The acceleration of the Moon away from Earth had begun.
The Moon was hanging in the sky of Earth’s day side when the first bombs were detonated. The flare from each explosion briefly lit up the Moon in the blue sky, giving it the appearance of a giant silver eye frantically blinking in the heavens. When night fell on Earth, the one sided flashes of the Moon still shone the light of human handiwork to the surface twenty-five thousand miles below. A pale silver trail following the Moon’s back side was now visible. It was composed of the rocks blasted into space from the Moon’s surface. Cameras installed on the propulsion side of the Moon showed strata of rock being blasted into space like billowing floodwaters. The waves of rock quickly faded into the distance,becoming thin strands trailing the Moon. Turning toward the Earth’s other side, the Moon circumscribed an accelerating orbit.
Humanity’s attention, however, was now squarely focused on the great and terrible ring that had appeared in the sky: the Devourer’s approach loomed over the Earth. The enormous tides its gravity caused had already destroyed Earth’s coastal cities.
The Devourer’s aft engines flashed in a circle of blue light as it engaged in final orbital adjustments on its approach. It eventually perfectly matched the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, while at the same time it aligned its axis of rotation with Earth’s. Having completed these adjustments, it ever so slowly began to move toward the Earth, ready to surround the planet with its huge ring body.
The Moon’s acceleration continued for two months. During this time, a bomb had exploded within its surface every two or three seconds,resulting in an almost incomprehensible total of 2.5 million nuclear explosions. As it entered into its second orbit around the Earth, the Moon’s acceleration had forced its once circular orbit into a distinctly elliptical shape. As the Moon moved to the far end of this ellipse, Fangs and the Marshal arrived on its forward-facing side, away from the exploding bombs. The Marshal had expressly invited the alien emissary for this occasion.