Sea Lambs

The massive alien craft had been discovered almost two miles down in the Atlantic twenty five miles off the coast of Nassau in the Bahamas.  I again led the expedition in deep water submersibles to investigate.  Now, here we were, hovering above the ocean floor in pitch black save for the submersible’s intense pivoting halogen lights.  I was in command of the lead sub Stingray.  The other two subs, the Kingfish and the Poseidon, hovered nearby.

I swore I’d never come back here again.

You may wonder why I would make such a statement, thinking it contrary to exploration, to the spirit of adventure and so on.  And you would be correct.  As an oceanographer, someone who takes the depths of the sea for granted, danger is just part of the game.  The ocean bottom remains a desolate, dangerous, and largely unexplored region--in some ways more-so than the surface of the moon.  The intrigue and the excitement becomes even more magnified by the discovery of “something,” and in this case, something of alien origin.  So for me to express such reservation requires a good reason.  So let me explain.

Two months earlier we dove to the site.  Our submersibles were the Stingray and the Kingfish, as was the norm, but also the Neptune, which I will discuss presently.  All three subs hovered over the alien craft, illuminating it with the powerful halogen spotlights.  The craft was cylindrical--cigar shaped, more or less--and very long, around the length of a present day aircraft carrier.  Small windows appeared on the sides, emitting a periodic celadon glow into the darkness of the deep.

The alien craft (and from hereon I shall refer to it as the unidentified submerged object, or USO), rested on the edge of a ledge, and that ledge fronted a deep canyon.  We were already at a depth of 10,300 feet, yet our bathymetric reading showed the canyon reached a depth of 14,200 feet.  Our submersibles were rated safe to 12,000 feet and no more.

I commanded the Stingray as usual.  My sub, along with the Kingfish, hovered above the USO while the Neptune drifted down to the level of the USO’s glowing windows.  It hovered approximately 50 feet away, but that was far enough to be beyond the rim of the ledge--below was almost another mile of water.  Neptune was hovering over the abyss.

The first sign of trouble was static over the intercom.  Communications between all three subs had been flawless.  Now, however, communications with Neptune was cut off--all we heard was static, and what sounded like a muffled shout, for maybe a second at most.  But we could not be sure.  Communications with Kingfish were fine, but they, too, were unable to communicate with Neptune. 

In all the desperate confusion, we noticed the windows on the USO were glowing much more brightly, that odd greenish gray, and pulsing as well, approximately every two seconds.  We shone our lights on Neptune--she was going down!  In the watery glow of a mixture of light, Neptune disappeared beyond the rim of the ledge, never to be seen again.

Back aboard our surface ship, Rendezvous, the mood was a mixture of anger and sorrow.  Three lives gone, and we blamed that bastard USO!  Why would we not?  Those pulsing lights were a mystery, yet they seemed responsible for Neptune’s demise.  It sure seemed that way to us; those lights, “zapped” Neptune of all power, and she sank like a stone.

Shaking my head, I looked at Robert Byrd, commander of the Kingfish:

“Surely she imploded,” I said, “once she reached a depth of 13,000 feet.”

“More like 12,500 feet,” Robert offered, his voice very low.

“So what do we do now?”  I plaintively asked.

Robert stood up with his coffee and took a sip.  “What do you think those lights were?”

“I don’t know Bob--some kind of energy dampening beam?  Why else would Neptune sink helplessly, and the communications...”

“Yes, nothing but static.” Robert added.

Robert looked at the porthole, then turned and faced me, his face pained.

“We answer to the CIA--this is their operation, and what lies down there on the shelf...”

I cut right in:  “Yes, I know, top secret, word of this cannot get out.”

“It is the ultimate danger,” Bob sighed.  “It is a danger than would undermine all of humanity--overall, the public could never accept it, and fear would run riot.

“Yes, I know.” I snapped. “Which is why we are sworn to secrecy.  We are essentially hostages of the CIA, aren’t we Bob?”  I grinned, yet my insides felt like a tight knot. 

“We have to go back, don’t we?”  I picked up my coffee cup, but just held it inches above the table.

“We have to go back,” Bob said evenly.  “We’ll go back, with our own light rays, energy beams, radiation fields, the works, all the latest in technological advances the CIA labs have produced.  We are the test pilots, we are Columbus, we are lambs in the silence and blackness that is the abyss.”


851 Words
Writer's Cramp Winner
4-9-13