Hivemind Beyond the veil

Druhalith (The Season of Resilience)

Day 269

The small notification pulled me from my thoughts, I had configured the neural link to notify me every time a day passed as I had long lost my time-keeping skills with my time fully occupied.

A part of my mind refocused on observing the new threat crawling closer to my sanctuary. When the threat was discovered, I ordered the burrowers to dig deeper and expand the fungus farms.

Their numbers had well passed the five thousand mark and with work now expanding I expected I would need more. Maybe another ten to twenty thousand burrowers to reinforce the current resin and continue expansion, if they wanted to invade they had to pass through every tunnel within my sanctuary.

The closet survey drones were a mere twelve kilometres away and getting closer and closer with every passing hour.

These machines were methodically scanning the surface, their movements precise and calculating, sweeping the barren land in a continuous grid-like pattern.

Every so often, the drones would pause, releasing a pulse strong enough that scouts could sense the vibrations. They’re determined to find me, or they're looking for something else.

The time for hiding was over. Moving deeper into the tunnel system back to my workshop, I played one of the audio logs to further study the cause of this war.

Entry 32: System Study and Expansion – 912 A.R.

“After centuries of peaceful stagnation, we finally expanded our gaze beyond Valur. Our careful study of our solar system has helped enormously in mapping out the asteroid belts, the moons of Xholl, and the cold reaches of the outer planets. The Council allowed this exploration, seeing it as benign, but they refused to support the next phase: Imreth's terraforming. They fail to understand that we are not abandoning our values; we are expanding them. Imreth can be our lifeline, a world brought to life by our hands, in harmony with our needs."

My mind churned as I played another log, sifting through the details. The past logs have shown that this was a splinter faction dedicated to studying the stars, but there seemed to be a large divide between their unified council and this splinter faction.

The clues were beginning to form a larger picture. Whoever my creators were, they were isolated from the rest of the population. They looked up into the vacuum, hoping to expand their knowledge —and something found them and wiped them out.

A stack of new resin tablets awaited me as I walked towards the stone slab picking one tablet I started to write my thoughts down, war is a numbers game if I can out-produce, outnumber and adapt from my enemies' strategies I could survive.

With war now on my doorstep, I would need to shift production to a war footing, the burrowers could handle expanding the network of tunnels and chambers, but the design was rudimentary, lacking the complexity required for the scale of construction that would soon be necessary.

With a thought, I shifted my focus from the scouts to the deeper layers of the hive. I examined the new expansion, it was time to add a needed something more—specialized architects.

My mind raced as I began formulating the design. The Architect Drone would be different from the others. Taller, with an elongated form for precision and dexterity. Four arms—no, six arms—for multitasking. Each one is equipped with specialized tendrils capable of manipulating delicate organic materials and fusing them into structures.

The bio-synthesis chamber would allow the Architect to produce its building materials from the resources it gathered, ensuring that it could work autonomously for extended periods.

I envisioned its sleek body covered in reinforced chitin, capable of withstanding my harsh environmental conditions as it worked tirelessly. Its multi-spectrum eyes would allow it to analyse the terrain and structure integrity, and its advanced neural process would be designed for complex problem-solving. This drone wouldn’t just follow basic instructions; it would have the capability to design, plan, to evolve the hive’s architecture based on environmental and tactical needs.

As the mental blueprint for the Architect Drone solidified and was scratched into the tablet I felt lighter as if a larger burden had been reduced, ordering a few burrowers to bring enough biomass pods here, I swiftly stacked all the resin tablets and prototype weapon designs next to the entrance.

In my mind, I could see the future structures that would soon take from living walls reinforced with chitin and regenerative cells, defensive turrets made from bio-organic components capable of spitting acid or launching bio-projectiles, and vast chambers capable of housing entire armies of drones.

My mind briefly touched on the idea of defensive organisms—smaller creatures that could integrate with the hive structures themselves, acting as sentinels or deterrents to intruders.

These creatures could be grown inside the walls, emerging only when threats were detected. It would make the hive not just a base but a living fortress.

It took a couple of hours for the biomass network to be expanded the results were good three new bio-layers now occupied my former workshop, each one larger than the original I just needed a few thousand more of these, and I would be better prepared.

The first ten architects had already hatched and went above to reinforce the tunnel network and expand the fungus farms within another three hours I had an additional ten creating bio-layers, with this I could remain focused on my weapon designs.

My attention snapped back to the scouts on the surface. One of the drones had slipped closer to the perimeter of the enemy.

Through its enhanced vision, he watched as one of the machines extended a thin, metallic rod into the ground, piercing deep into the planet’s crust. The drone’s sensors picked up faint vibrations—the machine was taking samples.

Not just scanning—extracting. I wasn’t sure what these machines were looking for, but the surface was no longer safe. I ordered all scouts to move further back while ordering a few to expand their search grid further from the main drones.

Not only that, but I ordered one bio-layer to create an additional four hundred scouts if the enemy was here already, where they scattered all over the moon or concentrated in a single position.

With more time on my hands, I decided to start expanding my weapon and warrior drone designs, initially, I thought of a single unified warrior drone before scratching that idea the only combat I knew involved human tactics

With limited choices, I decided to create the first of many variants of a single drone design, dividing it by class, and filling multiple roles within my army.

I started focusing on reviewing memories of my past, seeing what aspects of humanity I could incorporate into the design before I paused. I'm going to need to design some large organisms to create weapons and hardware.

Sighing to myself I played the next audio log. With multiple projects already pulling me in multiple directions. The audio logs continued to play in the background, my attention was already elsewhere, preparing for the next phase.