“We have a signal. Impact was achieved, but the World Soul is aware.”
Eight violet eyes shot open, glittering with malice and hate. There was a heavy snort and a ravenous snarl, and then they started to rise. Slithering chitin filled the air of the immense chamber as the thing rose, and rose; and then, it spoke.
“It wouldn’t be much fun if he was sleeping, now would it?”
The voice was feminine, and soft, almost melodic. Musical, in a way, but not enough to distract from the grinding teeth underneath. She snapped her jaws hungrily, the sound of gnashing teeth and frothing drool filling the cold, dead air.
“What is he?”
“Data is transmitting now.”
A massive, taloned hand reached out, and terminals flared to life. Holograms leapt from their screens, splashing the chamber with a pale blue hue. Still though, the light had trouble penetrating the gloom. A dark, misshapen throne was illuminated, but little else could wrap around the sheer enormity of the thing straining the room. Those same talons traced the air around the World Souls shape, while yet more tap tap tapped at the ground sharply.
“Hmm. He doesn’t look much like the chattel, does he? How very interesting. I wonder why that might be? He’ll be fun to gnaw through, at any rate. Disperse the spores, and prepare for planetfall. I’m ready to gorge.”
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“In your service.”
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In the deep black, something stirred. This was a different arrival than the {(Seed)}. It was more violent, more turbulent. Reality boiled away around the mass as it entered the solar system, rending and folding space as it moved. Within moments it entered Jupiter's orbit, and began to disgorge. Quick flares raced away, burrowing through space much as it had. The barest fraction of time passed between that and their emergence near the pale moon of the only habitable planet in the solar system. The {(Spores)} received their signal loud and clear, though they spent a while processing it. The data load was immense, really much more so than it should have been, but that was of little consequence to the gargantuan, wriggling masses.
With their objective recognized, each extended a hundred thousand twitching limbs, before beginning to sift through space for their target. They were utterly blind, but not senseless; there was, after all, a gravity well just below. They wriggled and slithered for the planet, intent on sating their hunger, before the farthest was ripped asunder. Tons upon tons of organic mass were shredded in an instant, enough that there wasn’t the slightest bit left to survive reentry. Unperturbed, the remaining masses slithered yet deeper down the gravity well.
More orbital debris pelted them, flaying them alive. They were unaware of the debris field kicked up by the recent attack, content to doggedly pursue their prey whether they made it alive or not. As they descended, the debris grew hotter. More violent. Atmospheric reentry seared the protective mucus and tissue from their hides, exposing them to slagging satellite remnants and boiling heat. A kinetic vehicle that’d missed the earlier salvo of nukes finally got a kill as it slammed into one of the two remaining {(Spores)}, evaporating it at a speed of tens of thousands of kilometers an hour. That left one.
Orbital debris continued to shred through it, and then a missile shard sheared it clean in half. The {(Spores)} hide blackened and burned, crinkling and shattering, before it finally exploded, too damaged to continue its mission. Most of its cells immolated, bursting into showers of gore before their matter was scattered into harmless pieces across the upper atmosphere. But not all of them.
A few of its scattered bits survived into the stratosphere, before they were separated and carried off by atmospheric winds. Within hours, the few cells that’d survived had scattered across the globe. Now, they could feed.
