The Transfer

Please consider joining my discord server for announcements and discussions for my stories.

https://discord.gg/NuRXePpH6j

****

5 kilometers off the Chilika Lake, Odisha; 12:20 pm, 2nd January 2019

The fishing boat 'Surya' was returning home with yet another successful trip to the sea, its crew had caught a great haul. The crew was in high spirits, as was its captain, Sharad.

'Ah, the feeling of joy when everything goes according to plan…" Sharad sighed. "I missed that so much. Such a shame my children and most of my grandchildren were easily seasick." He looked out of the window seeing some of his mates playing cards. He decided to join them, but as he was getting up, he stumbled back on his chair.

Agony, sheer agony. That was how he would describe the feeling later on as he was enveloped in seemingly mental pain and then the feeling vanished just as it had appeared. The world felt wrong, the sea felt wrong, his existence felt wrong.

It took a while for him to calm himself, as he rubbed his forehead. Something was wrong, he could feel it.

"The horizon…" The captain of the fishing boat whispered in amazement before rubbing his eyes and looking again. Something definitely was not right. He had never seen so far into the sea before, it was almost as if the horizon had shifted a few miles away from him.

"Hey, Sibu!" He radioed for his grandson. "You've studied science and stuff. Tell me, why would I see the horizon farther than it should be?"

"I dunno, maybe if the planet gets bigger out of nowhere. Or maybe you are drunk again." Sibu shrugged. "Why are you asking me that?"

The captain called for Sibu over the radio to get his butt to the bridge as fast as he can and handed him the binoculars. It took a while for him to come to terms with the fact that he could now see the horizon farther than what he was used to. It was a subtle difference, but it was there.

"I…I need to talk to my friends about this." Sibu took out his cellphone, only to find no signal on it. Frustrated, he put the phone back in his pocket and morosely peered out of the bridge. "Surely there's something wrong. Could we be hallucinating?"

His grandfather looked grim. "I have no clue, boy. I have been fishing for decades now, and I have never seen anything like this before. We are changing course. We need to get back to land as soon as possible. My gut says that something really big is about to happen. For now, let's just focus on getting home."

****

Chief Minister's Office, The Secretariat, Bhubaneswar

In the Chief Minister's Office, the tension was palpable in the conference room. The officers were nervous. While there was no doubt that their intelligence was right, it was a difficult concept to grasp. The entire state of Odisha vanishing, and appearing in a new world? 'Preposterous!' would be the first thought in the mind of anyone who hears it!

The officers stood up as Birju Patnayak, the Chief Minister of Odisha entered the room.

"Sit down, please have a seat." Birju got to business without wasting a moment of his time. "Explain the current situation. Krishnan, you are up first."

Krishnan Roy, one of the more capable officers under the CM's command stood up "Sir, we have lost contact with New Delhi. Not just that, all of our offices in other states are now incommunicado. We initially thought it had something to do with the cellphone network disruption that we have been facing, but after the landline and sat phones didn't work, we have reason to believe that it's something much worse."

"I have spoken to the Meteorological Office, and new wind streams are popping out of nowhere. The night sky is different, the horizon is now 20 kilometers away, and … "

"And there's a mountain range to the northwest of our state and an extra moon." Birju completed the sentence for Krishnan. "I am aware of all those facts. I am not asking for a situation report, I just need an explanation for this."

Krishnan fidgeted a bit before straightening up. "All evidence points to the fact that we may have been transferred to a new world." The entire room looked at him as if he had grown a second head. "I know it sounds absurd, but my team has been racking its brain for hours now, and this is honestly the best conclusion we have come up to. I need your permission for sending planes to survey further than weather balloons."

"What about the roads? Surely we can send a few trucks to explore?" The CM suggested.

"Mr. Chief Minister, the roads and rails have ended abruptly. We had a derailment not too long ago and the investigators were stunned when he saw the rail lines vanish abruptly at the point of derailment. It is the same with the National Highways."

Birju closed his eyes and pondered for a few minutes. "Very well then. Krishnan, you have the permission to use the trainer airplanes to survey the surroundings. But if your theory is correct, then we are also cut off from the petroleum supply from the Central Government. What's the situation regarding that, Nitesh?"

Nitesh Pradhan, the minister in charge of energy, steel, and mines perked up. "We have negligible strategic reserves of petrol and diesel. This situation could have been avoided if the Central Government in New Delhi agreed to establish a strategic fuel depot in our state. With our current reserves, we can eke out about four days of normal traffic. While the Paradip refinery is functional, it's not going to produce oil without a steady supply of crude oil from Venezuela. In summary, we are screwed."

"You seem happy about that." Krishnan mustered up every bit of sarcasm in his body

"Negativity is not going to lead us anywhere is it?" Nitesh replied, his eyes twinkling.

"You could at the very least act a bit more concerned! What are we going to tell the public about this event?"

"We need to maintain law and order at all costs," Birju replied. "Ravi, you have priority for fuel. If my worst fears are true, then we have to treat this as an existential crisis. Make sure your men realize the gravity of the situation and act accordingly."

Ravi Chandran, the Director-General of Police nodded "Of course sir. We could arrest the usual troublemakers and anti-socials in advance before they make any noise. Social media is non-existent now ,so the usual tactic of using Twitter to provoke crowds is not going to work."

"Only arrest the most problematic players. We can't waste our resources on petty thieves. Speaking of thieves, what of the Chinese ships in the harbor?"

"They are still there with the latest shipment of steel and iron ore pellets. The Navy sailors stationed at Paradip Port have apprehended the crew of those ships. Should we confiscate their cargo?" Ravi asked.

"Well of course! Unload their ships and do whatever you want with the sailors, I could care less. Make sure the ships are unharmed though."

"Do we have enough electricity?" Krishnan shared his concern.

"The Hirakud hydro-electric dam is working to the best of its ability, as are our thermal power stations. Since the Talcher Thermal Power Plant has no other states to send power to, Odisha can enjoy all of its 3000 MW of electricity. We may have to cut power periodically in rural areas but the major cities will have a nearly uninterrupted power supply."

"That's one silver lining. Talcher's management is private, isn't it? Make sure they know we are their new bosses now. What about our food requirements?"

"We would need to tighten our belts, I am afraid." Saurav Das, the Minister of Agriculture replied solemnly. "With no fuel for tractors and farm equipment combined with a possible shortage of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, we can expect a significant drop in production from the next growing season…"

"Damn it!" Birju cursed under his breath. "Try to secure more farmland and employ as many farmers to man these new farms."

"I will do my best but we do need the Rourkela Steel Plant to churn out equipment as quick as we can."

"Ah, about the steel plant.." Nitesh stammered as he lost his composure for the first time in the meeting. "We might be facing a shortage of coking coal. If this indeed is a New World then our trade routes with Australia don't exist anymore. And neither would our steady supply of coking coal."

"Can't Talcher coal mines supply the steel plant with the coke it needs?" Krishnan asked.

"Not in the quantities the steel plant would need," Nitesh replied. "Majority of the bituminous coal that we mine has a higher sulfur content than that of metallurgical coal."

"Well, something is better than nothing. What about communications?" Birju asked.

"I took the liberty of reactivating the older radio stations and 'commandeering' the new ones. Mass communications would not be a problem. We would need to erect new radio stations in the more remote areas though. Cell phone towers are operational." Ravi said.

"Good work. Nitesh, you are very popular with the general populace with that ever-present smile on your face. I leave it to you to think of an appropriate response to the public regarding this situation. I hereby label this the 'Transference Event', an existential crisis that we have to deal with on a war-footing. I expect all the ministers and officers present here to show utmost sincerity in completing their objectives! Are there any more items to discuss?"

After the room was quiet for a while, Birju adjourned the meeting and all the officials scrambled to complete their tasks.

****

Paradip Port, Odisha; 4:22 PM, Eight minutes before the Transference Event

The sailors aboard the Rajput class destroyer INS Rana were having a much-deserved supper break, after dealing with numerous tourists and their incessant questions. While most of the visitors were polite, some had the gall to impose their Wikipedia knowledge on the sailors, as if they knew more about the ship than the men who have been serving her for years.

"Kids these days, man! They think they know everything, just because they have the internet in the palm of their hands. A few of those idiots were badmouthing our ship, calling it third-grade Soviet hand-me-downs!"

"Don't stress it, buddy!" Another sailor quipped. "A guy asked me if we had live ammunition and missiles aboard this ship."

"Did you tell him the truth?"

"What? Hell NO! I told him that we don't have any ammunition, as this is a civilian operation and not a military one."

"Speaking of missiles, do you think we would get the new Brahmos missiles once we go back to our home port? I think I am a bit jealous of the Kolkata class destroyers getting all the cool toys."

While the crew were gossiping and enjoying their lunch, Captain Vivek was not feeling very good. His instinct honed by years of experience knew something wrong was about to happen.

And then it hit them. A sudden shroud of despair engulfed the ship and all its sailors as the very fiber of their being started screaming for mercy. The miserable feeling subsided a few seconds later.

'What just happened? It almost felt like I was drowning!.' Captain Vivek had to consciously force his hands from trembling. He rushed towards the canteen on the ship and found several sailors incapacitated because of the mental agony. He ordered the still-capable sailors to get them some alcohol to soothe their nerves.

On contacting their companion ships, the amphibious assault ship INS Airavat, corvettes Kuthar and Karmuk, multi-role frigate Shivalik and the destroyer INS Ranjit, they found out that their sailors too ,had the same soul-crushing experience. Not taking any chances, Captain Vivek sounded a general alarm, ordering all stations to be manned. He contacted Port authorities to let his ship disembark into the open waters and requested tugs. Once in open waters, he focused his attention on finding and dealing with possible hostiles.

"What do you think happened? This was surely not normal!" Vivek paced up and down the bridge. "This has to be an attack. Must be the Chinese!"

"It might be. I have already had men arrest and apprehend the Chinese cargo vessels. We are searching through their cargo as we speak." his XO Ramesh confirmed.

"Good, very good. I swear to…" Whatever Vivek was about to say next died in his throat as he looked at the sky. 'That's not the moon I am used to seeing!' He thought.

"Ramesh, is it just me going insane, or did the moon change?"

"Yeah, they did, all two of them," Ramesh whispered as he pointed out to the second moon. Vivek wished that all this was just a bad nightmare.

After further investigations, they found more discrepancies. The horizon was much farther than expected, the color of the ocean was not as murky as he was accustomed to and on testing the salinity of the water in the onboard laboratory, the water did not match that of the Bay of Bengal at all!

All ships tried contacting their homeports but to no avail. They could contact Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Odisha but that was it. Not even the fellow naval ships a few hundred kilometers away were responsive.

Their suspicions were confirmed when hours later, the Odisha Government told them that they were indeed in a new world, and the information would be broken out to the general public within a few hours. The government requested the aid of all navy ships for exploration of the surrounding waters which the COs readily agreed to. Captain Vivek was chosen as the head of the newly labeled 'Grey Fleet'.