Krikos: The Vertical Horizon

by Rishabh Dubey

  The duplicity of co-ordinates thus formed is called translational duplicity, and it removed chances of uncertainty by 96%.

  This is how matter can be successfully transmitted between dimensions to increase speed beyond that of Electro-Magnetic Impulses.

  This prediction analysis is called instantaneous duplicity analysis and utilizes a combination of speculation methodologies to an almost perfect scientific clairvoyance.

  So, those who hoped for the 4th-dimensional travel must be happy. I opened a multiverse of dimensions for them to explore. The Hexkon Thrust was puny compared to this form of travel. Although it is impossible for the humans to make machines capable of travelling between dimensions, the person who can do that does not have much time to waste on such petty things.

  “Dimensional travel huh? “, I thought.

  I don’t know why but the theory kept reminding me of the neutron stars. Yes, those stars which shrink to the size of a human head. Although it had no relation to the subject, dimensional travel reminded me of a neutron star, or rather the phenomenon of capacitation. I went through the line “So those who hoped …. Petty things” – with an obsessive iteration.

  “What was he hinting toward? “, I thought because I knew Flex loved Word-Ciphers. An idea immediately struck me. Flex... ridiculing his audience for his creation. It meant that he wanted rather a different variety of audience. One which became such a spectacular audience that he might not have had to ridicule them. “Yes ... he wants me to overlook the petty things … that is to overlook the basic inference of this theory.” But what was I to think? Probably something I won’t relate this theory to whatsoever. Something which nobody would think. Something very specific to me since he had given it to me. He wouldn’t possibly be stupid enough to hand it to a clueless helpless chap, would he? ‘Aha,’ I thought ‘capacitation… Yes… He knew my love for the conception of neutron stars… Dimensional shrinking. He knew I’d be the only one to get such peculiar perception. So, what about capacitation?’

  Then I put my mental processes to work toward a conclusion-

  When one travels from a lower to a higher dimension, energy is being used to shrink it to fit the dimension’s gate. But when one travels from a higher to a lower dimension, although it may seem so, energy is not being released to undo the shrink. Rather energy is being further consumed. Why? Yes. Because it is being used to create a relatively same surface area for the resultant matter in the lower dimension. Or we can say that the energy somewhat released in this transition along with the energy supplied is all being consumed to virtually CREATE matter. That is what the translational duplicity told us; the amount of created matter. That is the matter created from energy. So, if flowing energy is transmitted into a higher dimension, and is transmitted back, a part of it is converted into matter, because energy flow will be restricted in a very high dimension with an enormous Aggregrion thrust. This is it! Flex is telling me how to capacitate massive amounts of energy into puny batteries. Tremendously large amounts. A very idiosyncratic capacitor that is solid matter itself. That is why he said that the only human to create multiverse travel possible was too busy. He wanted me to lampoon the subject and divert my attention to the core subject. And I did it……. I got it. But still, I didn’t know if I should converse with the Officers of Science on the subject considering the greed and need of the Eutopium and my possible assassination. But then I thought …. Whatever. I must give it to the council as soon as possible. But as soon as I hit the door, a voice reverberated in my mind, and I stopped. They were the words that Flex said to me right before he had entered the nuclear chamber of our camp base on Jupiter. Right before he had handed me his Journals. Right before he had sacrificed his life -

  I am ready …………………. ARE YOU?

  Into The Dimension:

  Episode 8-

  The Annaeaxian rebels.

  “W

  hat happens after death?”, a thought that often strikes the mind. One might never know the answer to this question, howsoever the science may evolve, Or might he? For warriors, a greater thought itches throughout life, that is “How would they die?” A half-hearted warrior fights to live. A real warrior fights to win. There is a massive difference. Even dying with honour is a victory for the brave. But living with cowardice is a pity one cannot escape. See the game of fate now… The half-hearted die in battle while the real warriors die a pitiable death due to old age. Their fault. They never lost.

  Krawn and Rush piloted their respective Spacecrafts towards the instantaneous darker end of the Annaeax system. Rush located the beacon of the holo-chip on Muster to find that he was on Annaeax, presumably lead by Prabarus. Rush got a lead and flew towards the region on the planet followed by Krawn, but before they could land they were attacked and stopped by a bunch of antiquated anti-aircraft guns which somewhat seemed quite effective against their own antiquated aircrafts. They crashed in a large open field behind the centre of the attack’s source. Some unofficial looking combat vehicles approached their crash site. They both came out with their full guard and suit on.

  “What says the planet profile?” Krawn asked.

  “It says… well… 47% Oxygen and no poisonous gases.”

  “Be doubly sure, will you… As such we got them on us already,” Krawn said as he took out and activated his Magnus Gladius. The ground reverberated both in the metaphorical and physical sense at the very activation of the Gladius’ core.

  The Vehicles stopped, and several Annaeaxians came out of them with various weapons. They started shouting at Krawn and Rush in their natural tongue.

  “Hey hey hey... Wait people wait. I don’t get what you say,” said Rush as they both stepped back a little and put down their weapons considering the gravity of the evident misunderstanding.

  “Hey, Rush… by chance did you carry the portable F.T.G.?”

  (F.T.G. stood for Flex Transliguor which was a frequency and voice modulation based language decrypting device.)

  “I never used it, man… personally no… but it is the time that we do.”

  “Start the scanning then.”

  “I got just one of them, though,” said Rush as he threw an electronic mask to Krawn, while they both simultaneously removed their suit masks. Krawn put on the F.T.G. mask. He started replying to the Annaeaxians who then did away with the aggressive welcome. An Annaeaxian who seemed like their leader came to Krawn and started interrogating. Krawn told him everything, and they both greeted each other. Both the human visitors were taken back to the Annaeaxian village.

  Back at the village, they were told about the condition of the Annaeaxians. They came to know that the planet was divided into two sects – The Royalists and the Rebels. The royalists supported the human colonists, and the rebels categorised those lowly outcasts, who were being directly affected by the unholy activities underlying the ‘trade’ between the royalists and the colonists. The Colonists called the Annaeaxian (Yumsonian) rebels as the ‘Celestials’. But based on Krawn’s recent personal experiences, he had understood that they called everyone who stood against them as Celestials. Then as they both sat in the guest chambers of the central camp of the rebel leader, a very well acquainted voice was heard. It was Muster who came in along with Prabarus. He greeted the two of his comrades along with Prabarus and told them how they were saved during a rebel raid of the carrier in which they were present. Prabarus introduced them to the different members of the house and told them that, at first, he was a royalist. But when he came to know about the destructive and sadistic nature of the colonists he revolted against them. So, they declared him a rogue outlaw and tried to kill him. It was then that he had escaped away and was chased down the Magnetic Field.

  “The Colonists huh? Suckers are going to die someday at my hands… If just we had backup.” Rush said.

  “Backup. That reminds me. Muster, were you able to get in touch with the base?” Asked Krawn.

  “I can’t… The colonists
blocked communications outside of a specific radius.”

  “Well, you got leads on others or something? Mira?” Krawn asked desperately.

  “Sorry, Sir. No, I don’t.” Muster replied.

  They all ended the conversation with the fall of the day and were escorted to the guest resting chambers. In the middle of the night, Krawn was woken up by a small and unnoticeable tremor which could have been felt by only cautious specialists.

  He moved out of his chamber into the open field. There he kept staring into the sky for a sign. Rush and Muster also ran to the field followed by Witty and the village head. They all seemed to stare into the darkness of the starless part of the sky. The sky which lied under the shadow of the Colonist Space Station. Suddenly the darkness was killed by what appeared like a shooting star; but on careful observation, one found that it was a spacecraft crashing down the distant district. The district which lied in the royalist occupancy. Rush suddenly came to the Captain and informed him about a fluctuating beacon on his holo-chip.

  “Captain… must see this. It is Ram’s beacon. And it is synchronised along with that plane,” said Rush.

  “If that is Ram then it means Mira is with him. What about her beacon? You get it?” asked Krawn as he tried to observe the spacecraft's trajectory.

  “No Captain. I don’t get any other beacon,” replied Rush.

  “It may have been destroyed during the attack. I must… I must go there. Ram is injured, and she cannot defend herself… For god sakes, she is a physician,” Krawn exclaimed turbulently.

  Prabarus intercepted – “You must not go there. You cannot go there. It is a Critical zone. A Celestial is to be killed at sight in that zone.”

  Krawn said- “That gives me more of a reason to go help her, doesn’t it?”

  Krawn discussed it with the native leader, and they agreed to assemble a team of twenty rescuers and head towards the crash site. Rush and Krawn being the most trained in search and rescue operations lead their two different squads of ten people each. They both moved from two different arcs. They were informed by Prabarus and the other Annaeaxians that the night time, though seemed very safe, was the hour of the day requiring most caution. It was then that the colonists usually attacked.

  They hastened towards their heading through different paths keeping their position and/or identities discreet. Krawn arrived at the crash site before Rush, but to his misfortune, he was immediately followed by Royalist defences. Then came in Rush with his backup and helped Krawn to defend the Crash Radius. Krawn ran towards the entrance of the spacecraft which suddenly opened. The fog showed a shadow of someone. Krawn took guard. The person moved out and fell. Krawn found out that he was none other than Ambassador Castino Gorvez, who had been injured badly in the crash.

  “Is there someone else with you?” Krawn asked.

  Castino replied with a faint voice – “Ram and Mira. They are in pretty bad sha…”

  Krawn ran inside to rescue the two. After all their mates were recovered, they all retreated fast to the village and took the injured to the Village Doctor. The most critical was Ram. Krawn sat around all of them taking rounds around Mira. He was extremely glad to have found Mira, yet he was unhappy at the misery of his crew members. Then Castino woke up.

  “Hey, old guy… Wakey uh? I guess not used to all this battle, are we?” Rush gave a friendly mock to Castino.

  Castino moaned as he opened his eyes “Arghhhh… Huh. They almost got me. When we crashed, I couldn’t think of anything. I was stranded behind a pile of rubble. I saw Gart die in the follow-up explosion which reduced some of the rubble. I could gather only a bit of myself and saw that the Infirmary had an opening. I went inside and secured it since I found it was safe. The Primary escape pod down the Infirmary; I am not a good pilot, but I used it to escape with Mira... She was seriously injured… I sneaked behind the planetary space station when I was attacked. Thank Galacta … she saved us all… May she bless the souls of my good comrades.”

  “Be at peace Ambassador. You have done much more than your bidding. And I can’t be more thankful and obliged for saving my wife. Just one last question… Did you see Steffy? Or Cantor?” Krawn asked.

  “About that Captain… Prabarus here has to say something.” Muster said.

  Prabarus spoke through the F.T.G. - “I saw the girl through the pane of our hideout on their carrier. She has been taken hostage on their ship. And there was that bald guy with her too.”

  Krawn shared his melancholy- “Oh! My Galacta. What am I going to tell Tref back home? We need to get them back.”

  “That is if we do get back.” Rush exclaimed.

  “We need a response team. We must get back to the Krikos. But we are short on technology” Castino said.

  Krawn looked at Mira and Ram lying down on their beds. He got lost in thought for some time and was approached by Rush “Captain… What’s the deal then?”

  “Muster… you know the exact time we left Krikos?”

  “18 full conventional days and 17 hours.”

  “And how long since we have we lost contact?”

  “10 days and 7 hours.”

  “10 days 7 hours… That leaves us with a standing line of 7 days. And it may take about 13-14 days at maximum to reach Annaeax from the Krikos’ last known location, right? And if it was nearing Annaeax and considering the gravity of our mission and level of our crew… the backup squadron may be packing heavy power. So, call it 11 days at maximum. That gives us about 85-100 hours to prepare.” Krawn said.

  “Prepare for what?” Castino asked.

  “An all-out breakout attack,” Krawn replied.

  “And how do you suppose we’d win? And who are these you are speaking about? A backup squad… Eutopium won’t agree to that. I, being a member, know…” Castino spoke and was stopped by Krawn.

  “With all due respect, Ambassador… You may know the Eutopium better than I, but I know him the best. I know them the best.”

  “Once again I ask, who are they; and who is he?” Castino repeated his query.

  “Rush… prepare the villagers for battle… and help the doctors with the recovery process. We have a standing deadline of hundred hours at most… They were coming.” Krawn said.

  “Aye Captain.” Rush left as he smiled back at the Captain.

  “What the hell is going on here? You were not telling me something. Who is coming?” Castino shouted.

  Krawn halted, and with a rare overwhelming little grin covering his face, turned and said to Castino “They are all coming ambassador. And they are being led by the war-seeker himself. Kridious.”

  Diaries of Flex:

  Episode 9-

  The Tears of Eternity.

  G

  alacta … for some she was the goddess of serenity, for some the goddess of evolution, and some the goddess of nature. She was mostly revered for her self-proclamation of just being a messenger. Or in fact ‘the’ Messenger… of Hope. So, a wide majority of people believed her to be the goddess of hope. But in the infamous words of Flex – “I didn’t see, hear or sense in any way that Galacta claimed to be the goddess of hope. She somewhat created humans... didn’t she … well there it is … the proof of otherwise “. He rather held that she was the Goddess of Eternity.

  Flex had a disease known to us as the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. He was obsessed with the phenomenon of Oaths and Principles. It was as if he must follow them or else he'd have to commit suicide. It was not a fatal disease in our time (and I guess it's not even a disease in yours). But Flex had made an oath after a little incident … to never to go to a psychiatrist. His obsession with principles had enlarged to such an extent that he had transformed himself into a “say and do” type of a man.

  When Flex was small (he told me this story once), his guardian uncle told him “Galacta is not the Goddess of each and everything that other people claim her to be. She doesn’t even come under the definition of a god because neither is sh
e omniscient nor omnipotent. And her absence from the realm after Kronos’ damnation takes away even the folio of omnipresence. She is just waiting for her children to understand the importance of stability. Yes, she is not a goddess, but a symbol of Stability, a symbol of Stillness. “. I almost forgot to tell you that his uncle was a Stillite spokesman who was hunted down by a government Mastiff, a week after he had told Flex these horrid things. These words seemed like the last words of enlightenment that Flex ever received from anyone. So, he undertook an oath to propagate the principles of his undertaking. The principle seemed as if the only positive and truly inspiring words bolstering the Stillites in his point of view.

  Flex was not much into the communal wars outside his window. He did not even look much outside of his desk. With all the advanced calculation, speculation and algorithm creating technical devices he had, which could have created wonders with just a small voice command, Flex preferred rather scribbling with the device he called “pen” into an actual “notebook”, both long antiquated devices which Flex had acquainted me with.

  Back in our University days, Flex and I were roomies as well as best pals. We were mostly looked down with a stare of scorn. I was hated because I was the University topper in the Virtual Site Analysis -It was the only subject I majored in that Flex didn’t, and I majored in 6 of them. But the antipathy for Flex was for a vaguely similar, but mostly different reason. Although Flex had achieved distinction in all of his 72 majors, people rather hated him because he never showed up for the lectures. And by never... I mean “NEVER EVER” … not on the first day of the sessions, not on the last … not in between and not even on our convocation. The Royal Spectacle to be handed over to the Prodigy of the University always went unclaimed for as long as he was an active alumni. Unfortunately, … I had to also bear with my best friend during my professional apprentice years... A whole decade of 16 Professional Masteries, incidentally, all with Flex. To make it worse, we both were recruited as Physicists/Engineers to the Rehabilitation program and that too with Flex as Group Captain.