The late hours of the night seemed quiet. Aside from the soft whisper of the wind and the faint sounds made by tiny flying insects, there was little noise in the air. Yet a sense of unease still lingered over the area. The drones had not fallen back asleep; they watched their surroundings in silence.
All except the one that had incurred the Queen's wrath. It still lay curled in its corner, motionless, doing nothing.
Alexander had tried several times to catch fish from the river, but each attempt had failed. With a weary expression, he stepped out of the shallow water. Truth be told, he wasn't that hungry. Grass covered everything around him, after all. But he knew a lack of protein wasn't good, and he genuinely disliked the taste of grass anyway.
He looked around. Then he looked at the hatchlings. He had waited here for three months for the eggs to hatch, and afterward he had decided to remain so the young could grow safely in this place. Yet during all that time, the only thing he had managed to do was try to analyze the grass.
Even after three months of effort, he had made no progress. He had faced failure again and again, unable to understand the complex and highly varied structure of the plants around him. Each failure had made him more aggressive.
Knowing he couldn't hunt a large animal alone—and now having hatchlings he could no longer leave unprotected—Alexander forced himself to calm down while considering his options.
"I suppose a short trip wouldn't hurt. Even if we don't find prey suitable for us, I've been wanting to explore the savanna anyway," he thought.
And so, in the middle of the night, the entire swarm stirred to life. For a moment, Alexander hesitated, unsure where he should go first.
He could follow the river. He had always used rivers as travel routes, because he knew life flourished around them and the biome became more diverse along their banks. But he also expected large animals to be nearby. So he decided to head southwest instead, and the command spread through the swarm.
"We're moving."
Tiny paws began to move in unison, and the journey began.
Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes into hours. The march eased Alexander's mind. The change of surroundings did him good. Before long, an idea came to him.
At his command, eight Nuxali spread out in different directions, widening their formation until Alexander could feel the connection between them weakening.
"Hm. Looks like it goes beyond two hundred and fifty meters. That should be enough for scouting."
Each hatchling stopped roughly two hundred and fifty meters away from him. Alexander then tried to focus on their senses. He struggled for several minutes, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't fully take control. He could feel his mental focus draining.
"So my mind can't take over the senses of multiple drones at the same time," he thought.
He ordered the hatchlings to alert him if they saw any living creature. Even though he still couldn't fully take control of their senses, he began monitoring the signals coming from them. At the same time, he started thinking about how he might overcome this limitation in the future.
Time continued to pass like this. Hours went by, and dawn was approaching. At last, the landscape ahead began to change. Mountains were starting to appear on the horizon. While Alexander was studying the distant silhouette of the mountains, he suddenly heard the small cry of one of the hatchlings.
At the same time, he felt movement in one of the mental links and immediately ran toward it to understand what was happening. As he ran, he checked the hatchling's condition through their connection. When he sensed no sign of pain, he relaxed slightly.
After a short sprint, he reached the hatchling. The others arrived behind him moments later.
The sight before him was a bloody struggle.
A brown viper nearly a meter long, its head looking almost like stone, was locked in a fierce fight with a creature Alexander did not fully recognize but that reminded him of a badger.
The snake suddenly lunged forward, trying to drive its venomous fangs into the badger. The badger avoided the strike with a quick backward leap. Then it rushed forward instead, circling behind the snake and grabbing its tail with its massive shovel-like claws.
The snake reacted instantly and struck again, baring its fangs as it lunged forward.
But the badger seemed to be expecting this. It slipped sideways at once and, at the same time, kicked up dust and loose soil into the snake's face with its other paw. The viper shut its eyes as the dust cloud struck, but grains of dirt had already gotten into them. Its next strike landed blindly onto its own tail.
Its open jaws had already met flesh, however, and it bit down with all its strength. As it did, its own venom entered its bloodstream, and a wave of pain spread through its body. Unable to see anything, the viper clenched its jaws even tighter in fear, but suddenly another set of teeth sank into its neck, and the strength in its jaws gave way against its will.
It tried to coil around its opponent and twisted violently, but although its jaws loosened, they remained embedded in its own flesh, and it was blind. It failed to wrap itself around its enemy. The badger shook the snake violently in its jaws and slammed it against the ground.
Then it suddenly froze.
It felt the vibrations in the earth and began running with all its strength, the snake still clamped in its mouth.
Alexander and the hatchlings burst out from behind a tree behind the badger and charged after it.
The distance between them quickly shrank. The badger was fast, but it could not compete with the Nuxali in a sprint. However, it soon became clear that outrunning them had never been its intention. Alexander suddenly noticed a burrow in the ground ahead that he had not seen before. The animal was heading straight for it.
Alexander knew that if the badger reached that tunnel, things would become much more difficult. At the very least, he hoped to seize the snake dragging along the ground behind it. But just seconds before he could reach it, the badger slipped into the tunnel entrance, and the snake was pulled inside with it.
Alexander slashed his claws toward the opening of the burrow. He felt the very tip of the tail brush against his claws, but it slipped away from his grasp.
"Fuck... Damn it!"
Alexander refused to accept that he had just lost such good meat and such valuable evolutionary potential. He immediately thrust his claw into the tunnel, but his claws met nothing but empty air. He pulled them back with a look of frustration.
What he saw instead were seven pairs of eyes watching him expectantly
"Wait. Seven? You idiot, where did you disappear to again?"
He focused his mind on his eighth drone and took control of its body in less than ten seconds. The hatchling was calm. Completely still, it was simply watching what was happening in front of it.
A large aardvark was pushing its long tongue into a narrow hole in the ground.