Devourer

CHAPTER 6 Planting the Bombs

On the gleaming white plains of the Moon, a spacesuit-clad contingent stood next to a tall drilling tower. The emissary of the Devourer Empire stood somewhat apart, his giant frame another towering silhouette against the horizon. All eyes were firmly focused on a metal cylinder being slowly lowered from the top of the drilling tower down into the drill well below. Soon the cable was speeding into the well. On Earth 240,000 miles away, an entire world was glued to the unfolding events. Then came the signal; the payload had reached the bottom of the well. All observers, including Fangs, broke into applause as they celebrated the arrival of this historic moment.

The last nuclear bomb that would propel the Moon had been put in place. A century had passed since the Eridanus Crystal and the emissary of the Devourer Empire had arrived on Earth. For humanity it had been a century of despair; a hundred years of bitter struggle.

In the first half of the century, the entire Earth had zealously thrown itself at the task of constructing an engine that could propel the Moon. The technology needed to build such an engine, however, utterly failed to materialize. All that was accomplished was that the Moon’s surface had gained a few scrap metal mountains, the remains of failed prototypes. Then there were also the lakes of metal, formed where experimental engines had melted under the heat of nuclear fusion.

Humanity had asked the emissary of the Devourer Empire for technological assistance; after all, the lunar engines would not even have to be a tenth of the scale of the countless super engines of the Devourer.

Fangs, however, refused, and instead quipped, “Don’t assume that you can build a planetary engine just because you understand nuclear fusion. It’s a long way from a firecracker to a rocket. Truth be told, there is no reason at all for you to work so hard at it. In the Milky Way, it is perfectly commonplace for a weaker civilization to become the livestock of a stronger civilization. You will discover that being raised for food is a splendid life indeed. You will have no want and live happily to the end. Some civilizations have sought to become livestock, only to be turned down. That you should feel uncomfortable with the idea is entirely the fault of a most banal anthropocentrism.”

So humanity placed all their hope in the Eridanus Crystal, but again they were disappointed. The technology of the Eridanian civilization had developed along completely different lines from Earth’s or that of the Devourer. Their technology was wholly based on their planet’s organisms. The crystal, for example, was a symbiont to a kind of plankton that floated in their world’s oceans. The Eridanians merely synthesized and utilized the unusual abilities of their planet’s life forms without ever truly understanding their secrets. And so, without Eridanian life forms, their technology remained completely unworkable.

After more than 50 valuable years were wasted, the despairing humanity suddenly produced an exceedingly eccentric scheme to propel the Moon. It was the Captain who first came up with this plan. At the time he had a leading role in the Moon propulsion program and had advanced to the rank of marshal. Even though his plan was unapologetically crazy, its technological demands were modest and humanity’s available technology was fully capable of making it work; so much so, in fact, that many were surprised why no one had come up with it earlier.

The new plan to propel the Moon was very simple. A large array of nuclear bombs would be installed on one side of the Moon. These bombs would for the most part be buried about two miles under the lunar surface. Their spacing would ensure that no bomb was destroyed by the blast of another. According to this plan, five million nuclear bombs were to be installed on the Moon’s ‘propulsion side’. Compared to these bombs, humanity’s most powerful Cold War-era nuclear bombs were mere conventional weapons.

When the time came to detonate these super powerful nuclear bombs under the lunar surface, the force of their explosions would be wholly incomparable to the nuclear tests of earlier ages, suffocated deep underground. These denotations would blow-off a complete stratum of lunar matter. In the Moon’s low gravity, the exploded strata’s rocks and dust would reach escape velocity. As they were launched straight into space, they would exert an enormous propulsive force on the Moon itself.

If a certain number of bombs were detonated in rapid succession, this impulse could become a continuous propelling force, just as if the Moon had been fitted with a powerful engine. By detonating nuclear bombs in different places it would be possible to control the Moon’s flight path.

The plan would even go one step further, calling for not one, but two layers of nuclear bombs within the lunar surface. The second layer would be installed at a depth of about four miles. After the top layer had been completely used up, two miles of lunar matter would be stripped from the propulsion side of the Moon. The unceasing denotations would then smoothly transition to the second layer. This would double the duration for which the “engine” could propel the Moon.

When the Girl from Eridanus heard of this plan, she came to the conclusion that humanity was truly insane. “Now I understand. If you had technology to match the Devourers, you might be even more savage than they are,” she exclaimed.

Fangs, on the other hand, was full of praise. “Ha, ha! What a wonderful idea you worms managed to dream up. I love it. I love your vulgarity. Vulgarity is the highest form of beauty!” he commended humanity.

“Absurd; how can vulgarity be beautiful?” the Girl from Eridanus retorted.

“The vulgar is naturally beautiful and nothing is more vulgar than the universe! Stars burn manically in the pitch-black cold abyss of space; is that not vulgar? Do you understand that the universe is masculine? Feminine civilizations, like yours, are fragile, fine and delicate; a sickly abnormality in a tiny corner of the universe. And that is that!” Fangs replied.

A hundred years had passed and Fangs’ huge frame still brimmed with vitality. The Girl from Eridanus was still vivid and bright, but the Marshal felt the weight of years. He was 130, an old man.

At the time, the Devourer had just passed the orbit of Pluto. It was awakening after its long journey of 60,000 years from Epsilon Eridani. In the dark of space its huge ring lit up with brilliant lights and its immense society began its works, preparing to plunder the solar system.

After the Devourer had plundered the peripheral planets, it flung itself onto a precipitous trajectory toward Earth.