Slick petals writhed in the darkness.

Glowing. Feeding. Creaking open in their seeding.

The plant-mass burst in a bloodcloud. A newborn horror scrambled free. It was caught in a capsule; encased in jagged rock. A nightmare seedling; some cellular monstrosity. Carried at once to the firing ducts.

Beyond vile chambers and dim-lit arteries, past its ribbed walls and lurking labyrinths, a living spacecraft slid through the galaxy. A colossus; dark as the void and cloaked in shifting shadows. Crawling on towards a far blue-green world.

The ship’s limbs unfurled in awakening. Among its sea of vast scales, from a sudden small opening, shot a chunk of rock in a spurt of phosphorescence. The seedling.

It was viscous violet. Viral-violent. Nestled inside it,

Death.


[Sample continues in Amazon Kindle Store]