Goddess of the Galacticide Episode 76 - Hall of the Gods
The shuttle dove.
Everyone slid toward the cockpit controls, and the rippling evergreen surface of the world closed in at frightening speed.
A dark mass loomed over Cha Dzeeny, a forest of legs flailing in search of grip on the metal cockpit floor. The mighty Terg had toppled, and its body would crush everything in its path. It had missed Cha but descended to Baaii. The pilot’s seat was sturdy, but might not be enough to hold the alien’s mass. Cha pushed against the dark surface of the main body, surprisingly smooth—and sticky.
The giant came to a standstill. Cha looked at his hands in disbelief. Clunk-clunk sounds. It was difficult to lift his head so he could see Baaii safe in her seat, but also green bodies smashing against the cockpit window. She must have caught the descent just before the collision, leveled the shuttle and plowed through the diin’s minions.
Nreedz. She cut us some slack and is now trying to snap the vines. It might just work, but it will shoot everybody forward once more as soon as the shuttle runs out of loose vine.
“Turn on gravity!”
“I don’t know how.”
Her hand punched some menu surface, her other yanked the control stick. The shuttle roared and sky filled the window. There was no sliding, no holding on, just a sharp sting in his back when he hit the cockpit rear wall. Out of all rotations not to wear torso armor…
Someone’s leg pulled off his chest. Soft, human. He turned his neck and it hurt. Would the spores still fix what the fall had broken, now that their group were enemies of Green Wave?
Terg smashed topside-first into the bulkhead. A terrible crunch. Cha hoped neither the alien’s shell got cracked nor the cockpit exit caved in. If the thick door got out of alignment, it might not open anymore, but that was a later problem.
Cha’s hands searched for something that was not a fellow passenger to hold on to, but the moment when the shuttle speeding away under full thrust would pull the vines to—and hopefully beyond—their breaking point came too soon. He was thrown upwards, half-turned mid-air, then crashed once more into the cockpit wall.
The blood in his mouth was warm and salty. He spat out, leaving a reddish streak on the cockpit wall he slid down on, his body crumbling into a mangled position.
“We made it! We’ve broken free!”
Baaii sounded so euphoric—until she turned around and her smile vanished.
“Everybody all right?”
“No,” Cha coughed.
Breathing hurt. Ribs puncturing his lung? Someone cut the power to the cockpit, and the lights went out.
***
The spine-chilling metal on metal screech woke him up. How long had he been out? Terg pushed the bulkhead open in his visual periphery. Baaii’s face looked as worried as it was blurry. He could breathe freely, though. The spores still did their ill-understood wonders.
“Where are we?”
He could hardly hear the words himself.
“On the roof. A much better landing than the takeoff.”
He stretched out his hand and wiped a sweaty hair strand out of her face.
“You’re a fast learner.”
Laughing still hurt, but her smile was worth it, even if it lasted just for a tick.
“We’re not going to be alone up here for too long. The vines will start scaling the hall.”
She pulled Cha up. His left shoulder stung, and his vision did not fully clear, but he could balance on his undamaged legs.
“Status? How’s the Prophet?”
“Immortal,” said Vriishany. “Do not worry about me.”
The screeching ended.
“The mortals are bruised and have a few broken bones, boss. Our big new friend just heaved open our exit.”
Terg turned and his claw picked up his strip beam. His other branch arm tapped on the weapon casing a few times.
Cha nodded. “I know, Terg. Everyone, gear up and follow me.”
***
Baaii had set down the shuttle on the flat part of the roof. The large panels covering the structure did not bend at all under the load of the vessel. Maybe the diin’s hall had been designed extra sturdy, planning for events like this.
“Vrroo, Zaa, and Zmege, peek down the outer walls, see if we’ll have company.”
The guards groaned as they started moving, some limping. Yelling wasn’t good. Cha swallowed the blood still pooling in his mouth. They were in no condition for a fight, a miserable rescue party for the Goddess, but who else was going to try it?
“Walls clear, boss. Baaii must have ripped these magiis vines for good.”
“Let’s get inside while they lick their wounds.”
The access hatch was a pleasant surprise by not being an obstacle. Four rounded, overlapping roof sections folded open using a manual crank, giving way to a wide rubberized ramp. Cha was glad Terg could stay with the group; the dark giant being the only one at least looking unharmed from their bumpy flight up here. Once inside, the hatch could be closed again, but not locked. Nobody assumed anyone unauthorized would make it up here. This was the first good news in a while.
“What’s that smell?”
Acidic, pungent, and sweet. The wild flora of Green Wave had varied aromas, but no place smelled like this.
“The diin,” said Vriishany.
Had the Prophet been here before? Maybe she wasn’t just trying to see the diin—maybe it was a return visit. All that talk about the plan, about prophecies and visions, blind faith in what’s about to come—it hadn’t occurred to Cha for one moment that his dreams didn’t have to show the future. Maybe they showed the past. The Prophet, crying, at the feet of the diin. What had happened here?
Terg, leading the group, slowed down as he reached the bottom of the ramp. Their path split, what looked like metal grated walkways hanging suspended from the hall’s ceiling by metal cables. One led straight ahead, the other turned left. Was it the choice that made the alien hesitate, or the smell of its master? Terg’s father. Father of all Võmémééř in this galaxy.
“Cha, that walkway is open on the sides. We’ll be exposed.”
“We have to move quietly. Guards, file on me. And limp silently.”
He wished he could communicate the tactical basics to Terg. To his relief, the administrator placed his legs deliberately, avoiding the gaps in the grating, making no sound. When Cha reached the walkway, he understood Terg’s hesitation.
The diin.
The building’s size was not ceremonial; its tall central structure not simply representative. The hall was not a monument to what the diin could become. It was a single, enormous room, sized to fit its only resident. Cha had seen the lava tube worms on Papraj, but they looked like pets compared to this life form.
His subconsciousness had told him it looked like a tall, dark tree. The reality was a column of organic matter, twisted, coiled, yet straight enough to reach for the sky, spiked with branches, thick and spindly, claw-fitted and thorny. A tree from a nightmare, but much larger than the imagination could conjure up.
He held his breath and looked all the way down, into the steamy depth of the hall, reddish mists wavering around the giant’s foot, a wide, funnel-like intertwined chaos of rugged shuttle-sized fibers spreading into the wide base the diin’s body rested on, planted on the uncovered surface of Green Wave.
Planted.
The diin was many things, but first and foremost it appeared like a plant. A plant on a hyper-flora planet. Green Wave, the willing host, who grew the alien from a tiny twig held at the mercy of Linuka Omga’s hands to a towering giant. Green Wave never posed a danger to the diin. To the semi-sentient plant continent racing around this rock, the diin must have appeared like a higher being. Just like Linuka Omga appeared divine to people across the stars. But here, in his home, the diin was a god.
And down there, so tiny that she looked insignificant, was the human Goddess, Linuka Omga, lying motionless, covered by a coat of red spores.
Goddess of the Galacticide continues on this website with new episodes each Tuesday.
Copyright © 2026 Bert Oliver Boehmer. All rights reserved. No part of this serialized novel may be reproduced, reposted, or distributed in any form without the prior written permission of the author. The creation of any derivative works (including translations, adaptations, or other transformations) is likewise prohibited without permission. The use of any portion of this material for training or developing artificial intelligence or other machine learning models is strictly forbidden.
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