The Hexagon alarms went off for the third time. This time, at the D1Z2 Krikos Launch Terminals.
“Sir…. There is an emergency here. The ducts are opening themselves. And also, sir…. The Salvator SHK-2987 has been missing. It has just been reported. We still can’t calculate the time for which it has been missing.”
“What!! A ship… stolen… Whatever the hell is happening on my Krikos? Wait a Second… SHK-2987. That is the Krydon…” Dragomir Lunarte shouted.
The third signal also turned static. Just a few minutes later… two reports came in – “Sir…. The weapons… they are all gone.”
“Sir…. Prisoner cell 45NB is empty. The E.T. is missing.”
“This cannot be happening… what is this happening…” the situation caught Lunarte’s nerves.
Meanwhile, the Hexagon army, on the orders of Denso, had been assembling around the escape ducts. Just when the ducts were completely open along the anti-aircraft lasers at the ready, two shadows were seen through the fog, one at the Terminal Control and the other at the centre of the Hexagon blockade.
“Who are they….?” Denso inquired back from the Council chamber.
The shadows came in the light to show the two most trepidated as well as hateful faces in the minds of the Eutopium. Krawn and Kridious. Their eyes closed with a vengeful grin. Their expression seemed at the edge of a tearful breakdown, apparently held back for sane control of their body and their actions. They both stood unarmed at the centre of the blockade.
“Those two too…. What are you waiting for? Seize them… I want THOSE two alive.” Denso Commanded.
The Soldiers slowly move towards the two, while they started running towards one side of the blockade. They paced up fast and suddenly the Krydon appeared from behind, clearing out a part of a blockade using the Gravitational Pulse Gun. They both climbed up the ship, which then slowly drifted towards the Duct. Rush came out towards the Entrance of the Krydon from inside of it to Give the two elites their Weapons.
“What are you waiting for…? Bring them dow….” Denso spoke as he was interrupted by Dragomir “Kill them... Just kill them... I want nothing more… straight kills.”
But seemed like even Galacta favoured the Officers. All of them aboard the Krydon successfully, they entered the Exit Tube and sped down through it to exit Krikos’ internal Gravity. Rambler, Mrew, and Prabarus had joined them, and all of them successfully escaped Krikos’ magnetic and gravitational fields before its outer defences could be activated. But why did they escape?
♦♦♦
The Krydon Hangar- the current habitation of the convicted mutineers. Their cause justified… their motive unknown. The advanced personalised computer brain of the Krydon was now an amusement park for the tech savvies like Nahcas and Colo. Almost the whole crew was awaiting their Elites Xanethius and Kridious. Kridious walked in and informed them about the inability of Xanethius to produce himself there.
“Okay, Hon’ble Sirs and Madam. You may really want to see this,” Rambler said as he connected a cord to the back of Mrew, and attached the other end to the Mainframe.
“Officer Sachyon Sir,” Rambler gave a signal to the Explorer.
“Yes. Almost,” Nahcas said as he typed through different computer interfaces at lightning speeds. A program was uploaded, seemingly from Mrew up to the mainframe. The display streamed through the different program terminals and reached the master folder.
All the Officers were taken aback at the sight of what they saw. The very ecstatic word that could have saved all their minds from the burden of acting without knowing. It was displayed in a big and catchy font ‘The Lattice’.
“What the….” the quick collective retort came.
“Starting downstream…. Ok. Nahcas. Be ready.” Colo said.
“Yes, to the abyss,” Sachyon said as he sat on the chair and took two of the electric alternated-frequency-machine-command-streamers (AlFyMaCs) and attached them to both sides of his head.
“Ok. To the ready. In 5,” Colo spoke up as he pushed some on-screen buttons and pulled up some tiny levers. The screen started loading up producing some noisy magnetic disturbances. Mrew shut down and the screen started switching the displayed items at an immense pace. It seemed as if some kind of data was being transmitted from Mrew up to the Mainstream, and from there to Nahcas.
“What is happening?” Kridious asked.
“I don’t know. I heard them say that something or the other is too large for any general Salvator hardware to store, and only Flex Robots with Petabytes of memory modules can do it.” Rambler replied.
Nahcas started squealing in pain. The sound of the downstream started amplifying in a geometric progression.
“What is it? What’s happening to him?” Kridious said as he hastened towards Nahcas.
Blood started spurting out of his eyes, nose and mouth.
“Stop whatever is happening. Coal. You listening?” Kridious said worriedly.
“Just wait. He’d be alright. He can take it.” Colo replied.
The sound suddenly stopped. Mrew recovered, and Nahcas fainted and fell down. The Sentinels came to his aid. He woke up after certain desperate attempts to check on him.
“You alright mate? What the hell was that?” Kridious asked Nahcas as he helped him sit up.
Nahcas widened his hazy eyes and stabilised “Well….
“WHAT? YOU MAD OR WHAT? You know if you use it too much then it may risk your life.” Kridious said in anger.
“I can handle a little info can’t ………” Nahcas stopped in between the conversation. He stood flabbergasted as if he had seen the unimaginable.
“What is it?” came the voice from the rear Hydraulic door. It was their Captain. He seemed to have somewhat recovered from his unholy misery.
Nahcas started quivering in amazement and somewhat some apparent fear too. “THIS…. this… you must see this. And you’d also know why I did what I did.” He said as he disconnected the down-streaming cords and connected the upstream ones.
The screen changed interface again. It then showed in bold letters “F.G. SECTION 4592”.
The screen scrolled to another page entitled “The Black Flaggers.”
“What’s that? Code Lattice enclosure about Black Flaggers. Why?” asked the inquisitive Krawn.
“Don’t you bloody brag even in your death old man…. Bloody black flaggers. I knew the records were still there. This means... Scroll it even more. I want to see.” Kridious spoke up in emergent excitement.
The Screen Interface changed again and a page entitled “The Stillites” was displayed.
“Well… I thought… We can start with something important.” Nahcas spoke, gnashing his teeth with some pain.
“You can control it?” Krawn asked.
“My brain... Duh!!!” Nahcas said sarcastically.
“I never knew this was one of the capabilities of a psychic. Store and Manipulate information that is.” Krawn said in a slow and surprised tone.
“I prefer Mentalist…. But yeah… It was one of them. Ok…. Wait…. Here we go then. That’s all I have gathered and could store about the Stillites. Let’s start the slides then.” Nahcas said as they all gathered around the screen.
“What do you mean that’s all you could gather? Is there more in the lattice?” Kridious questioned.
“Yes… To the abyss…” Nahcas replied.
♦♦♦
Five hours later, all of the crew, including Prabarus, was assembled in the meeting room. Krawn came beside the Captain’s chair and said “My dear mates. You know why we were here, right? If you do... Do tell me. We have found so much today that we ought not to have known. Why? So that we could have lived under the bloody hypocrite curtain of leisure like the rest of them. We sure were going to break much more Lattice cyphers inside Nahcas�
�� head and those inside Mrew… but that for later, since it might really risk his life. Today I have called you here to decide once and for all. To take one last decision. Some of you are combatsmen, some are not. Many of you know me very well, while others don’t. So, I have called you out here to ask you. Whether are you ready for it all TOGETHER, or not? I have been impeached from the Captain’s chair by the Eutopium. I have submitted to my conscious now. I’d do what I want to do from what I know. I have submitted to the cause and am ready to accept anything for that cause. Are you?”
“Yes, we are…” came the almost coordinated reply from them.
“Then I would request you to pledge your loyalty to the leadership of my dear, able, and most importantly ‘young’ friend Kridious…” Krawn said.
“Wait a second… Loyalty… a big word. A pledge is too much to swear in an honest loyalty… and it is too less to formulate the trust…. Well… after all, we’ve been through now, I think loyalty is something I would not ask of you. I don’t want you to take the bullet for me... Nor for anyone else amongst us. I just want to know that when we take a bullet for you, would you make it worth it? And if you are not able to reach the end, would you do the same for someone else you believe in so that he or she might carry the weight after you? Now I don’t want you to bleed. Not for me as such. Not at my command. I have never been the thinker kind. If there’s anyone here whom everyone is naturally loyal to, then that’s him (Looked at Krawn). Yes… You… You shall always be the leader. The only one I shall ever follow…” Kridious said, creating a curious silence inside the room. Krawn looked down and closed his eyes. He then turned his face up, opened his eyes, and said “But I have failed you, people… How can I be your Captain again?”
“And who said you ever stopped being our Captain,” Colo said.
“And who cares what the Eutopium said. Have we ever listened to them?” Lina followed.
“Yeah,” Said Demo and Fusa.
“And like now of all we should finally not be listening to their shit, should we?
“You are the Captain…. As such you worry more than any of us… deserve to be the ‘senior’ one. And none of us wants the burden of decision.” Kridious said.
Krawn took his time to understand his responsibility again, the one developed from faith and not bureaucratic hierarchy. He walked across the room and gently sat down on the chair of the Captain and said “So…. Now… Since we have decided… let us say… We are no more Officers. We are not all warriors… but we are here to know and guard the truth. The last possible protectors of the truth… We are the Sentinels. Raymor… bring all the reports upon the Table interface.”
♦♦♦
Attack! The Krydon hovered in trouble. It had been several hours since their departure and it seemed that a silent infiltration had taken them by utmost surprise. Who was it then? The Sentinels rushed down to the Hangar to check on the sounding alarms there. They found one of the Fighter Crafts rubbled. Then another alarm went off in the central chamber. Krawn ordered Rush to stay and guard the hangar as they checked on the other alarm. Then all the other warning alarms of the Krydon also went off. The crew was scattered to check on the different stations. Rush was suddenly attacked from his rear and taken down. On hearing no reply from his beacon, Krawn and Kridious ran down to the Hangar to find him lying down. Nahcas and Colo followed them. The two elites anticipated a sneak attack and were able to counter it. They were able to injure and push the attacker back. He seemed like a human. Krawn told Kridious attacked in combination to take him down alive. But, before Kridious could pursue him or even think of taking him down, the attacker pressed some buttons on his left arm, and an oval shield formed around him and he suddenly disappeared.
“What the hell was that?” Kridious said as the alarms were slowly shut down.
“That was an H.T... I am quite sure of it. I have sensed this before. A low-scale one, though... But yes... It was an H.T. Jump.” Nahcas said as he moved towards the spot where the attacker was last seen.
“An H.T. Jump… what do you mean? He couldn’t possibly have… wait…. That white thing around him... It almost seemed like he teleported with it. But how is it possible? Can you trace him back to it Colo?” Krawn said.
“Yes, I can…. I can give a reference sphere,” Colo replied.
“This lattice upload is doing something to me. It is like a déjà vu. Some nostalgia thing. It seems like I have seen it. You must see this too. I definitely got something under F.G. section 5222 entitled ‘Jumpers’. Come to the mainframe,” Nahcas said as everyone there quickly moved along with him.
Krawn said on the way- “Ok… and Coal… get the coordinates ... and Kridious... get Rush to the infirmary… We can never know it all, can we? And if we don’t know it all then how’d we win. Just when I saw some hope. We cannot defy it… We can never be prepared for it… We can never escape it. And it shall always strike when we expect it the least… It will always come to us… War.”
Diaries of Flex:
Episode 14-
The Mirrors, the Shadows.
The only truth in life is death. Everything else is a creativity of fate and fortune. A person lives his whole life in endless pursuits...chasing down one thing or the other, but generally forgets that there is only one who shall always be on his tail... One he can't escape from... One he has to accept …. Death. But before dying, he creates another truth. A truth of memory. Every human being has a different set of memories. The reality is reflected solely by them. They sustain our thoughts, actions, and reactions, and guide us forward. These memories are the things that keep us from dying, that formulate that urge to survive, survive even in the end. Mirrors may reflect our face, but it’s these memories which reflect our life. But still, there is a part of us hidden from the world. The part which we know is there but is yet to be observed... Our Shadows. There is something inside us which helps us have an opinion without motivation or knowledge, without learning or seeking, and even without development or intelligence. It is our shadowed mind. In the real, material world, our shadows tend to hide everything we don't need to observe and lead us away to the illuminating light. Similar shadows are there inside our minds. Our minds are clouded with things of no purpose or motive. But our shadows sometimes make way sub-consciously to the things of importance. This is the power of the dark. We may not revere it as the light, yet unlike the light, dark is not only just present but was also working with us to guide us to the light. If there was no dark, then the light would be to us no duality... just monotonous singularity. Thus, these shadows of darkness are a symbol of illumination we must never forget...
I
n the archaic Syrobnium chants of Narma Surja “Seftironesula Mukeleni, Futolo Muta Ochenry. Riso Revula" – meaning that ‘With time, the uncertainty of shadows evolves, evolves into mirrors as Futile as the demon of rave and raze, the one who eats integrity and symmetry, yet is as verbatim and inadvertent in presenting the righteous scenario as reality itself might not recall. These shadows guide and guard our revolution.' I have not yet written a 'Diaries of Surja' and have no intentions to write one in the future. So, for any further information on him, please go to your nearest library.
We ignore our shadows in each day of our lives. If there was no light, then there would be no shadows. But if there is light then there will be shadows. It is a universal compulsion. Shadows are the necessity of enlightenment. While we tend to observe only the light, our shadows mark the darkness to be reckoned with. 'Darkness' - the unholy term of the old... is it that unholy? The speechless intimacy is greater than the loud sycophancy. If the dark is natural damnation, then nature is a racist. What if the light was dark and dark was bright? The prevalent 'darkness' would be the hypothetical light. What if in this scenario, the light is considered the ominous one. History would have changed dramatically. But this darkness of the shadows is not merely an object of scorn; for when the light is taken from us, it is darkness which stays with us.
Some say that it is darkness which takes the light from us. No. It is the light which keeps us from the reality of darkness.
After reading about the Star Eater Krikos, and Flex's Idea of a new civility, I had become very serious with regard to Flex's writings. I became a regular reader and assessor of the huge collection of pages. This time, I was going in a sequence and not just random pages. I started where Flex had mentioned Krikos and moved on to the next header. I was going forward, reading meticulously everything that the book had to offer, in sequence. But I guess while writing, Flex had a different plan.
Three days after reading about the Krikos I went on to the next chapter. It was a day of relief since I had completed the most highlighted of projects that was the integration of the new 7.9Terahertz computer chip. It was my first achievement in that particular field. So, my seniors had let me off for a day or two. I rather was planning to utilise them to further my work on Flex's mind. As you know, Flex was very fond of poetry. Specifically, the non-decipherable ones. First, I am going to tell you about the Galacta Cantos Stunt of his. Flex, because of a particular reason (which you may come across later in my notes) was compelled to write certain things in the form of a poetic enigma. Writing ‘Galacta Cantos’ above the messages was an arbitrary compulsion for Stillites writing to/for Galacta. He was just going by the norms there. There is no one in this world who could understand Flex better than me, and I was hopeless in understanding his poems. Even now, when I present them to you with an introductory paraphrase, it might be difficult understanding at the first moment. It’s my way of asking ‘Is it me, my time, or my intelligence? ' . I know it is none of that. You may remember when I told you about Flex talking about a holder. After deep thoughts and meditation, I came to know that I was the holder (ignoring the fact that my Stillite assassin shouted twice about me being one). Now physically, I had held the book many a time. But Flex said that his holder shall be the holder of Kronos. This curled my mind for days and nights and I was forced to read the Cantos again. This time, I was very observant and could understand a line or two considering I then knew about the Krikos and a few other things. It was almost like reading a cypher and trying to decipher it. That was it. There was a key to deciphering. And there was a holder of the key. The key to the cypher unlocked it, but the holder safeguarded the key. The key here was Flex, and I, Dr Daniels, was the holder. Only I, being the one who knew Flex the best, could understand his statements the best. But why lyrical cyphers? A person uses surreptitious voices only when he is afraid of something. What is it then which Flex feared? There was no continuum after that chapter. That's when I came to know that just like I opened a random page to read, Flex used to open a random page to write. Yet another 'Galacta Cantos'. It was entitled Etiamnum Triumphos (Stillness Triumphs). But this one strangely had a much longer prologue-
Krikos: The Vertical Horizon Page 16