Epic of Bee

"HexScape is now active," Hilda told me as I walked into the Hive Central Chamber.

"Good, let Pixie know that she and the other worker are to meet me in the Navigation Room once we are finished with this meeting. I want to evolve them first; that way, they can Bee more proficient and get more work done. How far out from the SugaBees are we?" I asked as M&M helped me into my seat, and then all four women took seats at my sides.

Tag and Sig were back now, and they were more intense than usual, but I only felt determination radiating from them. That was good, these two were the reason that we had made it, and Sig had taken the weight of the deaths to hold the Predators back, but his brother must have helped him.

"Everyone, I have gathered you all here because we need to talk about what just happened. We also need to talk about what our next move is," I said, and everyone at the table looked like they had something to say on the matter, but everyone was waiting, thankfully.

The last thing I wanted right now was for everything to turn into a shouting match. I held my emotions in the poised position, but I held a neutral outlook, pointing to Thiamon.

"What has happened with these women is a travesty, but what you are doing now might help to change some of that. Still, we were extremely unprepared for something that we should have almost expected," Thiamon said, and the last comment made Ryan grimace, and I pointed to him.

"You are right, and I made a couple errors in my judgment, and," Ryan started to explain, but I put my hand up.

"No, that is not what the meeting is going to be used for. I am the one to blame here, not any of you. I made a choice to come here before going through the evolution. These deaths are on me, and I am making sure that I can save everyone that we have left. This meeting is to figure out what we can do to prevent this from happening again to more women," I said, and the room's tension was lifted.

"Many of us had to do things that we are not proud of, but we did them because it was them, or us at the moment. These monsters that we fight, Trent and the Fallen, they do not play by the rules," Messia said, taking my hand.

"The only thing that we can do right now is to keep pushing, and once we can wake the large Predator up, we will know where they are. The problem is that I did see one leave when they came down the mountainside," Xani said, putting a hand on my shoulder where Tigra was sleeping.

Thanos was standing on Tag's head like he was on Pride Rock, and Atom was curled into my neck on the other side.

"That means that they will have already gone from there, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't go check. There will also more than likely be some kind of trap waiting, so I will make some more adjustments to the Drones and get a couple more of the normal ones as scouts. This way, there is no chance for anyone to actually get hurt, and we might be able to learn something about him in the process," I explained, laying out the plan that I had made.

I had already been going over what I knew about the Predators, but Xani's mention of the escaped Predator made it all the more needed. I was not going to risk the lives of my people if I didn't have to.

"So we have about one to two days before we can find the location; what is our goal in the meantime?" Miasma asked.

"Getting everyone up to speed with evolutions, more Hex-Combs need to be built, and they need to happen fast. I need a hanger bay so the other Drone can get repaired, and we need people to do that. Then we have to meet with the SugaBees, and I would like to stay there for one day while we are waiting for the female Elephant Folk to wake up," I explained.

"Yes, I would like to come with you so I can study the bubble and see if I can reproduce a similar effect. I have noticed now that I have access to the ship that when we make new discoveries, they are augmented into the ship's system, and we gain new functions. I think that learning about the way that the SugaBees create their cities," Xani said, and I nodded and put a hand on the one she had on her shoulder.

"That is excellent news, but that means that we will need more people looking into new things. I will remember that when I am picking evolutions; I don't want to only focus on our strength because we will give great advantages in the long run by outpacing the other races in tech," I said, but the Malodar put his hand up, and I nodded for him to speak.

"I think that we should also be looking into different ways to earn income. Right now, we are in one of the least developed places in the world, mind you, there are worse, but that's not my point. The rest of the world runs on credits, and in the future going forwards, we will need to be able to earn some from each of the nations to help buy things that we cannot produce ourselves," Malodar explained, and there was a lot of head-nodding around the table.

"That is an excellent idea, and I would like for you to think of some different things that we could sell and produce above what we need," I said to him, but Malodar grinned at me, rubbing his hands together.

"Oh, we already have a list, but I won't talk up this meeting with that, but just know that this little portion of the Hive will be taken care of by Terrance and me. So, the sooner we can all sit down and talk, the better," Malodar said with a smile.