"Dr. Gan."
The catastrophe had struck so suddenly that Yue Yuan felt his throat go dry. He forced himself to remain calm, commanding his vocal cords not to tremble.
"Dr. Gan, perhaps you don't realize that the situation is far worse than a disaster in the Alpha Centauri system. It’s not just the triple-star system. The same thing has happened to our Sun."
Yue Yuan had managed to steady his voice, but upon hearing this, Gan De’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He looked as though he had misheard, his frame shuddering. "What... what did you say? The Sun too...?"
Yue Yuan stepped forward and gripped Gan De’s arm. He could feel the older man shaking beneath his hand.
"Yes. Just before you arrived," Yue Yuan replied, his gaze locked onto the astronomer’s eyes.
There was no mistake. The solar signatures, combined with the final messages from the Yinghuo Base and Earth, mirrored the Alpha Centauri event perfectly. If Gan De had concluded those distant stars were undergoing a supernova, then the Sun was undoubtedly suffering the same fate.
Logically, none of these four stars—including the Sun—were at the end of their evolutionary cycles. A supernova should have been impossible. Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf, should have lived for hundreds of billions of years. Yet, it had detonated.
In the face of ironclad data, no matter how absurd it seemed, Yue Yuan had to believe it. Such an unnatural, synchronized eruption across multiple stars suggested only one thing: this was not a natural phenomenon. It was an attack.
"It’s over. It’s all over. Earth is gone," someone in the room whispered.
"The Sun... a supernova. It has to be an alien strike..."
"A supernova at this range? It’s not just Earth. The entire solar system is finished. Humanity is dead..."
The despair was palpable. A supernova is an event of such unimaginable violence that at a distance of only 1 AU, no amount of human technology could offer protection. Even on Mars, the radiation and heat would strip the planet to cinders in an instant.
There was no bunker deep enough. The Earth would be vaporized. A single astronomical unit was effectively "point-blank" range for a supernova.
For a moment, Yue Yuan felt the weight of total defeat. He was tempted to simply dismiss everyone—to let them find a comfortable place to sit and wait for the end.
But then, Gan De suddenly lunged toward a computer terminal in the office, his fingers flying across the keys in a frantic blur. He looked up at the group, his eyes shimmering with tears, but also a flicker of something else.
"Maybe... maybe there’s still hope."
Yue Yuan was the first to lean in, the rest of the group crowding around the screen.
The display showed an orbital map of Jupiter and its moons. In the animation, the poles of the gas giant were surrounded by hazy, shimmering lines that enveloped the entire Jovian system.
"Are you saying... Jupiter’s magnetic field can protect us from a Gamma-Ray Burst of this magnitude?" Yue Yuan asked.
Gan De didn't stop typing. Numbers cascaded down the screen as the colors of the magnetic field lines shifted.
Finally, he slammed the enter key and stared at the results. "Yes... and no. It can shield us from the radiation coming from Alpha Centauri, but not from the Sun. However, Jupiter itself can. It’s large enough—if our luck holds."
"Be specific," Yue Yuan barked.
"When did the signal from the Yinghuo Base cut out?" Gan De asked, his voice tight.
"Seven minutes ago," Yue Yuan answered instantly.
Gan De’s hands blurred over the keyboard again, switching the model from the Jovian system to the entire solar system. He plugged the data into the simulation.
"Gods be praised," Gan De whispered as the results appeared. "We have hope. The signal loss at Yinghuo was likely caused by the initial solar precursors. Based on the current distances between Jupiter, Mars, and the Sun, the primary Gamma-Ray Burst won't hit Jupiter for another 28 minutes."
"And right now..." Gan De pointed to the relative positions of Jupiter and Callisto. "Jupiter’s magnetosphere is already shielding us from the burst coming from Alpha Centauri. Because Callisto is tidally locked to Jupiter, our base is always facing the gas giant.
Look at the data. Between the planet’s magnetic shield and the bulk of the moon itself, the damage from the Alpha Centauri burst is being significantly mitigated. That’s why we’re still alive and talking."
Jupiter was the magical shield; Callisto was the physical one.
Gan De didn't wait for a reaction. He kept pointing at the screen. "The key is the Sun. Normally, even with tidal locking, Callisto couldn't survive a direct solar burst. We’d be fried regardless of which way the moon was facing.
But we are incredibly lucky. At the moment the solar burst arrives, Callisto will be directly behind Jupiter. The gas giant will take the most lethal hit for us."
"But a supernova isn't just a Gamma-Ray Burst," Yue Yuan countered. "There’s the subsequent mass ejection—the actual matter from the star."
"Correct," Gan De added. "Callisto’s orbital period is 16.7 days. By the time the physical solar debris arrives, we will be in this position. I don't know if the base can hold then. After a supernova, the outer planetary orbits will likely be warped by the sheer energy. We could become a rogue planet. In such a chaotic system, we can't predict anything... the tidal lock might even be shattered."
Gan De spoke with a rapid-fire urgency, knowing every second was precious.
Yue Yuan understood. If there was a chance, they couldn't just sit and wait. Most people on the base probably had no idea what was happening yet.
"Peter!" Yue Yuan turned to his assistant, his voice regained its commanding edge. "Take a team and notify every department immediately. Tell them to move our most critical equipment to the lowest levels of the base. No—move the most vital gear and all technical data directly into the alien ship. Tell them to move like their lives depend on it—because they do!"
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