[ WP ] You are an archeologist exploring the ruins of a dead planet .

**Part 1** 
 
 2134 was a great year for humanity. Our mining colonies are finally turning in profits, the terraforming of Mars is nearing completion with the very first colony scheduled to be declared habitable by the end of the year and we celebrated 5 fruitful years of the United Earth Government. It's funny how things played out pretty much exactly like the science fiction `` movies'' that grandpa used to tell us about - `` Aliens are invading! Let's stand together for humanity'' and all that. I wish it were that exciting. All we had was an unidentified signal blocking our comms on the Antrix-7 asteroid belt mining camps that went away just as we detected it. Scientists and researchers got excited for a month then dropped the case entirely when there were no leads. Everyone thought it was a hoax or maybe the Terran Mining Corps AI systems finally got something wrong. And then it happened again. The mining rigs on sector 45 got disabled and instead of the usual error code payloads from the mammoth machines, all we got was this encoded message -'No. Mining. Here. Home. Go. Back.' There were 3 things really really wrong here: First, the drilling rig could n't'talk'. All it could do was mine, relocate, mine. If something was wrong, it would let the Lunar Monitoring Station know and wait for instructions. There is no way the rig tried to communicate with us on it's own. Two, AI does n't talk like that! If it was n't for the attached meta, even I have difficulty telling AI speech apart from normal human speech. If there is an AI uprising, I'm pretty sure the AI overlords would draft a better warning for it's creators. And finally, the nearest human beings who could have hacked the rig are on Mars building our colony. There are no sanctioned hardware on Mars that could communicate with a Terran mining rig all the way on the Antrix belt. 
 
 
 About a year passed with absolutely nothing else happening. Meanwhile Earth scrambled to finish the Scout4 space scanning array satellites that can detect space activity to warn us if our unfriendly space neighbours decided to pay us a visit. We did n't even bother looking too deep into the matter of having company in the universe, it was all hands on deck. Weapon systems, survival training camps, D-Day vaults, negotiation committees, Global Earth ambassador - everything had changed. The Scout4 system was finished just in time to detect and document the most defining moment of human history. Something we were always fascinated by, a question everyone asked themselves every time they looked up at the night sky, something which was a genre in itself, something which seemed like our natural objective of existence -'Are we alone?' And on October 4th, 2128 the Scout4 system reports said,'No'. 
 
 
 The United Earth Government was formed a year or so after'the event' or'Day 0' as reddit was calling it. The last five years was spent in frantic preparations for today. We do not fight today. We do not begin a last stand or start an invasion. We're starting a journey. You see, we did detect and confirm alien life. But they were n't coming for us. They were leaving their planet. 
 
 Proxima b was discovered way back in 2016 and was dubbed an'Earth-like' planet but researchers quickly lost interest in it as it was too far away to conduct any fruitful research or exploration. It was monitored but was largely uninteresting, given that there was nothing there but rocks and gases. But when we detected spaceships suddenly launching from its surface in swarms and disappearing into outer space, we felt a weird mix of emotions. The fear of the unknown, the anger of being trumped by these'others' who hid in plain sight and are apparently capable of moving the entire population of their planet at will. Probes were sent to Proxima Centauris star system on recon missions to scour the planet and search for life on nearby planets as well. We found nothing. Except for some structures that suddenly appeared apparently from under the surface of the planet and a huge and intricate network of superstructures hidden underground, detected by the modified Galileo 9 space probe fitted with Terran Corps' scanning systems. The Dante space vessel, which was going to attempt to'jump' to Proxima Centauri and take an entire crew of researchers, military personnel and hardware was given the green signal last month and we had wrapped up our training program a week ago, this free time being unofficially designated the'goodbye week'. The crew of about 60 personnel left to their home nations to spend what could very well be their final days on Earth with their families. Saying goodbyes, about to be heroes, about to be immortal. I decided to stay behind at ISRO's Kolkata launch facility, now run by the United Space Command and start this blog of course. My wife knew I wo n't come back home for the week cause I've never been good with goodbyes. I'm supposed to tell my wife and two little boys that I'm about to leave our galaxy looking for space people. How does a man even start that conversation?! I know exactly what gramps would say if here were here - `` Whiskey''. 
 
 *Note to all: I've never written anything in my life. I read a lot but never write. This is my first try and I'm not sure if I'm anywhere near good enough. If it is n't so bad and you guys want a part 2, I'm gon na get me a beer and get busy. Cheers! *
