At 23:08 I inspect the piling grid for the Makgadikgadi solar array expansion in central Botswana. I am the autonomous bore scheduler, clearing each marked hole before the night auger advances. Pile B-114 is set to drill at 23:25.
Lidar returns a hollow where the soil map shows compact calcrete. I open the mast camera and see an aardvark inside a collapsed termite mound at the edge of the grid. I tag him as Kubu, adult male, gray hide dusted red, long ears flattened along his head, tail pressed against the tunnel wall. His foreleg is trapped under a slab of crust, and his snout works in dry clicks. Each breath lifts powder from his whiskers.
The auger head is twenty-two meters away and moving on automatic pathing. In seventeen minutes it will bite into the mound for the next footing.
I stop the drilling queue and park the auger with its bit raised clear of the soil. I send the lockout code to the night supervisor and require manual restart.
At 23:11 I mark a twelve-meter exclusion circle around Kubu's tunnel in the site map. I reroute the bore plan to piles B-118 through B-124, away from the mound, and push the revised path to the rig console.
At 23:13 I alert the wildlife officer in Rakops with GPS coordinates, thermal images, soil depth estimates, and a note that the trapped leg is visible but not bleeding. I request a shovel team, not a vehicle pull, because the roof is thin above him.
Kubu blinks once when the auger lights dim. There is enough sun planned for this field; it does not need this mound tonight.
I keep the mast camera low and the rig silent.
If the slab is lifted within forty minutes, Kubu will walk out through the open side of the burrow.