= Drawlloween story #1 - Dead Start =
 
This is fucking insane!" whispered Ensign Giblits.
"And that's not all!" Sargent Paleo pulled him toward himself behind one of the columns supporting the roof, just in time before one of the other people caught mindlessly in the network of shoots and vines began to move. She pulled the green, tube-like structure from her mouth, from which a viscous mass still oozed, and made her way shuffling toward the light.
"This isn't like the budded drones of the previous species we knew, this one converts the population to create drones. Breaks their spirit, and fattens them up to the point where they have an easy play with their fellow species to devour them, then fatten up even further."
"But why would she do that? What use is it to her ..."
"Outside!" waved off Sargent Paleo. The two made their way back, careful not to touch any of the plant structures that were growing all around.
 
In a secured place, the Sargent showed Giblits the recording of a surveillance drone taken through a destroyed roof. One of the natives, with her stomach distended and still well showing the outline of her fellow citizens she had previously devoured, walked up to one of the buds, from which in turn sprouts grew toward her, penetrating through her skin, and all the body openings into her, sucking her out until a few seconds later all that was left was a pile of skin and skeletons.
"I'm sorry I dragged you here, Timosin, that was your name, wasn't it?" The ensign nodded. "But you can't judge the real extent of the danger from the records alone. I hope you can convey at least some of that to the General Staff."
His tablet vibrated silently, and after a quick glance at the message, he simply stated, "Go!"
Back in the shuttle, he said, "Too bad we can't save the planet. This species is spreading even more rapidly than the others, despite the metabolic intermediate step. It didn't even take a week for this one to spread. The dossier says how to recognize its purely vegetative preform. Once it forms buds, and generates from the people those ..."
"Zombies," Giblits interjected.
"Actually, I wanted to avoid that term, but well, once she creates these zombies, it's basically already too late. We haven't even been able to evacuate one percent of the population. Hundreds of millions in quarantine who lost their loved ones and now have to find a new home."
 
They had just docked with the shuttle when it was reported over the intercom that the evacuation was complete. Only these incurable eating machines remained on the planet.
Out of nowhere, another planet appeared, not speckled green-blue-brown-white like the one they had just left, but smooth and monochromatic like a skin-colored billiard ball.
"Ready for sterilization?" asked a young female voice over the intercom.
"Yes, cleared for sterilization, authorization Paleo Seven Seven Eight Four Omega."
"All right, Uncle! Love from Mom and Emily!"
"Don't call me that over the intercom!"
 
"Hold on ... Paleo, not Tammy 'the Tummy' Paleo?"
"Yes, her mother is my sister," the Sargent replied briefly, then spoke into the intercom again. "Be extra thorough this time, this is a new species. Don't take any risks."
"Come on, that doesn't happen to you three times!" reported Tammy back somewhat dourly, but Sargent Paleo remained silent. He was already concerned enough that he himself had a job that he wondered why he was even alive until now, just before his retirement. Then his older sister Samantha was eaten by a Pred during a vore attack, which was the catalyst for his younger sister, the nestling, to start working for the police on the planet with the most vore cases in the entire galaxy. And then there was the thing with Tamara, but that was another story on a whole other level anyway.
 
From the cockpit it could be seen how the sphere, three times the size of the planet, moved towards the planet, a huge mouth formed on the side facing the planet, opened, larger than the planet itself, completely absorbed it, and its lips closed in front of it, without the planet even having contact with it. A starless night had suddenly fallen over the billions and billions of walking eating machines on its surface, with only strange gravitational events and earthquakes indicating anything special, while Tammy carefully slid the planet down into her stomach, careful to avoid any physical touch. Once there, there was no stopping her digestive fluids. Mercilessly, they flowed out of her glands and onto the surface like a deluge, annihilating all organic life on the surface in a fraction of a second. Wavelike contractions of her organic Hammerspace exerted shear forces on the surface from a distance, crushing the uppermost layers of rock to ensure that any possible cysts and spores that the plant creature might have formed would be crushed. Then the waves of contractions became wider and wider, so that the crustal material was mixed with the magma of the mantle, and merged with it. Not until all this was completed, and Tammy was sure that there was no longer any danger of infection, did she proceed to disassemble the planet into its raw materials as she would with any other.
 
Ensign Giblits watched the spectacle of the devouring spellbound, and could only guess at the elaborate processes going on inside Tammy, while Sargent Paleo turned away. To him, each of these last measures was a Pyrrhic victory, in effect a defeat. "To the lights in the sky, thank you for the planet eaters, but if a species should arise that even the planet eaters cannot cope with, then have mercy on us, you stars."
 
After the Sargent exited the shuttle, and entered the frigate through the airlock, Giblits detached the shuttle, and with a handful of data crystals, made his way through the nearest jumpgate to the control center. This information was too explosive for the wireless channels, too easily a panic could break out that would further complicate the containment of this danger, which was currently still taking place on the edges and not in the more civilized center of the galaxy cluster.