SEED, Parts 11 & 12, Final

(Serial fiction, sci-fi)

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The Mala understood human hands even better than humans. They fundamentally modified the controls of their interceptor spacecraft so humans could fly them. One hundred and fifty broke into three spearhead formations behind the leader, who was the great, great grandson of Eve.

Enemy long range cruisers orbited Earth in front of them.

But not many. It was probably the last force of any real size they had left.

Their orbital bombers had deployed and orange sparkles glowed over the land masses on the planet. Anti-matter fires burned, pillaring blue smoke into the atmosphere. Typical. The enemy had vaporized the population down to manageable numbers, then invaded their key objectives.

The Mala battle squadron divided into smaller vanguards.

The leader could sense the panic in the enemy fleet. But it was too late for them. Always too late.

Cutting beams activated. One hundred and fifty ships marked targets. They dismembered the enemy force in one pass. The remnants of human empathy tingled in the leader, but the emotion was easily suppressed. The force swept through chunks of imploding ships and sizzling plasma fires. Mala transports followed from the rear.

Earth would be denied to the enemy. The Mala had exploited SEED, and they required no more human assets. The enemy could not be permitted access to them. Even though they would fail to develop human weaponry fast enough, they could not be allowed to try.

The leader communicated radiation trail coordinates for the transports to follow. He imagined the dread of the enemy invaders on the surface. Their paltry fleet rained into the atmosphere and burned. The Mala would hunt them. No use trying to run.

On the transports, the human forces buckled into their landing vehicles.


* * *

A thud knocked loose a semi-circle of wall. The cut doorway fell with a crash. Dust billowed past Jax into the room.

Black-clad soldiers fanned in formation. They covered the room with the aim of strange weapons.

A soldier in the center held out some sort of device. He seemed to be scanning, trying to locate something.

He hummed and clicked low, guttural sounds in his throat. The soldiers trained their weapons on the doorway where Mikale lay dead.

Beams combed streaks of fire across the wall.

A shriek erupted in the room beyond.

Something thrashed and fell partway into the light. The beams ceased, and a sound like tinkling crystals filled the silence.

Thankful, Jax wanted to weep in hysterical relief. But he was still paralyzed. The soldiers pulled flayed pieces of some kind of body and arranged them on the floor. They shoved Mikale aside with their feet. The man with the scanner seemed satisfied. He motioned the others toward Jax.

Crystalline knives cut through the straps. Bronze hands pulled him to his feet.

Jax gasped when he met them face to face.

Their eyes. Not natural.

Not really human.

They reflected facets of light like cut glass.

Someone behind him ripped down his pants, and cold metal engulfed his genitals. The sensation was immediate and explosive. If not for his rigidity, his knees would have buckled from the pleasure of it. Waves of an unlikely orgasm rocked through him.

Then the device was gone.

Jax blinked. Maybe the first sign that the drug was fading.

The leader nodded and the two holding his elbows stepped outward and pulled his arms taught like a cross. Those glittering eyes aimed the weapon at Jax's head.

"Wait," Jax said whispered, his jaw finally loosening.

A pinprick of blue clove Jax in the forehead. His world curtained to nothingness.

All over the planet, the Mala army claimed merciless victory in their millennia of civil war. After the enemy was cut down, human samples were taken, mostly sperm, but some eggs and surrogates too.

Diversity was strength, and the human ranks would grow.

In orbit, the Mala launched heavy radiation bombs when their forces withdrew, and the dying world sizzled with energy. Not even microbes would survive long as Jax's body still smoldered.

-The End-


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