Red Scourge (4)
Red Scourge are ultimately hive-type space monsters, so they have what you'd commonly call a 'queen individual.'
However, due to the nature of space where the weak don't survive, during the growth phase of the hive, the queen hasn't laid many eggs yet and overflows with energy, reigning as the strongest being in that hive.
So, there's quite a lot of cases where people get shocked and terrified upon realizing the queen is far stronger than anticipated after only dealing with weak soldiers.
Yeah, easy to say.
Strictly speaking, no matter how hard I worked to make them—or rather, thanks to my cheats, my hands moved on their own and memories bubbled up effortlessly in that trance-like state—the handmade Red Scourge I produced weren't unreliable in the slightest...
That said.
We'd pinpointed which of the swarms slowly encircling our temporary settlement—home to the pioneer-cum-test-subjects—which was the powerhouse hive.
But that just meant a ton of issues remained, starting from how to infiltrate it.
Naturally, Elena and Chimera Officers 1 through 5—who'd brought the pioneers—piped up with their critiques.
Of course, after mulling it over and picking the politest words I could muster...
"That's for you guys to figure out now."
"Ah."
"Work hard. Fighting!"
I mean, why should I have to think about it?
With that, I boldly delegated full authority.
Funny thing, though—my inner thought of 'Why would I even bother? I have no clue!' stayed just that: a thought.
"...So you're entrusting it to us, Doctor!"
"We must repay the Doctor's faith!"
"Let's pool our heads and devise a proper infiltration strategy."
"There must be some secret passage they use to move around."
"We could use our shuttle to drop grenades from the air, draw their attention, then slip the spy in during the chaos."
"Hmm."
"Wait, that might not cut it. Their scale is so massive it could seal off any gaps for the spy."
"This ain't easy."
Somehow, the Chimera officers latched onto the misunderstanding and started hashing out plans among themselves, grilling ideas back and forth.
"Guts up!"
"Let's gooo!"
"If this works, we'll have a real branch office!"
"Woo!"
Once they'd nailed down the details, they grabbed my masterpiece—the so-called 'Super Red Scourge'—and headed off somewhere.
Watching my sharp, capable subordinates, I couldn't help thinking: This is true freeloading.
Not that I'd admit it out loud, but...
Having clueless space hick(?) like me plan strategy was way worse than letting the battle-hardened tacticians who lived and breathed strategy and combat handle it.
Obviously, they'd deliver overwhelmingly better results.
About an hour after those troops who'd perfectly interpreted my 'I dunno, you handle it' as 'I trust you with full authority' kicked off the op.
Some soldiers started freaking out subtly—maybe from thinning ranks or getting hypnotized by the Red Scourge.
"Doctor, what do we do with these?"
"Hmm, no real use for them right now. Oh, that ship has cryo pods, right? Shove 'em in those."
"Got it."
We handled the still-unhinged ones with a 'permanent fix' courtesy of cryo—volunteer service, basically.
I was managing that middling workload—not swamped, but not totally slacking either—when...
> Doctor, queen eliminated.
"Tch."
"Something weird's behind you."
> The queen's elite guards, spawned as her protectors, are rampaging on her death. They'll be wiped soon. No worries.
"Ah, okay."
I had no clue how they'd pulled it off, but they'd succeeded in a decapitation strike on the Red Scourge queen hiding in the underground tunnels.
With that, I moved our destroyer to the site as planned.
"Now, spray some extra chems to sow chaos, and it'll accelerate their reversion to wild animals~"
"Fascinating. If only it worked with a queen around."
"No way~☆ With our current tech and materials, 100% impossible."
"Shame."
We doused their remaining nests with pheromones and scraps from Super Red Scourge production, wrapping up the 'Red Scourge' panic that had the forum in hysterics.
Well, technically other hives lingered elsewhere, so planet-wide it wasn't over...
But that was that. No more Red Scourge chanting commie slogans at us anytime soon.
Good enough, right?
But as I mulled that over, one ridiculous snag blindsided me in the dumbest way.
Long story short: My goal was to feral-ize the local Red Scourge, buying time for my base/branch to grow.
Bonus: Speed it up and block any last-ditch desperation moves.
No issues there, I thought.
But nope. Turns out the pheromones we'd just sprayed—tested on my subordinates and my genes during experiments—triggered some bizarre brain chemistry in the Red Scourge?
No idea how, but right after our victory cheer over the pheromones...
"Huh?"
Suddenly, their brainwave comms—Red Scourge internal chatter—were spamming if I was their queen.
Hey, they're alive, so brain-tampering pheromones could cause confusion.
Not impossible, so I could swallow the absurdity up to here.
But right after...
"What."
Our Super Red Scourge—meant only for assassinating the queen, which we didn't care if it died—popped up out of nowhere.
It zoomed in on a photo of me and plastered it on the massive monitor in their underground nest-turned-base.
At the same time, it sprayed speech-pheromones via its antenna-like sensors, propagandizing like mad.
And this thing—expert at agitation, hypnosis, and brainwashing toward sapients once grown—hit the queenless swarm with 'I'm the queen'...
"What the hell."
"Congratulations, Doctor. Now you'll juggle researcher, branch chief, and Red Scourge broodmother duties."
"What."
Unlike their clear space-monster vibes before—beastlike but unmistakable.
Now they looked like utter human rejects, full beast-mode.
Apart from my researcher glee at the novelty...
I felt something go terribly wrong.
Glancing at my reflection in a nearby tank, my face twisted indescribably.