Kachika shook her head. ‘We tried, but all our efforts failed. As you know, those scanners are one of the most revolutionary inventions of recent years, a shining example of what ant–dinosaur collaboration can achieve. A high-precision three-dimensional scanner can locate and identify the slightest abnormality in a dinosaur’s brain. Of course, mine-grains installed in other parts of a dinosaur’s body are not easily detected. But to kill a dinosaur with a single mine-grain – or at least to cause it to lose consciousness and the ability to think – can only be done by deploying the mine on the cerebral artery. The dinosaurs are well aware of this, so they only scan their brains.’

Professor Joya pondered this for a long while and then flapped her antennae, confused. ‘Forgive me, Supreme Consul, I don’t see how that mine-grain can escape detection. I was the ant in charge of the scanner project, so I know just how powerful those instruments are.’

It was now Field Marshal Jolie’s turn to look exceedingly pleased with herself. ‘My dear Professor, you always overthink things. We simply sent a detachment of troops to infiltrate the imperial infirmary and sabotage all six of its scanners. Destroying a single microchip reduced the scanners’ accuracy by 20 per cent, preventing them from detecting the mine-grain.’

‘But aren’t you planning to mine the skulls of 5 million dinosaurs? That will never…’ Joya gasped as the realisation hit. ‘You can’t possibly be thinking of sabotaging every scanner in the dinosaur world?’

‘Indeed we are! Compared to operations Disconnect and Decapitate, it’s an easy task. Remember that the dinosaur world has a mere 400,000 such machines at present. An army of 5 million ants should be quite sufficient to deal with them.’

‘That’s an insane plan,’ said the chief scientist, shocked.

‘The most brilliant part of the plan is that the attacks will happen simultaneously,’ interjected Kachika, choosing to interpret the professor’s exclamation as praise. ‘The 200 million mine-grains in the dinosaurs’ machinery and the 5 million mine-grains in their brains will all explode at exactly the same moment. And I mean exactly. There will be no time-lag between explosions – not so much as a second between them! This will ensure that no section of the dinosaur world will be able to receive assistance or reinforcements from any other section.’

Supreme Consul Kachika surveyed the senators massed before her. There was not a twitch or a quiver among them. Every single pair of antennae was frozen in astonishment and pride. It was an impressive sight; the sort of spontaneous homogeneity that would make the Ant Federation great again. She continued.