mineral ant, slowly flying through the trees before stopping two kilometres from the edge of the town. Already he could see the walled town beyond the end of the forest, where there were a few farms and paved roads leading beyond, with one or two arctech wagons rumbling across it.
The town was not big, with Hayden having estimated the current population to be a mere ten thousand people. But it was enough for Kyle to blend in as a traveller and to figure out the situation first.
