Path of the Hive Queen

Tim looked exhausted, June thought.

It was hard to tell with Hivekind, of course. They didn’t get bags under their eyes or disheveled hair or pallor or most of the other signs humans would show. But June had been around them long enough to pick up on some of their own tells (like shifts in their posture), even without her psychic abilities. Tim’s tiredness was mostly overshadowed by determination, a hint of satisfaction, and pleasure at seeing her again. Since she didn’t want to dig too deeply, she might have easily missed it if she’d just relied on her psychic senses.

Rough week? she asked quietly.

His lips turned upward slightly in a small smile. It could be worse. I’m glad we finally got ready.

June nodded. They weren’t meeting alone, but the other drones present mostly ignored their byplay and the humans were too unobservant or distracted. There was a bit of a shuffle as everyone tried to cram into the meeting room and find seats; it gave Tim an excuse to brush by her, squeezing her shoulder affectionately. June smiled slightly. Hive drones were fond of physical affection, and it was nice to be included in the small circle of people they’d show it to.

They settled down and June waited for Tim to start the meeting. General Owin wasn’t here right now — they had decided he would stay at HQ; specifically, their army’s headquarters — while she would be the one to meet up with Tim. Bringing some other officers along, of course. Since they met where Tim was currently setting up camp, there were more of his subordinates present. June was at least mostly familiar with them, but not really close to anyone.

“Now that we’re here,” Tim started, “We should cut to the chase. First of all, are there any other points to bring up for this meeting’s agenda?”

There weren’t, and no one spoke up. Tim continued, “I hope everyone read our briefing. Please speak up if there are questions. To sum up, we’ve confirmed the latest dispositions of the Esemen forces. We have also confirmed that General Nightsen has taken command. We’ve passed that back home and Ria will be transferred to us, since she is the most familiar with him and other members of the Esemen leadership in general. We’re also asking Lady Neralt for some insight. This might be useful, because they have clearly received reinforcements. They’re dug in and evidently preparing for a defensive battle. Now that we’ve cleared what remained of the eastern reaches, there’s nothing to stop it.”

June nodded. They were getting far enough from New Anberg that the psychic link was very thin, she knew. They were right at the edge of Regina’s range. While it was still possible to communicate back home right now for the drones, it wasn’t exactly steady, and if they moved further, it would no longer be feasible.

That was fine. They had expected it and made preparations, and it wasn’t like they had no experience with operating outside the range of the psychic link. Gods — er, golems, don’t swear on the gods, June — Janis and Ada had done it for months.

She supposed they could ask Iseis to open a portal for them, too, if all else failed, but June would rather avoid that. It would be a liability, and she was convinced the Esemen were still holding cards in reserve, so that might blow up in their faces.

“What is our primary objective?” Len asked. “Pushing the Esemen back behind the border as far as possible into their own kingdom? Or something more?”

“Something we will have to consult on with Ben in more depth,” Tim acknolwedged. “I would go at least that far, and we shouldn’t be content with simply clearing their soldiers from our territory, or the neutral principalities. If we can push deeper into Esemen, I want to take the chance. For now, we’re here to discuss the battle in front of us, though.”

So they did. June listened, interjecting occasionally with comments of her own. Their forces were still spread out and coordination was becoming a bit of an issue, but hers and Tim’s officers were starting to work together pretty well. Unsurprisingly, they were professional about it, and Tim’s plan was discussed, amendments suggested, and several details were clarified.

“What about other operations?” another captain asked during a brief pause. “Princess June, we’ve been told that you are sending infiltrators to subvert the enemy army?”

June nodded crisply. “I’ve made some efforts in that direction,” she acknowledged. “So far, results are mixed. We do have a few assets in place in the city, and contacts spread throughout the enemy forces and their auxiliary infrastructure. There are plans in place to conduct some sabotage at a strategically opportune time. However, doing this would burn most of these assets, so I would rather avoid it if possible. Given more time, we will be able to penetrate deeper into their command structure. At least I’ve managed to confirm that they have only two psychics of moderate power with this army, and none of the high-threat persons we are looking out for.”

Which could be a little concerning, since she’d gotten word that the northern army had not found Sazatore since they took Pesiten, either — and no one had seen Clasen in a while, it seemed — but June wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. They were probably elsewhere in their alliance’s lands, perhaps dealing with political problems. Judging by what they did now, Sazatore must have had issues to see to which would require her attention at times, if nothing else. If that was the case, though, it was better to get a decisive victory over this Esemen army before they could be reinforced with more Champions or other high-level elites.

“Your concerns are noted, but it is good to have this option,” Tim said. “Good work, June. We’ll try not to hinder your infiltration. That should be a general priority — support these operations wherever necessary,” he added, speaking to the rest of the people gathered. “We always need more information on the enemy. But I believe that means any direct impact on our battle plan is low, right now?”

“Except for the intelligence on enemy dispositions we’ve gained, yes,” June agreed.

Everyone seemed to accept that, and the discussion continued, but it wound down, now that they’d spoken about everything important. Tim wasn’t fond of unnecessary babbling that just wasted time (which was unsurprising to anyone who knew him, of course). Thus, the meeting ended right on schedule.

They had also planned to speak in private, so June stayed behind and accompanied Tim to his office. It was a temporary structure and pretty spartan, but at least he had extra chairs. She sat down on one, glancing around and making sure no one else was in earshot mostly out of habit.

“How have you been doing?” June asked.

“Well enough, and you?” Tim responded. “Is there anything about your infiltration plans that you didn’t want to mention to the others?”

“Not really,” she answered after a moment of consideration. “It’s not going as quickly as I would like, but I suppose I can’t complain. Having more psychics will be helpful, so I’m glad about Lianne coming. Maybe we can speed things up a little with her help.”

“Do you think she’ll join the Empire?” Tim asked.

June shrugged. “I don’t know, but she doesn’t really need to. I think we need other psychics urgently enough that they can basically set their terms, you know? At least in some respects.”

“True. And she’s not the only person coming, either …”

“Yes. You know about Marianne Neralt?”

Tim frowned again. He crossed his arms, leaning backward. “Yes, Mother told me. I assume she talked to you, too. This will mostly fall on you, June.”

“I don’t know. I get the feeling that we’re mostly supposed to keep her here to keep her out of the way of home, and out of contact with anyone else. If it’s true about this conspiracy —“ June broke off, grimacing.

Tim mirrored her expression. “Yeah. But that’s not really the only thing we should do. We must also monitor her and try to find out if there is any cause for concern, and how much of a security risk she really is. And how deep her loyalty to the Empire goes. And we must be careful. That’s why I said it was on you, I’m not a psychic.”

“True.” June sighed. “But I will be practicing restraint, Tim. I really don’t like the idea of going poking around in someone’s mind. Especially since we really don’t know whether she’s guilty of anything.”

“I understand.”

Personally, June wasn’t looking forward to seeing Marianne. She wasn’t sure how to feel. She wouldn’t have thought that Elric Neralt would turn against Regina … Maybe she should have. She tried not to dive into self-recriminations, though. And his mother was someone June knew a little better, and who had accomplished good things for the Empire. Regina had trusted her enough for sensitive postings, like with the gnomes or Prekan. The idea of that trust being betrayed burned.

Well, June would at least be looking at her emotional state and do some gentle probing. There was a balance to strike, like always.

“Enough about that for now,” Tim said, shaking his head. “We must be vigilant, but let’s not fall to paranoia. I also wanted to speak about the Star Guard complements, do you think we should requisition more of them?”

June relaxed slightly as they started talking about other matters. Nothing groundbreaking, but it was good to catch up with Tim and ensure they were on the same page; there was only so much you could say in letters.

After a while, their conversation turned from operational necessities and practical details regarding their troops to more light-hearted matters. June shared a few anecdotes of the people she was working with, and Tim did the same. They commiserated about the low numbers of sapient drones that could be spared for the various tasks where they would be most effective. At least some Swarm Drones would be gaining sapience, still — but as they moved out of the psychic link’s range, that would stop being something she could count on as a help.

“I was going to go out a bit, stretch my legs and take a look around to see how the soldiers are doing,” Tim said. “Care to join me?”

June agreed, and they left his office. Several Star Guard bodyguards fell into step behind them as they exited the building. Other guards and various officers saluted as they passed, and Tim returned their salutes with casual ease that spoke of habit; June did the same. She stretched her mind a little, lowering her metaphorical walls, to take in their mood and the atmosphere around the place. Several emotions pulsed strongly through the area, and she took a deep breath as she took them in for a moment.

There was mostly the ‘headquarters section’ here, the army still being too spread out, but in light of their preparations for the coming battle, more troops had been gathered here. They camped around the lonely former monastery buildings that housed Tim’s command staff.

The order members had long fled, probably before Tim’s forces took this place. June couldn’t sense any of them here anymore.

One building had clearly been a temple. It looked empty, and still structurally intact even if someone had carved shallow gouges into the walls that obscured what carvings or inscriptions there might have been before. She nodded at it. “You didn’t want to set up shop here?”

“A little too damaged,” Tim replied. “We keep getting petitions to turn it into a new church, but the soldiers can’t even agree on what it would be dedicated to. We can take a look, if you want?”

“Let’s. Now you made me curious,” June agreed.

They entered the building, and June glanced around. She saw immediately what he meant. It looked like either a few people with relatively high levels or a mob of regular people with normal Classes had gone to town on this place, trying to remove anything that honored the gods. The altar was cracked in half, and the base of one half looked acid-eaten, so it was only barely connected to the ground; as if they’d tried to remove it and been stopped at the end. There were holes in the walls — some of them looked like someone had gouged things out, and others let outside light in. Parts of the stone around the anterior part of the building looked scorched. Nothing else but the bare stone remained. Also, people had drawn graffiti on the walls and ceiling in what looked like coal dust. It must have been several people, since parts of their symbols overlapped as if they’d fought for space.

It was enough to give June pause for a moment: the remnants of a group’s collective outpouring of emotions, almost a frenzy of something uncomfortably zealous or fanatical, a violent rejection of what this space had been dedicated to; a strong expression of how the soldiers felt about the real background of the conflict they were fighting.

“Was this just an isolated group?” she had to ask. “What about the rest of your army? What’s their mood, what do they think about this?”

“… There are difficulties. Tensions,” Tim acknowledged. “They haven’t boiled over yet, and we’re far from that point. Most soldiers are united behind our cause. We haven’t exactly had demonstrations protesting this ‘desecration’, either.”

“How many of them were atheists and how many worship other gods?” June mused, glancing around again. She noticed a few deep dents in the floor she’d overlooked before.

“Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better, actually.” Tim shrugged. “And I’m not sure ‘atheism’ is the right word, by the way.”

“Potato, potatoes,” she dismissed. This wasn’t about terminology. Though, admittedly, June wasn’t really sure what she wanted to say, either. She turned to Tim again. “So you haven’t lost control over your soldiers.”

He gave her a mildly offended look. “Of course not. Do you think I should have made it a priority to preserve this church?”

“No,” she admitted. “That wouldn’t have been worth the trouble. But we should maybe prepare to prevent lynchings if the next one has order members in it.”

“Of course. I wasn’t going to let something like that happen.”

June nodded again, then turned to leave. She was pretty sure she had seen everything she needed to see here. But it was certainly an aspect she needed to keep in mind more going forward.

“You know, we’ve never talked much about your religious views,” Tim commented.

June paused, glancing at him. She shrugged. “I think I’m coming around to the virtues of agnosticism, myself.”

“Oh?”

“With the addendum that the gods we see aren’t ‘true gods’. Not the sort of beings that should be worshiped. Just …”

“Magical parasites?” he suggested.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” She shook her head. “Just people who shouldn’t be above consequences or accountability.”

Tim nodded, bumping her shoulder slightly. “Got it. Sounds good.”

“And you?”

He paused for a moment, frowning faintly. “You know, I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that.” Tim sighed, and his blade-arms rustled together as he shifted. “I don’t know if Hivekind are made for religion. It seems like we would already love and revere our Hive Queens too much; that would just be undue competition. That said, I can’t really picture myself praying to anyone. Not in a ‘genuine worship’ kind of way; I guess believing enough to empower someone I can work with, or giving them some reasonable sacrifice or whatever, would be fine.”

June nodded in acknowledgment. That didn’t sound too far from her own stance.

“With luck, we won’t get smote for that,” she joked.

Tim smiled back, but it seemed kind of strained. She supposed that was more of a possibility than either of them would like, but honestly, the gods hadn’t managed to kill them yet.

Clearly, they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, she thought with a small grin.