Chapter 574: The price of power
For two hours, I calmed down my girls, managed countless lines of logistics, and compiled information together so that the top of the Bee Empire—me and the rest of the Empire Council—knew what was going on.
After this, the situation stabilised somewhat, and the estimate of overall damages to the Empire was calculated.
The Divinity Sound was sent telepathically as far as the telepathic range of hive mind Precio-Us could reach, stunning everything living and causing thousands of accidents by itself because people who listened to the sound often forgot to even beat their wings!
Only the height of their flight saved them from plummeting to their deaths, but there were countless air collisions.
Thousands of people ended up with traumas, and several dozen people even died as a result of or from work accidents caused by this disruption.
Of course, humans in the range were affected, too—but they fared much better, since they weren’t flying all the time and there were fewer of them.
And this was all with only a relatively small range being affected.
The quake caused by Precio-Us’ breakthrough reached way farther, going through the entire Central Region.
It was too weak to destroy any buildings, but it threw things off the shelves, created small cracks in walls and made dry branches and ripe fruit fall off trees, even those on tops of pillar mountains.
The quake spread even into the sky itself. In the time after it, twice as much ash as usual began falling on our heads, doubtlessly disturbed by the vibration!
But this wasn’t the worst. The vibrations caused by the quake reached several distribution power plants, causing short circuiting. Until the engineers repaired all the damaged electric circuits—and there were dozens of them, millions of bees were going to live without electricity.
Half of them were still in the range of the eternal twilight caused by the ash cloud and forced to navigate and fly in poor lighting.
Again, humans had it easier. Their things were sturdier, and their electrical appliances were almost always battery-powered. In fact, most of them barely felt the quake—only the telepathic wave if they were close enough to catch it.
Now, as I looked around myself from the entrance of Hive Supremo, I felt that the surroundings of Hive Supremo looked very pitiful.
The Hive Supremo was deemed structurally sound and safe to be in, so most of the bees returned inside. But because of the amount of recently wounded in flight accidents, we had to organise a field hospital for people who couldn’t fit into the main hospital inside, so they wouldn’t be in the way of other workers fixing cracks in the walls and cleaning the debris.
The field hospital was just an assortment of massive tents whose roofs were already covered by a thin layer of ash. More ash was covering the ground nearby, even the parts that were cleared from it by bee workers previously to prevent entombing various buildings at the foot of Hive Supremo’s living mountain.
Thousands of bees were being healed in those tents or waiting for their turn. Bonfires were lit nearby, and cooks were making meals for everybody who needed one.
In Hive Supremo, cooks already used electrical stoves, but they were out, like every other electrical appliance in the hive.
I turned to Ambrosia, who was looking at this next to me. We only came out to take a look at how things are going—the Empire Council already moved inside again, and we were needed there.
But after two hours, we also needed a slight break and a breath of fresh air.
’What a shitshow. At least our babies are all safe in their brood cells,’ I mused, sharing my thoughts with Amby too. ’If only we knew this would happen... But I doubt anything could predict that Precio-Us will make this breakthrough in her research, or when, and what it will result in.’
’The Oracles will blame themselves for it regardless. This is the second catastrophe in a row they couldn’t predict,’ Amby replied telepathically, shaking her head sadly. ’But in a time like now, they can’t afford to cry about their failures instead of working. Our shores are still threatened by sea-beasts.’
So they were. After the eruption, a lot of migrating beasts returned to their usual areas of habitat and mostly left our ships alone—at least communication with remote expeditions could continue.
But some beasts stayed near shores, clearly seeing things on land as a source of food. Humans feared approaching the water because they could jump out of it without warning and drag a single human down with ease.
This didn’t matter until human sailors began refusing to go out into the sea, even though these beasts mostly didn’t attack the ships. At least examples of such cowardice were rare.
And all the attacks on our ships were predicted by Oracles, so they were well-defended. These sailors really had nothing to be afraid of... unless they planned to fall off the ship during travel.
With a huff, I turned inside Hive Supremo and offered a hand to my wife.
"We should return to the Council, Amby," I said aloud. "There’s still a lot of work to do."
While we stood there, I got five messages asking various questions. Some of them were even urgent, such as "We have to bring water by hand from the nearest well; where should workers bring it first, the hospital or the kitchens?" or "Should we dispose of the dead bodies immediately or keep them somewhere for a grand burial later?".
Amby smiled without mirth and took my hand.
"There always is, but today more than usual. Despite everything, though... I know that we can take it on together."
I smiled back, much wider.
"Yeah. You and I. And our girls, of course."
Then, after the situation got even more stable, I was going to return to Precio-Us and find out whether the uncontrolled quakes were the limit of the power they discovered, or if it could actually achieve what Usnea God promised it would.