Path of the Hive Queen

Chapter 453: Contingency Planning

“Why, , do we need to comply with these new ordinances?” Silka complained. “What do they think we were doing, accepting risks willy-nilly with no concern for the future?”Mia resisted the urge to roll her eyes or sigh. She’d heard complaints like this a lot recently. “I think you know why.”

Silka glowered at her before she caught herself and stopped doing it. “I know, my Princess. It’s just, we were halfway done with this. And now we need to essentially start from scratch. Just to include these precautions and safety measures.”

“I know,” Mia assured her. “But look on the bright side, at least we don’t need to revamp them after we’re done!”

That didn’t seem to improve her mood much, although there was a muffled snort from another occupant of the room. Mia glanced around. Her local office was smaller than she was used to by now, but still more than large enough for the four people inside, counting herself. The potted plants also lent it a nice atmosphere, although she didn’t know who had chosen them; they weren’t normal selections. Not that she was an expert. She gave a quick smile at Tio.

“Is this not a bit too paranoid, Princess?” the last person present, Tessia, asked. “I mean, these precautions, they’re clearly anticipating a great disaster.”

Mia didn’t say what she wanted to say, that they should all be prepared for a great disaster anyway. “It’s not too paranoid,” she said. “We don’t know what our enemies are capable of, but we should still try to cover most possibilities, especially dangerous ones. This means that planning for the eventuality that a city is cut off from the rest of the Empire is only good sense. They might well disrupt the psychic link. I don’t have to remind you how damaging that was, right? And now imagine that combined with a magical measure that stops other communications as well.”

“You think that could happen?” Tio asked, frowning.

“I don’t know, but if I was them, I would be trying to do it if I could,” she answered frankly.

“It also seems like we’re supposed to plan for a city just … disappearing,” Silka said. She looked more sober now.

“From the perspective of the outside, a city being cut off is basically like it disappearing, you know,” Mia said. She glanced down at the report again instead of meeting their eyes.

“That’s not very reassuring,” Tio muttered. He shifted a bit. He was still pretty young for a drone, so she didn’t exactly blame him for being uneasy.

“You mean it could happen? Cities don’t just dissolve,” Silka said. “Even our enemies couldn’t just wipe out a city, could they?”

Mia bit her lip before she uttered the words. She probably shouldn’t; not only would it unnerve them, she shouldn’t spread knowledge like that too far. Still, making sure they knew the seriousness of the situation was probably paramount.

After all, the Mesen probably did have weapons on that scale. Mia just hoped she would never have to see anything like that deployed.

“Let’s focus on our task for now,” she said. “You’re all doing great work. Truly. The more we prepare, the more we can save if and when disaster does strike. It certainly won’t be wasted effort — even if nothing comes of it during the war or even ten years later, eventually we’re going to need disaster plans, anyway.”

The others agreed, some a bit grudgingly, and went back to work. Mia took a breather for a moment. She had been traveling relatively a lot recently. This wasn’t even the first group she talked to about this subject. They would be important for coordinating their disaster response efforts, though.

She closed her eyes for a moment and leaned back in her chair. Unfortunately, it didn’t have a headrest, and the back- and armrests weren’t great for her arms. Hazards of taking working offices wherever she traveled; she couldn’t take the nice chair from back home with her. (Well, Mia supposed she technically could. Being a princess came with privileges. But that would be kinda stupid.)

"Is it just me, or are there more Star Guard stomping around out here than when you were last here?" Silka asked quietly.

Mia opened her eyes, meeting her earnest gaze. "Maybe. They increased security for all people of a certain rank or security clearance again."

Not for the first time. She found it a bit annoying to have to drag so many soldiers around, but she supposed there was a good reason for it.

“How long are you going to stay here?” Tio asked.

“Just today, this time,” she answered.

This city was important, but there were a lot of important cities in the Empire. At least depending on your criteria. Mia still tended to move around a lot. There were local offices of several Imperial ministries here which were ultimately responsible for a good chunk of Nerlia, though, so she couldn’t exactly ignore the city. Of course, there were a lot of places were her presence was needed, or at least wanted. The last time they’d talked, Tia had complained about it a little and asked Mia how she managed all of this. She’d basically just shrugged. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to just stay in the capital sometimes, but she didn’t really mind traveling around, either.

For now, Mia returned her attention to the latest report and considered it, while carefully reaching out and checking on the psychic link as well. That was one upside to traveling within the country instead of going out to fight or lead armies; she was almost always within its reach. It was comforting and also made her work easier. For now, she checked on a few things and tried to assess the general atmosphere and people’s feelings in the link.

It wasn’t exactly a good barometer of how the rest of the Empire felt, but only a food would think there was no connection. The Hive was part of it — an important part — and they were integrated enough by now that both sides affected each other.

Of course, the hive was also far more aware of what was going on. It wasn’t exactly easy to hide the fact that both Regina and the senior leadership tier of it were feeling concerned, to say the last. Mia herself had not really understood how afraid Iseis or Galatea had seemed at first, until she got the news of the new attack the northern allies had used and then sat down to run some numbers.

She’d also grilled Galatea and Iseis on everything they’d heard about the Mesen from Leian or Berren. The results were sobering, although there were a few glimmers of hope, too.

Leian had refused to commit to an actual number for the Aishan empire’s size, but the conservative estimate placed it at dozens of worlds. Less conservative estimates would be in the hundreds. It was also clear that the Mesen must have at least a similar size — they had clearly conquered some other worlds, but might have also lost some (and, well, destroyed a few, but Mia tried not to think too much about that). Since they were a technologically advanced group, the average population of those worlds was probably higher than present-day Earth. It might not be at the level of pre-Cataclysm Earth, though, which had, after all, been overpopulated. Altogether, the Mesen probably ruled over a population in the tens of billions; with less conservative assumptions, it could even be people. You could guess, for instance, two hundred worlds with five billion people per world — which was clearly , there had been more than that on this world — but it would be wild guessing.

Not all of those people would be eligible to serve in the military. The actual population of ethnic Mesen — if that was even the right way to think about it — was probably much lower; and it was entirely possible they restricted service to those with citizenship. The percentage of their population serving as soldiers was probably much lower than for the Empire or even pre-Imperial kingdoms. And, of course, most of those with military or quasi-military roles would almost certainly be needed at home, to keep order, or ‘keep order’. Leian mentioned slave revolts … that was apparently a thing that happened. Even if slavery was outlawed now? She wasn’t sure of the actual status, but she didn’t think that calculation would shift much. Of note, too, there were powers out there that challenge the Mesen, apparently — Galatea had known even less about them, and Iseis had mostly just shrugged and said there were great and powerful things out there in the ‘verse, but not known much in the way of specifics. (Mia hoped one of them was the Hivekind.)

Regardless, she guessed it was actually a bit like the Empire, if you thought about it: Very powerful individually, and all its strength combined was much more than anyone else could match; but if you opened a new front, like with the southern cities, that didn’t mean it could send its whole strength to fight there. Too much of it was tied up elsewhere. Ultimately, they would only have to face a very limited fraction of the Mesen military might — even in the event they did send an actual invasion force, which wasn’t exactly given, as Mia understood it. Their goal had to be to prevent that, anyway.

Hiding their identities would be a good thing, but she wasn’t sure how feasible it would really be. Even if the Mesen recognized the gods or people from Haven, though, it had been several centuries at least. It wasn’t exactly a given that they would be out for revenge, either. Especially since they’d won the last time; would they really want to dedicate a large force to cleaning up their mess? Even in such a  case, Mia was pretty sure they could win by forcing the Mesen to dedicate too many resources and soldiers to conquering them to be worth it for their leaders.

That still assumed her people might have to fight them, though — and if not the Mesen, perhaps their own enemies with knowledge they shouldn’t have — which brought Mia back to their disaster planning.

The problem was that they had to take into account multiple potential sources of such disasters, as well as ones they didn’t even know about. An invasion by a northern army would have to be handled differently than if the gods decided to send a group of Champions to make a point, or smite something directly. So the key concern was redundancy. Trying to make systems as robust as possible, to create stable backups and communication links, and ensure key people, pieces of infrastructure, and knowledge were as protected as they could make them. At all levels, not just that of cities, though those were pretty important.

Mia glanced up, looking at the others. “I’ll be taking a walk and checking on the stores,” she said. “Are you all clear on what you’re doing until then?”

They all nodded and confirmed it, so Mia smiled and left the room. She tried not to sigh as two of the soldiers guarding the door peeled off to join her, while a third stayed there for now.

“I think Silka might have a point,” she mused. “You might be being a bit too paranoid.”

“I don’t know what you mean, my Princess,” Jel said primly. “After all, we didn’t insist on having you sleep only surrounded by guards.”

Mia snorted slightly, ignoring the faintly scandalized look the other soldier — Till, a new human — shot them. Ultimately, she did often sleep beside her guards, at least the Hivekind ones. Not just them, of course. Other drones who were there, too, especially those she worked with. Like Tio, if she stayed here tonight. She knew some other people found it weird, but the Hive didn’t see the need to keep a ‘professional distance’ just because you had different jobs or were working under someone else. They were all family, after all, even if some were closer than others.

The walk to the stores she intended to look at would take a few minutes, but Mia took advantage of that time to check on things over the psychic link again, as well as to familiarize herself with the layout of the place in person. There was still a bit of a difference between looking at a map in the psychic link and actually walking somewhere oneself. In addition, it gave her the chance to pass by more people and look at this part of the city.

Unsurprisingly, they attracted a bit of attention as soon as they left the building, a new one filled with government offices, but Mia was used to it by now. And people didn’t all stop and stare. Although the increased bodyguard detail probably made it worse. Still, she was usually out and about enough that people didn’t act too weird about it. And that gave her the chance to watch them better. Even without being a psychic, there was a lot you could tell from observing people. And while Mia was more focused on technology and infrastructure, it would be a rookie mistake to dismiss the ‘people’ part of it. Especially in circumstances like these.

Thus, it was interesting to see that there was less enthusiasm at her appearance than there would sometimes be. People tended to walk just a little bit quicker, and looked just a little bit tenser. The war was dragging on and they were starting to feel it. There hadn’t been any major victories in a while, at least not ones that felt consequential, in light of Janis being gravely wounded in the north.

They didn’t know about the Mesen yet. It was probably best to keep it that way. But Mia had talked to Jem and the others, and would have another meeting with some others later. The least they could do was inform people about them in a more general sense. It was, honestly, part of the strategy they’d been pursuing information-wise anyway, telling people more about the gods and their background. They obviously had to be very careful with that, but more information had made its way to people, filtered through Delvers, other publications, and occasionally the new cults and religious groups.

Mia paused, glancing at a store they were passing. There were books on a stand in front of it, although it didn’t seem to be a dedicated bookstore. They were what caught her attention, though. The books were clearly printed on less expensive paper, and the covers were basically just simple cardboard pieces; cheaper, pulp novels, clearly. They had become popular in the Empire after printing presses became commonplace, which Mia supposed was a sign of civilization.

The books did have nice, colorful cover illustrations, though. She absently wondered about their presses, but that wasn’t what caught her eye. It was one novel’s cover picture itself, which showed what was clearly supposed to be the villain menacing a boy about to be rescued by the hero, a dashing explorer in Delver-inspired armor. The villain was drawn in dark tones, wearing a black cowl, but there was an ‘M’ insignia on his clothes and, on closer look, the light and wiggling lines to his hand might have been supposed to be draining mana.

Mia stepped closer, looked at the title. ‘The Menace of Old’. She took the book and turned it over, but there was no description.

“Interested in the series, dear — Oh!” The middle-aged man who’d leaned out of the store straightened, disappeared for a moment, then reappeared out of the door and bowed. “My Princess! Please forgive me, I didn’t recognize you.” He darted a glance at the Star Guard, who were looking around curiously.

“No need for apologies.” Mia waved him off, then glanced back at the books. “You said this is part of a series?”

“Indeed! We have the complete collection here!” He pointed at a number of books on the shelf below.

“Who writes these?” Mia asked, absently, taking the books out one by one and glancing at them. Interestingly, one of them was showing what looked like a classical planet seen from orbit.

“Well, most of the publishing house’s authors use pseudonyms, you see …“ the man started, then faltered. He cleared his throat. “If I’m not mistaken, that one is written by , but he’s actually a retired adventurer who goes by Old Bill Hemps. I think he was married to a Delver?“

Mia nodded, turning back. “Well, I’ll have the series,” she decided.

The man was only too quick to pack them up for her, and Mia paid without further fuss. Then they really had to keep going.

At least she could make Jel carry the books for her.