The plan was to leverage the very nature of the sand scorpions to execute a silent takeover. They would spread, unseen, beneath the dunes, gathering intelligence while Soraya's Nest birthed an endless, burrowing army. Once the scorpions had established a perimeter around the green oasis at the heart of the sand sea, that would be the moment to strike.
"I can feel it," Soraya's voice was a whisper in his mind, laced with an almost narcotic excitement. "The air itself is intoxicating. Orion, the intel was right. The Desert's Authority… it's real." The raw power saturating the desert was a siren's call to her, a heady perfume that promised dominion.
"And once we take this land," Orion replied, his own ambition a steady, cool flame, "it will all be ours."
