“Actually, we were not completely off-guard,” Fangs said. “When the Earth began producing large quantities of nuclear bombs we began to constantly monitor their whereabouts. We made sure that they were installed deep within the Moon, but we did not think…” Fangs continued, but it was musing to himself than replying.
Behind his visor the Marshal smiled faintly. “We aren’t so stupid as to directly attack the Devourer with nuclear bombs,” he said. “We know that the Devourer Empire has been steeled by hundreds of battles. Earth’s simple and crude missiles would certainly have one and all been intercepted and destroyed. But you cannot intercept something as large as the Moon. Perhaps the Devourer, with its immense power, could have eventually broken or diverted the Moon, but it is far too close for that now. You are out of time.”
Fangs snarled. “Crafty worms. Treacherous worms, vicious worms.” He shook his head, bristling. “The Devourer Empire is an honest civilization. We put all things out in the open, yet we have been cheated by the deceitful treachery of the Earth-worms.” He gnashed his huge teeth as he finished speaking, his fury almost goading him to lock his giant claws around the Marshal. The soldiers and their rifles aiming right at him, however, stayed his talons. Fangs had not forgotten that his body, too, was but flesh and blood. One burst of bullets would end him.
With his eyes firmly fixed on Fangs, the Marshal stated, “We will leave and you, too, should make your way off the Moon, otherwise you will surely be killed by the Devourer Empire’s nuclear weapons.”
The Marshal was very right. Just as Fangs and the human space forces left the Moon’s surface, the interceptor missiles of the Devourer struck. Both sides of the Moon now flashed with brilliant light. The forward facing side of the Moon, too, exploded as huge waves of rocks were blasted into space. All around the Moon, lunar matter was violently scattered in all imaginable directions. Seen from the Earth, the Moon, on its collision course with the Devourer, looked like a warrior, wild hair ablaze with rage. There was no force that could have stopped it now! Wherever on Earth this spectacle was visible, seas of people erupted into feverish cheers.
The Devourer’s interception action did not continue for long and soon ceased. It realized that it had been completely meaningless. In the moments in which the Moon would close the short distance between them, there was no way to divert its course or to destroy it.
The explosions of the Moon’s nuclear propulsion had also ceased. It was now fast enough and Earth’s defenders wanted to preserve enough nuclear bombs to carry out any last minute maneuvers. All was silent.
In the cold quiet of space, the Devourer and Earth’s satellite floated toward each other in complete tranquility. The distance between the two rapidly decreased. As it dwindled to 30,000 miles, the control ship of Earth’s Supreme Command could already see the Moon overlapping the giant ring of the Devourer. From there it looked like a ball bearing in a track.
Up to this point the Devourer had not made any changes to its trajectory. It was easy to understand why: The Moon could have easily matched any premature orbital maneuver. Any meaningful evasive action would have to be taken in the final moments before the Moon’s impact. The two cosmic giants were almost like ancient knights in a joust. They were charging toward one another, galloping across the distance separating them, but the victor would only be decided in the blink-of-an-eye before they made contact.
Two great civilizations of the Milky Way held their breath in rapt anticipation, awaiting that final moment.
At 22,000 miles, both sides began their maneuvers. The Devourer’s engines were first to flare, shooting blue flames more than 5,000 miles out into space. It began its evasion. On the Moon, nuclear bombs were once again ignited, ferociously detonating with unprecedented intensity and frequency. It carried out its adjustments, matching its course to ensure a collision. Its arcing tail of debris clearly described its change of direction. The blue light of the Devourer’s 5,000 mile flames merged with the silver flashes of the Moon’s nuclear blasts; it was the most magnificent vista ever to grace the solar system.
Both sides maneuvered like this for three hours. The distance between them had already shrunk to 3,000 miles when the computer displays showed what no one in the control ship dared believe: The Devourer was changing course with an acceleration speed four times greater than the limit the Eridanians had claimed possible!
All this time they had unreservedly believed in this limit. They had made it the foundation of Earth’s victory. Now, the nuclear bombs remaining on the Moon no longer had the capacity to make the necessary adjustments to give chase. Calculations showed that in three short hours, even if they did all they could, the Moon would brush pass the Devourer, falling short by 250 miles.
One last burst of dizzying flashes washed over the control ship, exhausting all of the Earth’s nuclear bombs. At almost exactly the same moment, the Devourer’s engines fell silent. In a deathly quiet the laws of inertia told the final verses of this magnificent epic: The Moon scraped past the Devourer’s side, barely missing. Its velocity was so high that the Devourer’s gravity could not catch it, only twisting its trajectory as it zoomed past. After the Moon had passed the Devourer, it silently sped away from the Sun.
On the control ship the Supreme Command, too, fell into a deathly silence. Minutes passed.
“The Eridanians have betrayed us,” a commander finally whispered in shock.
“The crystal was probably just a trap set by the Devourer Empire!” a staff officer shouted.
In an instant the Supreme Command fell into utter chaos. All but one began to scream and shout, some to vent their utter despair, others to conceal it. All were on the verge of hysteria. A few of the non-military personnel wept; others tore the hair from their heads. Spirits stood teetering on the verge of the abyss, ready to fall forever.
Only the Marshal remained serene, standing quietly in front of a large screen. He slowly turned and with one simple question calmed the chaos. “I would ask all of you to pay attention to one detaiclass="underline" Why did the Devourer cut its engine?”
Pandemonium was immediately replaced by deep thought. Indeed, after the Moon had used its last nuclear bomb; the enemy had no reason to shut down its engine. They had no way of knowing whether or not there were any bombs left on the Moon. Furthermore, there was the danger of the Devourer’s gravity catching the Moon. Had the Devourer continued to accelerate, it could have easily extended the distance to the Moon’s trajectory. It could have – should have – made it farther than those tiny, barely adequate 250 miles.
“Give me a close up of the Devourer’s outer hull,” the Marshal commanded.
A holographic image was displayed on the screen. It was a picture being transmitted by a miniature, high-speed reconnaissance probe flying 300 miles above the Devourer’s surface. The splendidly illuminated surface of the Devourer came into clear view. In awe they beheld the massive steel mountains and canyons of its giant ring body slowly turn past their view. A long black seam caught the Marshal’s attention. In the past century, he had become very familiar with every detail of the Devourer’s surface, but he was absolutely certain that that gap had not existed before. Quickly others, too, noticed it.
“What is that? Is it…. a crack?” someone asked.
“It is. A crack. A three thousand mile-long crack,” the Marshal said, nodding. “The Eridanians did not betray us. The data in the crystal was accurate. The acceleration limit is real, but as the Moon approached, the despairing Devourer decided to damn the consequences and to exceed it by four-fold, desperate to avoid the collision. This, however, had consequences: The Devourer has cracked.”