The Straight-Laced Major General Becomes a Mother of Insects

After a mission went wrong, a dying major general was forced to undergo genetic modification and miraculously survived.

But after he recovered, his body kept burning up late at night, leaking a fishy-sweet fluid and even developing strange, dark red insect patterns.

"Side effects," his attending physician replied firmly. "They'll go away after a while."

Later, at the Interstellar Peace Summit, the major general crushed an insectoid delegate's tentacles with his bare hands. "Sorry, it wrapped itself around me first."

In a hurry to leave the scene of the incident, he missed the madness roiling in those golden, inhuman eyes.

On another sweltering night, a group of strange figures stood by his bed. Their tentacles writhed, their mandibles opened and closed, and they uttered an ancient insect tongue that humans should never have been able to hear:

Mother...

The major general's eyes snapped open. An unprecedented cramping pain exploded in his abdomen, making him curl up involuntarily.

Damn it, another nightmare!

The major general didn't know that every change in his body was being scanned and recorded, then transferred to the insectoids' encrypted archives.

On the giant screen: Insect Mother Awakening Progress: 23%.

Bright red letters flashed while hundreds of thousands of insects worked busily below.

They were doing everything they could to prepare for the new Insect Mother's return home!

And the Insect Mother himself, having finally learned the truth behind the genetic modification, immediately leapt aboard a modified spacecraft and fled into the depths of space.

The Royal Insects were in hot pursuit behind him.

Theme: Discovering who you are