FOLLOWING THE ORDERS OF HER GLORIOUS FATHER, GRAND COMMANDER MALEVOLENCE LED THE COUNTER-OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE VILE HORNETS.
For now, this offensive was just digging, but it was already an awe-inspiring sight.
As much as Malevolence disliked the ugly green giants called humans, she could admit that they were effective in what they were put to do—digging.
A hundred of them were working several kiloters from where Malevolence stood, digging several large pits in the ground with living stone shovels. Each pit was rapidly becoming the size of an upside-down mountain, and enormous piles of excavated earth were burying the forests nearby.
From her position on a branch of a lone living mountain (one of the few mountains not cut down for fire-stone), Malevolence, the other high command officers of the army and a small division of 30 thousand Beemarines could all see the humans’ work in all glory without being affected by the smoke from bonfires burning nearby.
Of course, Queen-class chas would’ve been even better, but they and the ethanol to fuel them would’ve been hard to bring so far into the Hatha territory. And the chas’ crews wouldn’t find it pleasant to work in all the smoke...
No, Malevolence would prefer that humans worked in those nasty conditions instead of bees. And were attacked by hornets first instead of bees.
"The humans dug so deep, and there is still no sign of hornets," Malevolence mused, then turned to the Chief Commando standing at her side. "Flightsight, do you know how deep the hornets buried themselves in?"
Flightsight made a vague half-shrug instead of a normal reply.
"Deeper."
Malevolence scowled and turned away.
She couldn’t find fault with this answer—she heard in Flightsight’s thoughts that the Commando really couldn’t tell more. But it was still incredibly annoying.
"Then let the humans keep digging," Malevolence said. "We don’t have any more tal-eaters anywhere?"
Flightsight paused, and Malevolence heard echoes of ntal ssages being sent and received.
"Last patrol found two larvae and killed them. No beetles discovered."
"Good. Now that we are about to attack, make the patrols fly out twice as often."
"Understood, Grand Commander."
After this, Malevolence herself closed her eyes and exchanged ssages with the Chiefs in charge of remote army divisions.
At this mont, dozens of human teams and bee army divisions were busy digging for hornets. Malevolence was expecting one of them to reach the buried hornets at any mont now.
So when there was a human angry shout from the distance, she went on full alert imdiately.
"Soldiers, prepare!" she shouted.
The next mont, Malevolence got a ssage from the Agent stationed with the squad of diggers.
’We have reached the hornets. It’s not a nest! This looks more like a... I can’t see from this far! It’s almost like they just appear from the ground, Grand Commander.’
Malevolence perked up even further. She was in luck—her squad reached the targets first! Just as Malevolence had hoped, she could be the first to deal this blow to the enemy.
This was why she made sure that she would stay with the army division that would have the most humans with it, and thus, dig the fastest.
’This doesn’t matter, Agent. Follow the plan! Order the humans to retreat beyond the smoke wall!’
’Yes, Grand Commander!’
The combat tactics for this fight were planned ahead. After discovering and alerting the first hornets, the humans will retreat behind the smoke. Either hornets will follow them and suffocate, follow them and grow weaker from smoke, or stay in the smoke ring.
Either way, afterward Malevolence’s soldiers will deal with all the survivors—and only *then* the humans will continue digging.
"Follow , my soldiers! It’s ti to protect what’s ours! In the na of the Empire and Father!" Malevolence shouted, flying up and pulling down the visor of her helt.
"For the Empire!" Beemarines shouted, flying after her.
Several kiloters wasn’t a large distance for their powerful wings. In just a minute, the army approached the smoke ring and slowed down.
The smoke ring was an absolutely gigantic ring of smoke columns that was coming from bonfires of living stone. There were several dozen bonfires, placed with only a few holes for people to escape from, and the pungent black smoke from them really looked like a thick wall.
Right now, the humans were escaping through the open exits between bonfires. So of them were rubbing their eyes with their wrists; others coughed; but most looked unhard. All of them were wearing cloth face masks to protect themselves while they were digging.
From behind their backs, Malevolence heard buzzing.
’The hornets are trying to escape through the place where the smoke is thinnest!’ she transmitted to the division she was leading. ’Let’s et them at this chokepoint! Ready your rifles!’
Malevolence flew forward, and her army moved after her and around her, like all these bees were a continuation of her body. Malevolence almost felt them with her as 60 thousand extra sets of arms.
The well-trained Beemarines followed orders without hesitation or unnecessary thoughts. They went into a spread-out formation for rifle shooting and prepared to open fire at the hornets long before they entered bolas-throwing or lee range.
’Thousands 1 to 5—fire at will! Others—hold!’ Malevolence ordered.
When the first hornets—at least three dozen giant, wide-toothed monsters whose yellow was almost black from all the soot, but who looked as bloodthirsty as Malevolence rembered—erged from behind the smoke, thunderous sounds ca from all around Malevolence.
Those were the sounds of 5 thousand rifles going off!
So bullets missed entirely. Most hit the hornets’ chitin and ricocheted away harmlessly, only forcing the monsters to slow down under the impacts of countless bullets.
But there were still enough that hit vulnerable spots like eyes or wings!
With unnatural-sounding cries of pain, the front-flying five hornets fell to the ground. Those behind them were only wounded, but Malevolence was about to give more bees orders to fire.
Suddenly, she heard Flightsight shout next to her.
"Grand Commander, can you hear this?!"
Reviews
All reviews (0)