“Gods damned insignificant pieces of bastard little-“
That’s right. Get it all out, Queen. I wanted to say a few words myself, but I was busy smashing trees and rocks with my Mind. It felt like the pair of us were one intrusive thought away from blasting ourselves all the way to Yiwi to crush the humans ourselves.
Which was why I had instructed Beatrice to hover nearby and keep me in check.
“Mother, our objectives are proceeding as planned. I have gotten the word that Bella has finally departed along with some of her workers and a contingent of warriors and Linkers. It seems that Belial has also sneaked away to join the conflict, so I have instructed that he put his all into accelerating the progress of the lesser bees. They should arrive in Yiwi in a day or so, perhaps faster if you deem it necessary.”
“I don’t need a status report Beatrice,” I said as I picked up a sizable stone. “I can see everything through the Link. Everything has been processed already.”
After the Linkers that controlled Yelah and her team died a few hours ago, the hive had erupted in chaos. I barely understood what happened. One second I was moving pieces into place to capture the City Lord and whatnot, the next I noticed that five strings in my Link had suddenly disappeared. Yelah, Dip, and the rest of her team had somehow broken the Link all at once and were suddenly going crazy, trying to dismantle my Operation.
Every bee that was deeply involved with the Yiwi Operation panicked, and it had taken a direct order to calm everyone down. For the first time, I asserted my authority properly, controlling the bees and their rampant, untamed emotions. At first, I had been eerily calm. With a cool head, I figured out that the Linkers had died naturally, ordered Toh to replace his and his teammates Linkers with fresh ones, then made him use his skills to take control of other big players.
Time. Time was the key. Yelah knew it too, because I had seen her rapid decision making through Benita’s eyes. Because of her, the City Lord now knew about us in detail. Hayrey had been warned. Yemonto and Ehra were the undecided lynchpins.
Which should Toh go after first? Trick question. I had many humans to work with, not just Toh. It would be easy for him to conquer Yemonto Co., and his two teammates had no choice but to prevent Vlugh from doing anything about the Ehra Group.
At least, that was what I had hoped.
“Regardless, it is my duty to ensure that you are on the same page as the rest of the hive, seeing as how you stubbornly continue to enforce rampant individuality. Belphegora has made contact with the first team of Hayrey mercenaries, and, as you have commanded, they defended themselves from the shadows and escaped. Scouting indicates that more search parties are being sent in response, especially with your last order to attack the walls. And yet, why do you delay the full takeover? Ineffective attacks on the walls seem pointless. Why not send warriors or even Belphegora herself into the city to take it by force?”
“I’m not delaying anything, Beatrice. The Yiwi Fighters are still equipping their troops, so we need dangerous distractions to ensure that they have the chance to prepare. The attacks will also help the misinformation stick. If townspeople get alerted to the actual situation, we might stand no chance, especially now that the city is on lockdown. Everybody in that place will be forced to fight, one way or another, just to survive. And there’s too many unknown variables for our bees to get directly involved yet. Like, where is Jill Yemonto? Toh was able to take direct command of Yemonto Co., but that woman is a dangerous player on her own.”
The real fighting hadn’t started yet, not really. Mostly thanks to my maneuvering. Oyonshe, his friends, and other Yiwi Fighter commanders have successfully managed to bring many townsfolk to secret locations known only to the merchants, where they were equipping the people with imported weapons. When the City Lord’s guards kicked down the doors of the merchants’ businesses, they were nowhere to be found.
It all happened so quickly. Thanks to my eerie calm, I had managed to take control of some key players in Yemonto Co. and the Ehra Group. Although Jill Yemonto was nowhere to be found, Toh had stepped up and assumed command of the company’s mercenaries, along with a few well-placed Linkers. As for the Ehra Group, I was nervous. Mostly because of the company’s size. Unlike Hayrey and Yemonto Co., Ehra lacked notably powerful members, but it made up for that lack with sheer numbers. As a result, they actually operated multiple headquarters in multiple parts of the city, ranging from the merchant district to the mercenary district. I had seen that Vlugh was far ahead of us, so I instructed Toh’s teammates to conquer another of their buildings.
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That had nearly been anticlimactic with how easy it was to Link several high-level managers and such, but as it stood, the Ehra Group was split. Vlugh had successfully recruited some, and we had Linked others.
Hayrey was, of course, lost. Dip had warned them too early, put them on high alert long enough for Yelah to go back after her ‘meeting’ with the City Lord and give her company specifics.
I watched through Ben’s eyes as hordes of mercs strolled through the streets of the mercenary district towards Hayrey’s headquarters. Presumably these were the six smaller companies recently employed by the City Lord. The Lord, it seems, contacted them and instructed them to go to Hayrey, probably as a home base of sorts.
They seemed calm, which was good. Meant they didn’t yet have a full grasp of the situation. But once they got informed, oh boy. Harven’s misinformation campaign wouldn’t be as useful anymore.
Speaking of. A man in a suit and wonky bowtie walked up and started whispering in the ear of one burly mercenary leader, who guffawed and continued walking, albeit a bit more nonchalantly. I didn’t know what he was saying exactly, but I had an idea. When the dam had broken, I knew that the townspeople would be our greatest weapon. The mercenaries were far more powerful, but the people were more valuable. Innocent and exploited, their fury would be the brunt of our attack power for now.
The only problem was us.
If the people learned of monsters attacking the city, they might get cold feet. Might even rise to the occasion themselves and try to become heroes. So, with the help of Beatrice, we had Harven create a deadly rhetoric to spread amongst the people and mercenaries alike: the City Lord was working together with Hayrey and some of the Ehra Group to perform a hostile maneuver against the city’s people. They planned to distract and strike fear by faking a monster attack in order to crush the valiant Yiwi Fighters.
It helped that Harven’s resources afforded him the chance to distribute food and Yiwi Fighter propaganda scrolls to any who were still on the fence, or even unacquainted.
If the rumors could put even the shadow of a doubt in the hearts of these mercenaries, it would be a win in my book. What wasn’t a win was how annoying conquering Yiwi as a whole would be.
According to Mr. Foot, the City Lord was missing. Most likely in hiding somewhere, the rat. But even if he were there, how was I supposed to lay claim to the city now? Did I have no choice but to destroy everyone who knew about us? At the very least, every person alive who knew about us bees wouldn’t be allowed to go un-Linked. I just didn’t have the resources to create millions of Linker bees to Link every person in the city.
And now, with the newfound limitation of the Linkers, that was even more true. I glanced within at the series of countdowns attached to different strings. After the nasty event, I had immediately created a B-box which would keep track of every Linker bee. Un-Linked Linkers were still unknowns, but now I knew that, once attached to a host, a Linker could survive for around eight days. From now on, I would have every Linked individual replace their Linker on the sixth day. I could wait until the seventh, but I had seen from Yelah and Toh that the connection weakened before expiring entirely, and those small moments of freedom were potentially deadly.
The rock hovering in front of me lazily spun for a moment before I crushed it into dust with a thought. I unclenched my fist, trying to calm down. My calm had only lasted until the other bees were sent about their business, and after, Queen and I had come outside to vent. Was it professional? Motherly? The actions of a queen?
Maybe not. Another stone crumbled in the air in front of me anyway.
“Whew. Okay, I’m feeling a bit better. How about you?”
Not in particular. It was just so frustrating! Everything had been progressing smoothly, and now this stupid complication had to get tossed into the mix. I wasn’t expecting everything to go according to plan, but still. It pissed me off.
“I understand. You know, it is ironic, in a way. Like Beatrice said, we put so much emphasis on the individuality and freedom of our bees, yet in order to preserve them, we must force others who are not bees to relinquish their own freedom and individuality. Perhaps that contradiction is why the Bee has punished us.”
Bull. Shit. If that’s true, then my real superpower is enhanced irony or something. I mean, killed by electricity in an accident while working as an electrical engineer. Turned into a hive-mind social insect despite being a gloomy loner. Protecting my family by warring with a family of vultures. Oh, joy! Now the humans I enslaved are mad I enslaved them!
What the hell, man? It was all their faults anyway! We could’ve worked together just fine, I was sure of it! At the very least, they could’ve just been chill about us and not needed to get mind controlled. Or they could have been chill and not forced me to directly control them all the time. I wanted to protect my bees, and now I had to pay for that? What a load.
“Personally, I prefer being in a hive, so I wouldn’t know why humans are so adamant about their so-called ‘freedom’. Our bees are free, after all. And yet they are still Linked.”
An interesting point of view. Very interesting…
“Mother, you are beginning to hover towards Yiwi. Come back to your room and rest.”
Beatrice took me out of my stupor. I had been floating towards Yiwi, hadn’t I? It did admittedly sound attractive to just fly there with all the power of my Mind and flatten the city to win, but I did need the place.
Right?
“Come, Mother. Ah, it seems the Yiwi Fighters are beginning an offensive. They are headed for the Lord’s office and estate.”
For real? I took a look and sure enough, a few small teams of freedom fighters were marching out of the secret locations. Some were carrying little boxes. How odd.
Wait a second. Oh man. If those boxes were what I thought, then…. I took a breath. The humans were at fault, of that I was now certain. If I had taken control of Yiwi myself, I could have stopped the Yiwi Fighters from living up to their namesake and prevented bloodshed in the city. I could have brought peace and prosperity. People would get fed. People would work. Being in my hive was a simple and fulfilling life of expansion and feasting, right?
Yelah and her friends had fucked up. I bet they’re so proud, so confident in their people. They’ll fight for their freedom, die for it. And they had taken their first step toward that freedom in defying me. They could’ve stayed calm, shown me that they were trustworthy and let me expand my hive in peace. I probably would have even spared their city from total assimilation if they really wanted it. I did have a soft spot for humans, as a former one myself, nearly to a fault.
But no. They took their first step and made their first move. It was a strong one, I could admit that. Unfortunately for them, making your first move halfway through the game is not the way to play.