Mia crossed her arms and leaned against the pillar of stone beside her as she watched the soldiers trooping past. They looked tired but not defeated or too worn down. Instead, she saw smiles and heard the occasional chuckle drifting on the wind.
Mia smiled a bit herself. She was happy that the war was finally over. Many of their soldiers still stayed at the border or inside the Gnomish Confederation and would for some time, she reckoned. But some had returned home. For the human troops, it had been organized as a little bit of a victory march, and their return to Cera seemed to lift most people’s spirits.
These were men-at-arms from the Lyns army, for the most part, even some who had fought for King Nicholas and been integrated into Kiara’s army. They’d been at war more or less continuously for a while now, only interrupted by a short break between Kiara’s victory and her committing her forces to the war against the gnomes. Mia knew conditions had been better in the Empire’s army during that war, but some people still died. She could practically feel the soldiers’ relief now, even if she wasn’t psychic.
Now the reorganisation of the Empire’s military would really be able to begin, she mused. But Ben and the others would probably give them a bit of a break first.
Her eyes drifted from the soldiers to their equipment. Most of them still carried traditional, old-fashioned weaponry; blades, bows and crossbows, and the like. If they had Classes and Class Skills that relied on their use, they were practically bound to them, not to mention quite effective. Even compared to a modern soldier with a gun. She was a little more interested in those. Some soldiers did carry firearms, but not many that she could see.
The Hive had relied more on bigger guns, actual artillery. Some of those pieces were brought back as well. Mia wasn’t as familiar with them as Tia, but she still found her curiosity picked, the itch to take them apart and see how they functioned in detail. She assuaged her curiosity briefly by diving into the psychic link and looking for descriptions.
She was wondering how they might be able to improve them with the help of the gnomes. Sure, the hive’s knowledge-base might be technically more advanced, but the gnomes had actually used firearms in combat for decades, if not centuries. They definitely had insights to share. That’s more Tia’s problem than yours, though, she reminded herself. Maybe you should let her have first crack on it. Though we could sit together and discuss it some time soon.
It wasn’t like the Hive really had clearly defined spheres of authority and obligation assigned, as a rule. Drones usually worked in what they were best at and enjoyed. But although Tia and Mia were basically jointly responsible for the more civilian side of their operations, the technical and logistical aspects, they had divided the job between them somewhat. Not that they didn’t still cooperate or even work on something alone if it caught their fancy.
Mia did have a lot on her plate already, though. She smiled again as she thought of her current projects. Besides mentoring a few of the younger drones, something she always enjoyed doing, she’d been building a lot of workshops, cooperating with the new Imperial departments and ministries, and pushed their technological development further.
It was why she was in Cera, actually. While Forest’s Haunt was still a major center for the Hive’s industry and development, they had been building facilities in the Cernlian capital as well, for obvious reasons. Many more of them would spring up in the new Imperial capital once it was ready to move into. She supposed there might be more of a distinction between Hive and Imperial workshops in the future, but for now they were still pretty much the same thing.
Mia was checking up on one of those today, one of her favorites in the city, which she spent a bit of time in whenever she was here. It was centrally located, not far from the royal palace, but also a few meters away from a main street, connected with a broad avenue, so it was easy to drop off materials or the like.
The building had belonged to a craftsman guild previously and was well-equipped for their work. It wasn’t quite a factory in the traditional sense, at least not yet, but it still produced a good amount of goods, mostly metal parts and tools. There was a more experimental section as well, which usually held more of her attention. They had another facility in the city that was more concerned with chemistry and related fields, including producing new explosive compounds, while this was more of a classical workshop. Since they couldn’t really use a waterwheel in the middle of the city, at least not easily, this was also where she and a few others were working to build better generators. The turbines they had could easily be powered by magic or even War Drones (or other types) working a treadmill or wheel, but she preferred wind or other renewable energy they didn’t have to put much effort into once it was up. They needed something to power the drop hammers, though.
She checked on the drones present through the psychic link as she entered, looking around and resisting the urge to cover her ears. It could be loud here, sometimes. Everything seemed to be going quite well, though. Mia checked on the main floor before heading through a thin enclosure toward the back part of the building that housed their more elaborate or experimental projects. Drones and the occasional humans were hard at work manning the various tools, gaining Experience in their Classes as they shaped metal, wood and the substances produced by Production Drones.
Once she was through the door into the other part of the building, it was immediately a lot quieter. At least until the silence was broken by excited voices.
“Lady Mia! Did you watch the soldiers come back?”
Mia smiled a bit as she took off her jacket, hanging it on a peg, and grabbed a pair of work gloves. Then she looked at the young man who’d spoken, who seemed to almost hover in place with excitement. He might be a bit young, she suspected he might still grow a few centimeters although he was already tall and gangly, but he’d proven to have talent and she enjoyed his joy when she was teaching. “Yes, Jake, I watched for a bit,” she replied.
“Isn’t it awesome?” he enthused. She didn’t know which drone he’d picked the word up from, but at least he hadn’t mangled the meaning. Unlike ‘terrific’ last week. “We beat the gnomes! Well, your brothers and sisters did — you must be proud of them! — and the soldiers. I wanted to go see them, but Elly said I had to stay, to watch my work.”
“Which you really should pay attention to, Jake, the mold could get deformed if it’s in the furnace for too long,” Elly replied. She stepped further into the room and took off the goggles she was wearing before sinking into a deep curtsey. “Welcome back, Milady, please excuse us not being there to greet you.”
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Mia waved her hand at her. “No bowing necessary,” she reminded her. “You don’t have to call me ‘Lady’ either, we work together.”
“You are a daughter of the Empress,” Elly said drily, taking out a hair tie to bind her dark, frizzy hair back quickly. Unlike Jake, she was well into adulthood, and was a bit more reserved. Mia still didn’t know if she had more trouble adjusting to the informal way the Hive preferred to work or if she was just making a point.
“Me and every other drone.”
“My point stands, and every other drone doesn’t have a high position in the Hive or the Empire.”
“No, she has a point,” Jake interjected. He was absently patting down the work apron he wore over his clothes, probably looking for the new graphene pen sticking out of the topmost pocket.
Elly gave him a look, and he glanced up enough to notice, then continued his thought. “If her mother’s the Hive Queen and Empress, shouldn’t that make her a princess? Milady, isn’t that how it works?”
“Maybe, but we can hardly call every drone a prince or princess, that would give the Empire thousands of royals.”
“That would be impractical, but not impossible I suppose,” Adi commented, as he appeared in the doorway and leaned over to look inside.
Mia glared at the younger drone. She could feel his faint amusement over the psychic link. “Please don’t encourage them, unless you want everyone to start Milord-ing you, too.”
“Please don’t. Mia, can you take a look at the setup we have in room three?”
“Of course, brother. Maybe check on that furnace, Jake?”
“I’m on it, Lady Mia!” He disappeared, missing an eye-roll from Elly, who seemed to decide to tag along with Mia and Adi.
He was the more recent drone she’d decided to mentor in something of an apprenticeship in the Hive, and she was glad she did. Adi was young enough he had missed their earlier era, he was hatched after the Empire was founded and mostly consolidated. It still felt a bit odd to Mia to think that many of the Hive’s drones were like that, but she supposed that was the way their growth worked. The age brackets were very skewed, with many younger drones compared to few older ones. He’d barely spent any time in their actual bases, regardless, but he didn’t seem to mind. Despite being a Drone Harvester, he was more interested in the technical work.
“I have been called ‘lord’ a few times, actually. It’s a bit weird,” he commented as they made their way through the corridors.
“I think people are unsure about a drone’s standing, so they decide to make the safest assumption … Sir Adi,” Elly said. Glancing back, Mia could see the slight twinkle in her eye, although her expression was serious.
He groaned, and Mia sighed slightly. “It’s surprisingly hard to get people to understand that’s not really how it works with the Hive. You wouldn’t be the first person to ask me how our social ranking is determined. Even though we don’t really have one.”
Elly frowned. “You don’t? I thought your status was based on seniority.”
“Not really,” Adi said. “I mean, that is one major thing that plays into it, I suppose, but it’s not like we really have formal ranks.”
“Except for Mother,” Mia agreed. “We all obey the Hive Queen, the rest of us are in it together. There are a few people who are in charge of some things, and of course there’s military commanders who kind of need ranks, but it’s not like we have castes or nobility or anything. The Hive is basically a communist society with a thin veneer of absolute monarchy.”
“I haven’t thought of it like that,” Adi admitted, his steps slowing as he clearly considered it, “but you’re right. We don’t even use money, internally.”
“You don’t have money?” Elly blinked.
“Well, we do have it. If the Hive needs to buy something from outsiders, we can, but it’s more … communal? If you only work inside the hive, you’re not getting paid, and you just contribute what you can and take what you need. Or want, within reason. Everything’s accounted for and managed, with the psychic link, so it’s still efficient enough.” Adi shrugged. “That’s why people like Mia are important, she directs our development and makes sure there’s enough resources for the Hive’s projects.”
“Huh.” Elly shook her head. “That is hard to truly understand, and I’ve worked with drones for months now. I think I appreciate the difficulty of explaining your social status to others, now.”
“Guess you’ll just have to get used to being called ‘Sir’ or something,” Mia teased Adi.
Their conversation cut off there as they’d reached their destination and Mia focused on what she was seeing. She could tell why Adi had wanted to talk to her about it. They were making good progress.
Lately, they’d been trying to reduce the hive’s dependency on magic. As they were scaling up their production, it was becoming unfeasible to involve mages in everything. Previously, they’d too often relied on the shortcuts offered by it, especially Conjuration. However, now they at least had the space and resources to reproduce more conventional ways of getting the same results, even if it was a longer process. A lot of that relied on chemistry and materials science, but they were also focused on other areas of industry. They’d started with relatively simple, common things that were already present in the world, like waterwheels, and were trying to move to a more industrialized, standardized way of operation. Largely, that meant a lot of standardizing measurements and tools and working out ways to produce them without putting in a lot of labor.
At least not labor from sapient drones, humans or other people. Which brought Mia to the current project. The first actual assembly line they had built.
“Stand back a meter,” Adi warned her, before he cranked a lever.
With a groan, the framework shifted and the broad band that was spread across several metal supports started moving. There were more structures to either side of it, holding things in place and marking out specific areas.
“If we put several of these together, we can easily transport and sort materials, in addition to providing a framework for the different steps in assembling more complicated objects,” Adi said, smiling at his handiwork.
“Swarm Drones should be able to do basic movements as steps in the process, with this support,” Mia mused. “It’s not exactly industrial robot arms, but I think it should do. We still need to test it.”
“This is only the beginning, Mia,” he said excitedly. “It’s not just a matter of pulling screws and carting parts around. If we expand on this, we can really make use of the Swarm as a labor force, freeing the sapient drones for more important tasks.”
Mia didn’t point out that they already used Swarm Drones as a labor force, she knew what he meant. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she said instead. “It will still be years before we can really put this to use on a large scale, or even before we really need this. Most of what we are making right now wouldn’t be much improved with an assembly line, they still need too much individual effort.”
“It also won’t be very useful for building roads or houses,” Elly said thoughtfully. “Isn’t that where the most labor is needed currently, Lady Mia?”
“It is, I’m glad you pay attention what I’m saying,” she agreed. She’d discussed it a few days ago when she’d been talking with many of the people working here, although it had been more of an aside.
“But if we can make, say, pipes, more easily, it will definitely help,” Adi responded. She could tell he wanted to roll his eyes.
“Sure, I’m not trying to denigrate your accomplishment,” she reassured him. “You should definitely keep working on this. I’ll allocate some more materials to this project so we can build a proper test bed, maybe something we can use as a real factory floor after this.”
Adi smiled again and Mia smiled back, even as her mind already turned to other things. She already knew Tia would grumble about her wanting even more metal, their supply was getting dangerously short. Sooner or later, they’d either need to allocate more mages to Conjuring it or seriously make an effort with the Empire’s imports.
Well, that’s Regina’s problem, Mia thought, shaking her head. She’d make sure to bring it up with her. But she supposed it was one more matter where the peace with the gnomes should help.
Civilian industry had an easier time when you weren’t frantically building cannons.