Path of the Hive Queen

Chapter 303: Infrastructure Requirements

As always, Regina waited impatiently for the new drones of her unlocked Template to hatch. Three days wasn’t a particularly long time, especially if you compared it to how long it could take. It still felt like it took longer than it actually did.The first batch hatched with several drones. She’d added twenty of them over the course of one day, since the name sounded useful and she was curious to see the possibilities.

They ended up looking a lot like Drone Workers. In fact, they seemed to be basically like Drone Workers but a bit more specialized. Their work-limb wasn’t as adapted to digging and instead would work better as a tool for artisans or handicrafts. Despite the name, Regina had the impression that they weren’t limited to either ‘arts and crafts’ things or to something that might be considered crafting in video games. Instead, it seemed more like a general purpose description for people working with their hands, though maybe not writing. Blacksmiths, carpenters, woodcarving and so on — but especially for the workshops that the Hive had been raising. Mechanics and technicians. She suspected many of them would Evolve to Classes like Drone Engineer.

Their skillset wasn’t exactly entirely new, but it did help to fill out the hive’s roster and would provide people for the tasks they needed most in the coming years. Regina was happy with it. She wondered if she’d done something to unlock the Template, perhaps have a certain number of people working somewhere? It didn’t look like she was unlocking a new Swarm Template and she was a bit concerned about that, though she supposed she didn’t need to with the Form Drones, so having a new Inner Hive Template was nice, anyway.

She didn’t get to spend much time talking to the new drones, though. Partly, she didn’t want to single them out or show favoritism. She also had a lot of things to do. The war against the gnomes was proceeding quickly and with the news of a military coup in the Gnomish Confederation and the raids into southern Cernlia, she had to be prepared.

Kiara had decided to continue her tour, just with stricter security arrangements. Regina was a bit concerned for her, but she made herself accept her friend’s decision. She might have demanded a bit too much from Cernlia recently, anyway — Galatea had dropped a few hints and Janis seemed to agree. So Regina needed to give Kiara the chance to establish and secure her authority among her subjects.

The raids didn’t actually concern Regina as much as the progress of the Imperial army into the Gnomish Confederation. She knew she wasn’t a great general compared to the others actually working as her generals — though after all this war, she wasn’t exactly a bumbling novice either — but she knew the raids couldn’t seriously threaten their position by themselves. Cernlia was still much less involved in the war effort than the hive. And the gnomes were clearly still using the majority of their forces to defend against the Empire’s advance. They might simply not have the troops for the full-on invasion she’d vaguely anticipated for a while now. Either way, she was glad it was ‘only’ raids and not an invasion.

Still, there wasn’t much she could do about it except wait and have her generals handle things. And maybe make things easier for them in the meanwhile, or in the long term.

Ironically, the war was actually throwing a wrench in their plans to (re-)organize the Imperial military. They had to work with what they had and trying to do a major reorganization of their forces in the middle of a war seemed stupid. That didn’t mean they couldn’t prepare the groundwork, or set up the necessary infrastructure for the professional military force she wanted, although that was proving to be a big challenge. Mass-producing weapons was not a simple feat. And that didn’t even take into account all the other supplies or infrastructure for it.

Her current focus was building a network of good roads across the Empire. The locomotive project was making progress, but was still limited. They were moving away from coal or even oil-powered locomotives, but weren’t really at the point where they could just use renewable energy reliably. Electrical motors for the trains weren’t easy and electrifying the rail lines would be additional work even with existing power stations, and seemed easier to sabotage. But roads didn’t have those issues and could be spread more widely. Building proper, useful roads was easy if you put in the effort. The Romans had done it and they hadn’t had access to magic or the technological options they did. Cement was relatively simple, and the Empire had more than enough access to tar. Regina wanted to make the roads good enough to eventually support heavier vehicles, and smooth surfaces were probably better, but all in all it was still easily doable. It just took money and manpower.

Regina was in the process of looking over some plans of expanding their new roads from the major routes between cities when she was contacted by Ben once again. She looked up from her paperwork and rubbed her forehead. She’d been trying not to dwell on the ongoing fighting too much, but the concern she could feel from him didn’t give her a good feeling. She put down her papers and focused on the psychic link.

he said bluntly, getting right to the point.

Regina asked.

Ben seemed faintly exasperated.

Regina raised an eyebrow but allowed him to guide her focus in the psychic link without further questions. Ben wasn’t good enough to really point her at very specific pieces of information — she wasn’t sure anyone but herself was that good with the psychic link, maybe some senior Keepers — but he could show her who to pay attention to and that was usually enough. Regina quickly took a closer look at the minds of several of her sapient drones as well as switching through the perspectives of other Swarm Drones. Their memories were usually less helpful, but not useless, and their senses were clear.

she asked after a moment.

Ben confirmed,

Regina grimaced. She’d seen those, or at least the aftermath, in the drones’ minds. The gnomes were getting good at using explosives like that scarily quickly. she noted after a second.

It would only be partly successful. It would have needed a concerted campaign to really get rid of all the greenery, even this close to winter, and it would have probably interfered with their evacuation efforts. Still, there were quite a few forests turned into little more than ash in the wind and the charred skeletons of trees. That didn’t even count the fields. Finding food for the human soldiers in their army was going to be pretty much impossible, and they’d have to bring in food for the drones as well since there were too many to feed off the land in any real way.

Ben said.

Regina was silent for a moment, considering what she’d seen and the implications. she said.

Ben said.

The idea of setting the countryside on fire just to slow down an approaching enemy might have shocked some people, but Regina couldn’t say she was very moved. She suspected she’d be willing to do the same in that position, a thought she didn’t examine any further.

It was obvious he’d at least gotten Ben to be cautious, though. Which was probably smart. Landmines could do a lot of damage even to the hive, even if they had drones who were good at sensing things below the ground. Artillery emplacements could probably be used and moved more quickly with magic and Class Skills, and the gnomes weren’t exactly useless with direct offensive magic, too.

she said.

Ben said. He didn’t sound very happy.

Despite herself, Regina smiled a bit at his quip. She was glad that Ben at least seemed to be confident they could handle things, even if the gnomes’ tactics managed to delay the army’s advance a bit. Not that she disagreed, either. she said.

Ben warned her.

Regina sighed.

Regina was about to metaphorically hang up and turn her focus to other things, before she paused, remembering something.

She felt Ben’s attention expand a bit as he swept through the psychic link.

Regina said. And it had been a pain and a half. They’d barely managed to set up rudimentary channels of communication before this coup hit and disrupted all of it.

Ben asked, his focus returning to her.

Regina shrugged.

She could feel faint surprise from Ben. he commented.

Regina shrugged. She thought she had a better understanding of the gnomes’ culture and traditions. she said. She paused for a moment, frowning.

Ben was silent for a moment and she could sense him thinking through the implications. he finally asked.

Regina wondered about that part a bit. So far, it didn’t seem like Aliekin or the other generals were in any hurry to instate a new Executive Council. He had officially proclaimed himself the head of an interim government, they’d already had news of that a few days ago. So far, the gnomes, beaten down by the war and thoroughly alienated by the regime’s oppressive methods, had seemed to accept it. Most of them probably hoped that things would get better.

she wondered. That meant he had to keep being successful or his power in the Gnomish Confederation probably wouldn’t last long. The previous regime had, at least in principle, come from a proper, legitimate government. He’d simply taken power in a coup. It had to be less secure.

Ben commented. Regina realized he’d followed at least the general trend of her thoughts.

she conceded.

Ben shrugged mentally.

Regina took a deep breath. she told him.

Regina exhaled a deep breath as Ben mentally withdrew, focusing on his officers and the armies spread across the region. She stood up and paced for a bit, thinking through everything they’d talked about, before shaking her head and returning to her desk. Even if they didn’t have a step-by-step plan for dealing with the gnomes, it was still important to build up the Empire the best she could. The ripple effects of these events would propagate outwards and who knew what kind of results they would have in the long term? She could only try to make things better for her people, to make sure they were prepared.