[i] "I have spoken with God, and he has abandoned us" [/i] Midnight, the only sound was the wind blowing through the elder tree's. Salokin sat on his chair by the window, puffing his pipe and blowing smoke through his furry nose. This small collection of houses about 10 miles north of Turis had long since served as a retirement village for the aging, Salokin had moved here after his 70th year just three years ago, but he had felt old since long before that. It was the 38th annbersay of the crash... No father should have to bury his child. He let out a longer puff, staring up at the white light of Serkona, the moon. (Daddy, I'm going to be an astronaught!) He squinted and leant forwards. Was the moon... Shrinking? Something was moving in front of it, slowly but surely. It was too large to be an aerocraft and was certainly not a cloud. The silence was pierced by a loud, screeching noise as the black blob grew bigger and bigger, and began to take shape. There was a deafening roar, then loud crash, as it smashed into the road and tossed the pavement into the air. He watched in shock as a huge chunk of concrete flew through the air and collided into the house across the street, crushing it into the ground. "The Zapolos..." He whispered in disbelief. They had so much energy in them still, despite being 74 and 77. He turned away from the window and dashed to the door as fast as his elderly legs would carry him, rushing into the street. The telephone wires had been brought down along with the Zapolo's house, but he suspected the people in Turis had likely seen the crashing... He stared at it. What the Fal? It looked like something out of the pictures his daughter had used to watch with him at night. Impossible, those shows were just fiction, as the name implied. And yet here it was, sitting in the middle of a quant little retirement village, a real Stellarcraft. Something was wrong with it though, it seemed to have been overgrown by some strange type of flesh, bulbous sacks of it hanging out of it. Others had slowly filed out into the streets, even old Hagga with her cane had made her way into the streets, muttering something about how those "Damned kids should get an appointment with Fal", before stopping short and gasping in disbelief at the hulk in front of her. There was a small hiss from the stellarship as I cracked open, Salokin held his breath as the ramp fell down near his feet. Slowly, something began to stumble out of the green mist. Salokin took an involuntary step back as it revealed itself. There were screams and several people began to flee from the creature... Small sacks hung from its flesh, and something seemed to be stirring within them. Its skin was a sandish colour and it almost appeared to be undead. It's left arm ended in some kind of tentacle appendage and its head seemed contorted at an unnatural angle, though it sharply twisted it with a sickening crunch and surveyed the crowd. Behind it came several more of these weird shapes, and it became apparent they weren't a single species at all, but instead three... Yet all were covered in the same yellowish flesh. They darted forwards quickly, the first jumping into the air at what Salokin would have suspected to be an impossible height and landing next to Hagga. It grabbed her with its tentacles, wrapping them around her neck. She cursed it and swung her cane at its head, but the tentacles just tightened around her neck until she dropped her cane and twitched. Salokin turned to turn, but one landed in front of him and hit him to the floor in a single swipe. He felt a sharp and sudden pain the moment it connected, and heard two of his ribs crack. He screamed for mercy as it stood over him, able to kill him with but a single blow if it wanted to do so. He gasped in shock as it turned and jumped away from him. Had it shown mercy...? He felt something crawling up his leg and looked down in shock. A strange, yellowish creature barely the side of its fist was scrambling its way at an insane speed up his leg. No sooner had he registered it than it was on his chest, and he felt a sudden spike of pain as it bit a small hole in his chest. He convulsed in pain, then watched in horror as the creature somehow squeezed through the small gap it had made. His cries of torment filled the air, breaking the silence. Other voices joined him, a chorus of torment, the old had been cast down to die in starlit blood pools on the ground... [b] The following morning [/b] [i] "Av L' Veidu, L Ve Fal" [/i] Daylight, the dead arise, tree's are stripped and Turis cleansed. Millions had died over the past six hours, and several other such star craft had hit else where in the world. The government responses had done little, soldiers fell almost as easily as the civilians had. Nothing seemed to stop the spread of the parasite. It killed, and killed, and killed, gathering up its stores of biomass. [b] Space [/b] [i] "Come and burn with us" [/i] More star ships flew out from the infected world, dropping into hyper space. Motivated by hunger, of course, and the hives had detected an interesting amount of traffic on the worlds admittedly out dated sensors ("Note to Ourselves, must find more such knowledge") The Eternal Mother... How very religious Religion, what an odd business... Let us bring them into the tranquillity they must so desire They say high command, we must show them [i] higher [/i] command Yes, it is time to feast. We can taste them already, can't we? So juicy sweet... Maybe they can upgrade these sensors... Which part of us shall feast? It is within S'Ark influence, we must tell ourselves S'Ark to act. [b] Eternal Union Outpost A-5 [/b] [i] "For forty days and forty nights it rained" [/i] The strange vessel arrived in system, drifting forwards. Its form was over grown with an odd brownish material, and several tentacles seemed to float freely in the black of space. The weird ship held its position a short distance from the station. The ship seemed very damaged, one might suggest it looked at though it shouldn't be functioning at all. It transmitted the ships distress signal, and given its apparent structural damage one could be forgiven for mistaking it as having been attacked by another ship