Reincarnated To Evolve My Bee Empire - Chapter 197

Chapter 197: Striking first
After I made arrangements for Undecided’s near future and education, I and Ambrosia unanimously went to the Council Chamber. By then, it was already late evening.

Before we started anything, I stopped Amby with a gesture and turned to the Attendants who hovered within earshot.

“Girls, can you wait outside for a moment? Call Bloodhero and Workharder, but don’t let them inside until I say so.”

Chief Attendant Helping-Hands didn’t even blink at the strange request.

“Of course, Father. We won’t disturb you. You and Mother-Queen can do as many embarrassing things as you want.”

“That’s not—” Before I could explain myself, she and her helpers left already.

I huffed, then froze when I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder.

Amby got close without warning and leaned toward my face with a serious expression.

“This *isn’t* why you want us to have privacy, Necty? How strange. After the disturbing words of Oracle Undecided, I feel you need the comfort my touch can give. And… it would calm me, too, to have you close. Very close.”

The hold on my shoulder tightened.

I reached out to stroke Amby’s face. She took the prophecy even closer to heart than I did. Or, perhaps, it just piled up with other fears she had.

“After we deal with the military matters, I will be all yours,” I smiled cheekily, but grew serious a moment later. “Amby, we can’t tell anyone about what Undecided said. Even to the Advisers!”

Earlier, I told Undecided and Nurse Larva-Carer to keep quiet about the prophecies. I did my best to show that it was A Very Serious Matter, but wasn’t sure at which point the waddling tongues of my girls might overcome my request.

Having several days before rumors spread already sounded good.

“Even to your Advisers?” Ambrosia frowned. “How are we supposed to protect you, then?”

“The same as you did before. But I can tell for sure that if we tell this secret to any more people, it will stop being a secret at all. Then… imagine everybody’s reaction! Even if nine out of ten bees don’t believe the prophecies, those who will… They will create absolute mayhem. Absolutely!”

Amby listened to me with a frown, then nodded and shifted away from me.

“You are right—keeping secrets isn’t for bees, but the idea of your disappearance will crush people’s morale. We will prevent it from happening and nobody will have to worry. Humans won’t harm you, because we will cripple them first.”

This became the main theme of today’s late evening Council session.

The humans still showed no signs of planning an immediate attack. Nevertheless, my Advisers took the news that Operation Eye for an Eye would begin ahead of schedule with bloodthirsty enthusiasm.

“We have two hundred Beemarines in place, Father, ready to strike as soon as the moon goes into the position!” Bloodhero reported. “They could even strike tonight, but dragons refuse to fly so late.”

The moon was an agreed attack signal—an imperfect one, since the sky was often cloudy or out of sight, but better than a dragon’s call. Because dragons went to sleep at night.

“The ‘gifts’ for tolerable humans are also ready,” Workharder added. “We didn’t even have to bring any extra people—a couple dozen Commandos from Researchers camp will suffice. They will collect fresh blood and paint your glorious symbol somewhere humans will notice.”

“I hope humans won’t take it *too* ominously. We should invent more dyes,” I muttered, then added louder, “Good job, everyone! Then we can use the next day to send the last batch of Beemarines and the command to attack. It won’t hurt to go over all the plans… But this can wait until tomorrow. Sorry for keeping you all up so late.”

***

Next day was hectic to the extreme.

First, I visited Undecided and asked if she slept well.

“I dunno. Is it well or not? What am I comparing with? I dreamed about myself sleeping and dreaming in the future. But your lessons earlier helped me to stop dreaming after I woke up.”

“I’m just glad you don’t have any reasons to scream.”

“For now. It’s only a matter of time until dreams become reality. It was like that earlier…”

The visit left me with mixed feelings. But I wrote some instructions for Undecided’s prophetic training and asked Larva-Carer to keep watching over Undecided while she did them. That, and while she attended school.

Sadly, I didn’t have more time to spare on this—not today, at least.

There were still three hundred other chaotically evolved bees to take care of! Of course, some plans were already made for them, but they were vague and based on assumptions.

Thankfully, Ambrosia and Worriesgone could handle most of it.

Meanwhile, I could look over the attack plans of Eye for an Eye with Bloodhero.

Positions of the human warriors, the placements of our Beemarines, where would Commandos leave blood signs—it all had to work like clockwork.

At noon, the dragon riders carried the orders on wax tablets. They would spend the last of the day passing them over to every Beemarine hiding in the human village.

Weather was on our side today—the sky was clear the entire day, for a change. When the night fell, I could see every star in the sky.

Now that I had a perfect memory of my past, I could tell for sure that they weren’t the same as the ones I saw on Earth—but they looked similar. And without light pollution, it was a breathtaking sight.

Although I was yawning every other minute, I watched through the branches of Hive Supremo’s pillar mountain how the moon moved higher and higher across the sky. I wasn’t the only one—several dozen bees, including Bloodimina and Ambrosia, sat with me at the hive entrance.

(At least half of them were just guarding me, though; especially Ambrosia, who was sitting with her head on my shoulder. Which I enjoyed very much.)

When it will reach its highest point, and when humans will sleep their best, the Beemarines will strike.