Alien Singularity

Chapter 11. Alien Surprise

Since no meaningful information could be obtained from the aliens, Proxima b Federation decided to just keep a close eye on the region, to make sure no surprises came from those machines. For a couple of years, nothing seemed unusual, and aliens started to get behind people's mind.

Today, the world was expecting one of the biggest astronomical events on the planet: a giant solar flare was about to erupt. Proxima is a red dwarf, and periodically would give off huge solar flares, making it a hundred times brighter. Plants and animals on this planet had adapted well, and as the sun increases its brightness, animals would quickly seek shelter, and plants would shrivel their leaves to withstand the intense radiation. Flares only last about a few seconds and plants would perk up again when the sun dims down, and animals would come out again.

Scientists have been able to predict flares with great accuracy. Daily weather forecasts on the planet would include not only temperature, wind, rain or snow, but also flare activities. Regular flares were usually harmless and would be just a temporary increase of brightness in the sky, fun to watch and to experience. Occasional large flares would call for necessary evacuations, mandating all humans and farm animals/pets to stay indoors. Large flares could destroy some fragile vegetation and animals, as well as causing floods and landslides when large amount of ice melt as a result of a sudden heatwave. Large flares can also disrupt human's communication systems, knocking radio transmission systems out temporarily.

Today's upcoming solar flare was predicted to be the largest in history. It will make the sun about one hundred times brighter. Everyone was urged to get inside, preferably underground, with windows shut, and close their eyes when the light became too bright. Yet those diehard outdoor fans had donned their protective gears and camped outside to catch this rare moment of extraordinary view.

The moment had come. The sun started to heat up, and it became increasingly brighter. People inside their above ground houses could see light from window and door cracks become increasingly brighter, and out in the open, the world just became totally blinding. Intense heat started to scorch the ground, and smoke started coming out of the ground. The world suddenly looked like a living hell.

Fortunately, the flare did not last very long. It lasted only for ten seconds, and then faded away quickly, and within a few minutes, animals started coming out of the ground, and trees started coming back to life. Wildfires started in many places in the hottest parts of the planet, as well as some mudslides on mountain slopes.

People started to come out from indoors and carried on their lives as usual. But for people on the dark side, things were different this time, the sky was no longer bright. The dark side was now, completely dark. People scrambled to call the authorities to report the light reflector outage, yet calls could not go through due to communication system being knocked down by the solar flare.

When the communication finally came back online, the entire world, not just the people on the dark side, was greeted with a shocking news:

"Citizens, this is your President. We are under attack. Alien machines have taken advantage of the solar flare that blinded us temporarily to destroy our solar reflectors and most of our satellite. They have declared war on us. These are merciless machines that can not negotiate. We have no option but to fight back."

"At this point I would like to call on all citizens on the dark side to evacuate to the equatorial zone as all reflectors are destroyed and the darkside is no longer habitable. We will make arrangements for transportation and settlements. The terminator line regions will be crowded for the time being, until we defeat our enemies and reclaim this planet."

Images of the alien attacks appeared on the screens across the world. As people watched in horror, alien space crafts, all very futuristic looking, flew in the orbits of solar reflectors, shooting them down. They were moving at such high speed that by the time human space crafts just started to get ready to engage, alien machines have completed their mission and retreated.