A Tale of the Dark Ocean

Claire was the only woman onboard the ship. It so happened that she also had the very unique job of monitoring the radar. It was a thankless job, where she sat all day in front of the holograph and watched for any suspicious objects approaching the ship. It had been 3 days, and nothing had shown up on screen. However, she preferred this job to the alternative, staring into the blackness of the galaxy’s deepest ocean, which was the job of the pilot.

It had been the defining moment of her career, after years of being the radar operator on spacecrafts, she felt relieved and excited when she was chosen to man the radar on the first extra-terrestrial submarine, the Corinthian. There had been much talk about it, after the planet Laguna had been discovered. The planet was pure ocean, an atmosphere and mass similar to that of Earth, but no land, just pure ocean. Estimates and calculations had been done, and scientists have believed for long that the planet-wide ocean was at least 100km deep, and at the bottom of it all, a thick layer of ice probably another 50km deep. This was already much deeper than the deepest part of the Mariana’s Trench on Earth, a mere 10km deep. Many teams have been considering voyages to the planet, some wanted to try touching the bottom. So far, only Claire’s team, Neptunian, had touched the bottom of the ocean.

However, Claire was bored. Ever since they descended into the ocean 3 days ago from their floating base Erodes, the Corinthian had done nothing but sinking. It was an uneventful 2km/h downward sink, and even after reaching the ice layer 2 hours ago, they had encountered nothing. There were sayings and beliefs of gigantic monsters inhabiting the monstrous ocean, but nothing at all. It was a very wet, dull planet.

Claire closed her eyes and recalled the events before the Corinthian had begun its descent. She and the rest of the crew had been living on the Erodes for nearly half a year while the Corinthian was being constructed and tested. Erodes consisted of one large building on a buoyant structure, which itself was huge. It had to be huge, for the waves on Laguna were terrific. They raced at nearly 100km/h and some were nearly 400ft high. The structure had to counter this by being 20km long and wide and the building had to be placed nearly 1000ft above sea level. The structure had 4 legs partially submerged in the water, like an oil rig, and each leg was about 1km long and wide at its base. There were powerful black-hole motors in the legs which helped the Erodes stay put. Sometimes, it even moved the base out of the way of 2 huge colliding waves. The building consisted of an endless array of corridors, labs, offices and living quarters. There was no need of going outdoors, unless to take the shuttle into the orbiting space station. No one wanted to go outdoors anyway, it always rained. There was just so much water on the planet that it kept evaporating and pouring back down again. It was impossible to see the star the planet was orbiting, for it was always covered by dark clouds. Erodes wasn’t the only floating base, there were 3 others for teams that had actually managed to get the financial backing and resources to do research work on this planet, but they were all spaced at least 100km apart. If one team needed help, it had to rely on members of the space station. It was impossible to travel through the insane ocean on its surface.

Claire was the radio operator, so she was largely excluded from the mission planning and technical discussions involving the operations of the ship. However, she had at least the basic knowledge of what the Corinthian would be like. A very simple design, one pointed cylinder, 500m long, 100m wide, built with Acrinix, the strongest alloy ever made by mankind. The hull had to be strong, it was dealing with pressures of 1 MPa. A person ejected at that depth would be crushed to smithereens, if he wasn’t killed by the force required to eject him first. The interior was complete with radio operating rooms, labs and living quarters, not to forget the onboard kitchen, which mainly produced dried processesed foods similar to those used in space travel. The engine room housed the black-hole engine, which provided the power necessary to propel the ship through incredibly dense waters. There was also an electrolysis chamber, which took in the water from the ocean and converted it to hydrogen and oxygen. This initiated addition had saved much preparation time since there wasn’t any need to fill the ship with oxygen before the dive. Other compartments included a weapons chamber and control room.

Claire had remembered the day the Corinthian began its mission. She was seated in the centre of the control room, behind the pilot and co-pilot, observing the 3D holograph for any signs of obstructions within a 10km spherical radius. As the green light was given and the ship began sinking, Claire had turned her head to watch the last of the light disappear. She was one of the four fortunate people to see the last of the light while in the ship, the other being the weapons manager. The other 6 members said goodbye to the light the instant they stepped into the hatch. From then on it was darkness all the way, save for the mini-headlights that shone for a metre in front of the cockpit.

Earlier that day, Claire had cheered with the rest as the ship encountered the ice floor. After it had anchored itself in the ice with its mechanical claws, a few members of the team had deployed their personal robots out of the ship to survey the seabed. This of course wasn’t the actual seabed, it was due to the high pressure that the rest of the water 50km down had turned into ice. The real seabed most probably consisted of rocks, just like the Earth’s oceans. Some of the robots had found interesting things, like queer fish-like creatures swimming around aimlessly. In the depths of the ocean, they had no visual organs, much like those deep-sea fish on Earth, and their body had somehow adapted to the almost unbearable pressure. Scientific studies down here were unusually comfortable, since the team members could lie on their beds while playing with their robots via dataports.

Claire was now drifting off to sleep while the holograph remained as silent as ever. Then, out of the blue, a crew member let out a shrill cry of joy.

“I’ve found something! Something big!”

That was enough to make everyone else abandon their posts and come rushing to his quarters. Claire did a final check on the holograph before doing so. Nothing, nothing at all. What did he mean by ‘something big’?

By now, everyone had crowded over his dataport, which showed the vision of his robot in 3D holo-space. Through the strong head light, it appeared to be looking at some form of wrecked vehicle. To be more precise, it was a severly damaged submersible. The hull had been shattered open, and it seemed completely crushed by some unknown force. So this was the ‘something big’, it wasn’t ‘big’ as Claire had imagined, but it was definitely ‘big’.

“Could it belong to one of the other teams?” asked one of the team members, Marty.

“I doubt it,” said the person in charge of that particular robot, Chris. “The other three knew how stupid it would be to send in a machine not made of Acrinix.”

Nothing else was said as Chris maneuvered his robot to get closer to the wrecked craft. It became apparent that there was no room for anyone inside the interior full of wires and machanical junk. The craft had been unmanned. It could have been one of the other team’s after all, to test the limits of certain materials under pressure.

“Most probably it belongs to the Athenians, they came to this planet only to plan on staying on the surface and doing their experiments from there. I can imagine them throwing away their money to do this kind of stuff, they should have a lot of it without a big ship to build.”
It was Laika, another team member. That was his nickname actually, after the first dog to go in space. His real name was Lawrence and was the only member of the Neptunians not to have any prior space experience before coming to Laguna.

“Hold on,” said Captian Falkes. “The Athenians are located on the opposite side of the planet, are you sure the undersea currents could carry it this far?”

Chris moved the robot even closer to find more clues as to who the craft could have belonged to. It didn’t carry any of the other team’s symbols, nor any form of writing on the hull. It was then mutually decided to take the craft aboard the ship, part by part, using the 6 robots . The robots were not designed for complicated mechanical handling, it was a job best done by human hands.
After 5 hours, the robots had recovered most of the machinary and a fraction of the hull of the submersible. After doing post-mission checks on their own robots, the team members proceeded to investigate the wreckage. Claire had set the radar to auto-alert mode, so she would receive notification should any thing appear nearby. She too wanted to join the team as they searched for clues to the submersible’s origins.

The crew had carried the parts their robots brought back to the lab and were now taking good looks at it. The first discovery was already enough to shock everyone. Apparently, the metal used to make the submersible was a metal even stronger than Acrinix. No lab on Earth could have ever produced the pressure and temperature required to make it. Chris shook his head as he looked at the scraps through his microscope monacle. Meanwhile, Marty and the rest were analysing the machines that had been onboard the submersible. Not only were they made of the same type of metal used to make the hull, but their design was so complicated and full of unknown parts that no normal engineer could have possibly created the circuits involved.
“I don’t understand any of this!” exclaimed Marty in frustration. “Have the other teams done some secret projects of their own and built this?”

“What puzzles me is that despite the toughness of the metal, it still got crushed under the pressure of the ocean. Furthermore, no sign of propulsion could be found,” said Chris.
None of the team members knew what to make of it. It was clearly a mysterious discovery, but that was it, nothing else could be said.

“It must be of extra-terrestrial origin.”

Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and stared at the wisecrack who said that. It was Laika, the only man who had never been on other planets other than Earth and Laguna.
“Impossible!” said Captain Falkes, a little disgusted. “Our computers have done intensive calculations on the development of this planet, and the chances of it having intelligent life are virtually a million to one. The conditions are just ridiculous.”

“No sir, I meant this is a craft from another planet, not Laguna.”

Everyone kept silent at that moment. Despite FTL travel being in the craze these days, only about half of the galaxy had been thoroughly explored. It wouldn’t be a surprise if another intelligent race had found Laguna first and had already deployed personel to study it. If that was the case, where were they? Why had every team from Earth not reported seeing any signs of these alien beings? Did they grow tired of Laguna and leave?

There was a loud beeping sound from Claire’s auto-alert device, which broke the silence and made everyone jump. Now the attention was on her, as they all followed her as she raced to the control room. The sight that greeted them was an even bigger shock than Laika’s relevation. On the holograph, there was a virtual image of a ship twice as large as the Corinthian. It too was cylindrical in shape, and in every aspect, looked like a bigger version of the ship. It maintained a vigilante on the edge of the radar, in other words, 10km away from the Corinthian.

An alarm sounded in Captain Falkes’ head. He instantly gave the command to shut off all lights and machines. The panicked crew members raced wildly through the ship, throwing switches and smashing buttons. Soon, the entire ship was pitch black and quiet. Even the radar had to be turned off lest the other ship became attracted to the EM waves being emitted. Everyone was now huddled in the control room, waiting for the 2 minutes to pass after which the radar would be turned on briefly, to see if the other ship was still there. None of them had felt so much fear in their lives.

“Why are we panicking?” whispered Marty on instinct. “The ship looked much like ours, it could have been another team’s.”

“If that’s the case, why didn’t the space station pass us any of this data? With a ship that big, it can’t be kept a secret from the organisation,” said Laika in a jitter.

It was true. Big operations that each team were planning had to be made known to the space station, it was a law made to keep track of all the money flow. The space station would then inform the other teams what that team was doing, mainly to promote competition but also to allow for possible agglomeration. The gigantic ship that was a mere 10km away from them now hadn’t been reported. Either someone had broken the law or it was piloted by intelligent beings looking for the submersible they had lost. If so, it was best not to be found.

“What if they had installed a tracking device in the submersible?” Chris said in fear. “They would know where to find us…”

Nobody dared to give an answer. They all began to miss the surface of the ocean, Erodes, Earth and their families. Being captured by aliens at the bottom of a 100km deep ocean hadn’t been on their minds.

“I should turn on the radar now…” said Claire, and she pushed the button to switch on the holograph. To everyone’s horror, the alien ship was now right next to the Corinthian! There was no scream, just shudders of horror as Claire quickly turned off the radar again.

“Are they going to kill us?” another member of the crew chipped in his own nonsensical question.
Once again, no one dared breath a word. If they were to die, it would happen in the next few seconds. The alternative in their minds would be to get captured by the aliens and be subjected to cruel experiments.

3 minutes had passed, and Claire had already missed the interval by a minute. No one complained her, for they were all afraid as to what would happen next. In the end, she turned on the radar anyway, to reveal the truth which everyone was afraid to witness. It was hence a relief to find that the ship had vanished off the radar. It had probably been passing them, and probably didn’t notice them, which was unlikely. To play safe, Claire turned off the radar again and waited another minute. True enough, the ship was no longer there. The rest of the crew started to feel more relaxed.

The danger was far from over however. Falkes ordered a minimal startup of the ship, with only the engine and radar running. The weapons system was also activated, in case the first interstellar war should find its origins here. Slowly but surely, the Corinthian began making a slow climb to the surface. An hour passed, then two, then three, the alien ship never appeared again. Falkes then decided it was more or less safe and ordered the ship to resume full operations, but he kept Claire and the weapons managed on standby.

A day had passed since then, and the Corinthian was now nearly halfway to the surface. Claire hadn’t slept, and neither had the weapons manager nor Falkes. Marty had the good mind to make all three of them a cup of coffee each.

“You guys have it tough,” he said as he passed Claire her cup.

“Thanks,” she said, trying to give a smile despite her weariness.

“Say, why do you think they didn’t take any action?” he asked suddenly.
Claire was a little surprised by the question, but nevertheless tried her best to answer.

“Maybe they weren’t interested in us?”
It was a rather lame answer, but not a bad one considering the situation.

“They must have set up some sort of underwater base somewhere,” said Falkes, hoping to strike a conversation to keep himself awake. “Might not be too far away from where we landed. They should have been looking for their lost submersible, that was their main objective. They were not interested in us, that’s why they decided to ignore us.”

“But it does puzzle me,” said the weapons manager. “They knew where they lost their submersible, then they arrive and find us instead, they should have known we had it in our posession.”

“No, we didn’t have the entire submersible,” said Falkes. “We left quite a number of parts on the ice. They might have found the parts and probably assumed that was all that was left of it.”

“Yes, then there’s the mystery on how the submersible got damaged in the first place,” chimed Marty. “Something must have attacked it, but what?”

A brief silence followed. All the theories had been put forward, but unfortunately, no one was brave enough to go back down there to prove them right. It had been a harrowing experience, and once this encounter was made known, no one would be in a rush to send more ships to the bottom.

“Ah, enough of this. Claire, have you sent the report back to Erodes?”

“Yes sir.”

The rest of the journey back to the surface went on without any incident. The alien ship never returned. Everyone was happy they had made it back in one piece, and they had started a much heated discussion on the frightening encounter. The space station had already received the report, and had dispatched personel to interview Falkes and other members of the crew. However, that was all they could do. The station couldn’t produce EM waves powerful enough to penetrate the 100km of water, not to forget the atmosphere. There was no way anyone would know what was happening down there without actually going down there. The ice and all that had been theories which had been proven correct, but some theories would remain theories. After the descent of the Corinthians, other teams had sent down their own ships to investigate the bottom, even the money throwing Athenians. The ships of 2 teams returned with nothing to report, but the ship of the Alkeies never returned. The crew aboard the team’s floating base Nomadais had reported that before all communications were lost, the captain had let out a blood-curling scream. The ship had been missing for 3 months. As such, research on Laguna still carried on, but was confined to the depth limit of 20km. No one will ever know what was really down there, for now.

Down there

Commander Loita gave off the vibes of salutation as 2 corporals drifted pass him onboard his undersea ship, Elfis. He was tired, and his frequencies have been getting cranky. He floated to his own living quarters and lay on his bed, and groaned as his transparent body hit the dark mattress. It wasn’t even a body, it was pure energy, the energy which would be required to make up the mass of an average human being. It was a lot. Despite this, he couldn’t tap the reserves from his body, but was confined to the energy derived from the metabolism of heat. There was no light down here, not in the ship either, for they didn’t need light. They could feel where everything was.

The war with the Heisians, another race of matter manipulators, had started almost a year ago. They and the Rintians, which was Loita’s race, were the only 2 matter manipulating race of energy beings living on the planet with the endless ocean. The fighting on the seabed wasn’t much, for now, just a few minor skirmishes here and there, but things got complicated when that mysterious ship arrived half a year back. It had been the same shape as the Elfis, just half the size. It had been encountered near the site where a Helsian unmanned reconnaissance vehicle had been destroyed, and Loita was assigned to retrieve it. When the ship arrived, most of the vehicle had been removed, and Loita had assumed the Heisians were lurking around somewhere. When he encountered the ship on the radar, his intuition had told him not to fire. Cautiously, he had ordered for an approach, and had determined the ship wasn’t of Heisian origin. It was another intelligent race. Contact couldn’t be established because all communications and electronics were turned off for some reason, but Loita managed to get a microspy to latch itself on the windows of that ship to take a look.

The image that returned was shocking. From the ship, it was clearly a race of matter manipulators, but the beings inside the ship were also made of matter! It looked as if they were afraid, and Loita realised they were afraid of his ship. He then concluded that this race were aliens from another planet coming to study his, and they must have obtained the wreckage of the Heisian vehicle for research purposes. Not wanting to harm those creatures who had nothing to do with the war, Loita ordered the Elfis to turn back, but he kept the microspy on the windows, for evidence and to keep track.

Loita smiled to himself as he lay on the bed, thinking what that race must have thought of the planet. It wasn’t a place where intelligent matter beings could live, yet he doubted they knew anything about energy beings. They must have thought Loita and the others were residents of another planet that had also come to study the ocean planet. They must have thought there were matter structures nearby for Rintians to stay. But the Rintians didn’t need matter residences,other than the bases where they kept the ships, they stayed on the ice itself. The ships merely served as armour from the Heisian’s energy weapons. Before seeing the creatures, he too didn’t know that matter beings could actually exist. The many images in the microspy had been transmitted to the council of Rintia, who were really fascinated by the find. Following the first ship, 3 more had arrived afterwards and Loita and other commanders were sent to keep an eye on those ships, while keeping themselves hidden. It was thus tragic when a Heisian ship was encountered while an alien ship was under observation. The alien ship was destroyed, and all the matter beings on board were killed.

By now, Loita had got up to his ethereal feet and was staring outside the windows of his living quarters. Through the dark abyss of the ocean, he wondered what wonders were up there, above the surface of the black waters, above the mythical entity of legend which a Rintian had yet to see, the sky.