Chapter 150: Chapter 143: Numbers and Preparations

Regina rubbed her eyes and rolled her shoulders, trying to release some of the tension in them, but she still kept part of her attention on the Winged Drones she’d been watching. She observed as they retreated to the hive’s closest bases, while a few stayed behind to try and assess the damage they’d done to the gnomes’ soldiers.

The hive’s losses had been heavier than she’d hoped, unfortunately. Out of the five thousand Winged Drones she’d sent off, less than four thousand were returning. And that included those who had been part of the tactical reserve and not actually participated in the attack. If you could call it that.

Still, it was probably worth it. If nothing else, their casualty numbers provided a good base for planning for the future. A lot of the drones had actually been killed by the scattered higher-level fighters the gnomes had sent along with their army. Those men didn’t seem to be quite part of the regular army, but there were a sizable number of them, probably in the third Tier, or a few even in the fourth. They seemed to have been more effective than the regular soldiers at fending off her Winged Drones’ strikes. Something that was good to know, at least.

Of course, that wasn’t the real reason the hive had launched this operation, and it wasn’t the only goal they’d met. From what little she could see, they’d succeeded in throwing the gnomes’ neat little columns into disarray, and they’d certainly slowed them down.

She hoped the psychological impact of it hit, as well. Being attacked just after they set foot out of their tunnels, while few of them were able to fight back, should do something. Unfortunately, she wasn’t really in a position to see the effect on the gnomes’ morale, so she’d just have to hope there was one.

Of course, they weren’t the only ones who might get disheartened or affected by psychological factors. Regina sighed at the thought. She didn’t really worry about her hive’s morale, but she’d never lost drones en masse like this.

The sounds of footsteps made her glance over, and Max said, “Your bath is ready, Regina.”

She rolled her eyes at him. She hadn’t asked for that, but Via had been busy preparing one while she was distracted just now, anyway. Regina shook her head, but decided arguing about it would be pointless and kind of counterproductive. Instead, she walked into the bathroom and pulled the door firmly shut, not quite in Max’s face, then let Via help her remove her shirt as she undressed and sank into the hot water.

It felt great, and she let herself sink deeper, water swallowing her as she submerged her head for a minute.

She still felt every one of her drones’ deaths, and yet feeling so many of them close together was … intense, but not as bad as she’d been afraid it might be. It certainly wasn’t even ten times as strong as when she’d lost a scout previously. But ironically, Regina felt a bit concerned about that. She’d withdrawn from what was happening, from the psychic link to those drones — not completely, but enough to dull the sensation.

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It had been unconscious, and almost automatic. She supposed that made sense. She couldn’t afford to be crippled by her hive’s losses when she fought an actual war in which lots of drones would die. Something Hivekind were clearly not strangers to, as a people. And with the increase in her hive’s numbers, her connection to every individual drone, especially Swarm Drones, did feel more tenuous. Not weakened, exactly, but crowded or drowned out by the many others like it.

Regina resurfaced and took a deep breath, then shook her hair out of her eyes. It had been growing out the last few months. Then she leaned back against the bathtub and closed her eyes again, focusing on her psychic link while she let the hot water sooth the low ache in her core.

Her recent losses only underscored the fact that the hive needed every drone, every egg, it could get. While she had more Drone Breeders, Regina’s own contributions were still important, as well. And they needed more sapient drones to manage their new hordes of Swarm Drones, even if she still felt a bit ambivalent about that.

This had been the first large-scale clash between her forces and the gnomes, even if it wasn’t really a direct battle. Even if it was only the beginning. Regina smiled slightly as she thought about that. Her hive’s fighters might be weaker, but they had an inherent advantage in coordination, not to mention the ability to live off the land and superior mobility for the Winged Drones. From everything she knew about warfare, that predisposed them to using something like guerrilla or at least skirmish tactics. Ben definitely believed so, anyway, and she was inclined to trust the Drone General’s instincts. Besides, every day that passed would help her forces more than the gnomes, considering how quickly the hive got reinforcements.

All that considered, she’d given her warriors the goal to not let their enemies have a single peaceful day, and they’d taken it up with enthusiasm. In the best case, the hive could bleed the gnomes until they weren’t capable of putting up a proper fight. Even if things didn’t get that far, they could still slow them down, harry and annoy them and study their reactions. That would allow the gnomes to learn about the hive as well, Regina wasn’t stupid enough to miss that fact, but she wasn’t about to show them all of her cards.

The stretches of roads the gnomish army’s columns were currently taking had been too close to their territory to mess with, and trying something clever without being spotted by the gnomes would have been very hard. But soon enough, they would reach terrain the hive had been able to mine. Regina was looking forward to it.

Combined with a few more air raids, Ben hoped that it would hurt their logistics and morale, but also give them certain expectations about the hive’s capabilities and strategy. So they would be taken off guard when the hive combined another one of those bombing flights with something new, something more substantial.

They didn’t have enough explosives for too much of that, unfortunately, but Regina wasn’t going to let that stop her. Just dropping heavy rocks from high enough up could do a lot of damage on its own.

She shook her head and checked her status screen.

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