Gemini 13™ by AlexSciChannel at Inkitt

A Short Story

Gemini 13™

Sci-Fi, Drama, Thriller

Written by: Finn Urmey & Alexander Naskov

In the year 2077, after the New Soviet Confederacy funded the expedition Gemini 13 near the Kuril trench area in the abyssal plain for scientific research and to harvest brine from brine pools at the bottom of the ocean before the Japanese Empire does which can be used to make deadly chemical weapons.

Two comrades were chosen to carry out this spectacular mission. Abram Naskov, a skilled geologist and mechanic and Losif Yakov a marine biologist and engineer are sent to an abyssal outpost called граница to study and experiment in the deep ocean. Specifically on its effect on human life in the deep and other life. The habitat was built in the deep ocean off the east coast of Russia.

During their descent they are ambushed by rogue Japanese pirates and their submersible seriously damaged. Soon they find themselves cut off from the outside world, by millions of gallons of water and there only surface vehicle too heavy to return to the surface.

Trapped under the waves with nothing but each other, finding their research outpost ransacked and its hull ruptured, they are forced to make a long and dangerous journey across the Abyssal plains to another, much older facility, where they just might find a way to the surface. With their damaged submarine in tow they make there way to their destination in a centipede-like transport S.F.S. (Sea floor strider).

On arrival they find strange signs on the abandoned facility such as a giant shark skeleton in two halves. The facility is largely operational the only setbacks being low food supply, broken communications systems and lack of a surface vehicle. Due to the fact that this was an old mining facility there are plenty of tools lying about and even an early 3D printer they begin to attempt a repair of their sub but soon realize this could take months or even years.

Trying to find a way to survive and find food they are forced to explore the area even the trench the facility is built next to and find a wondrous area untouched by time. Full of thought to be extinct creatures from the peaceful opabinia to the aggressive Eurypterid and the monstrous Ortharacone. All fueled by hydrothermal vent bacteria and a new kind of methane-consuming, bioluminescent plankton giving the creatures that eat these plankton like the Aegirocassis, an unearthly glow.

Although they soon find a reason for the facility’s abandonment… the trench supports a small population of huge once extinct armored fishes called dunkleosteus that occasionally leave the trench to prey on six gilled sharks outside, one can easily destroy the base, or rupture the hull with one bite.

Losif Yakov, fascinated wants to get closer to collect samples for study and at one point accidentally gets between the dunkleosteus and its prey (an orthocone) Abram barely pulls him out of the way before the orthocone is ramed and clips Isoif’s suit’s rebreather, before they get back to the base Isoif passes out from co2 poisoning and lack of oxygen. Abram barely manages to drag Iosif back to the base before he suffocated. This near death experience sparks an argument between survival and conservation, Abram wants to kill off all the dunkleosteus’ (with their remaining weapon) and attempt to hunt possibly edible organisms then wants to run some of the autonomous mining facility to recreate some of the parts on their damaged surface vehicle. Iosif on the other hand wants to study the new ecosystem and this new kind of plankton to see how they can exploit it for food while not damaging the ecosystem and study the relationship between the mining facility and the trench, before activating it. This argument threatens their comradery, resulting in some violence but eventually a compromise. Abram will hunt some of these creatures for food until they find an efficient way to “farm” them, while Iosif attempts to find out what happened with the mining rig.

Losif finds that the mining rigs lights attract dunkleosteus’ which is why they party destroyed them but the drilling is largely safe. So the station is activated by awakening an AI; called Alyssa. This is an old program of AI so they are still unable to contact the surface. However, they have full control of the technologies on the station, including crab traps which can be used for food and historical database of the station.

While Abram starts harvesting crabs for farming, Losif uncovers the base’s history. He finds out This base was part of a top secret mining operation set up by an American private corporation called Monarch in order to harvest a rare species of bioluminescent plankton. The base has no historical record because of its secrecy and because of the downfall of the United States from economic depression. When asking Alyssa why Monarch was harvesting the plankton even though she didn’t know. Seems even the majority of scientists who worked on the station were kept in the dark on the company’s true motives.

6 Months go by. Abram has formed a successful breeding spider crab farm and knows how to protect them from large predators. Placing dead coral on their backs for camouflage is a natural and useful practice.

For all the months Losif was studying the Bathymetric map of the area and after several expeditions outside he finally figured out the source of where the rare species of bioluminescent plankton were coming from. Then he can figure out why they were so valuable to the Americans. He set up one last expedition to the source of the plankton with Abram. The source was in the deepest part of the Kuril trench; Horizon deep.

They took the SFS to the edge of the trench and disconnected the bathymetric capsule to travel down to the Hadalpelagic zone. At the bottom of the trench they witnessed the literal fires of hell. The slow shifting of tectonic plates at the boundary and the exposing of magma coming directly from the center of the planet. It was hard to believe under this thin layer of rock was the literal mantle of the planet.

Losif noticed a trail of the bioluminescent plankton at the bottom, leading them to a hydrothermal cave at the walls of the trench. The colleagues observed how the plankton gathered around the vents to use for chemosynthesis. This was typical for deep sea plankton, however what wasn’t was their locomotion. It seemed too organized with intent it seemed like.

They followed them deeper into the cave until they witnessed what they could only describe as the literal gate to the underworld. A 400 meter hole with seemingly no bottom, feeding the plankton through hydrothermal vents and a dazzling bioluminescent display of tens of millions of plankton zooming above the hole in an inconceivable teal twister formation through a large hole in the roof of the cave. This is when Alyssa notified them that the radio wave levels in this cave were immeasurable. Losif was able to conclude that these plankton had the ability to regulate information via advanced biological radio-waves perhaps to other colonies of plankton that can do the same. What information they were communicating was unknown but each colony seems to work like a single organism, a hivemind of multiple souls communicating and thinking alike. Perhaps a higher level of organic intelligence we can’t conceive of yet.

Losif connected the dots that the Americans probably needed them to create a long range interstellar communication network. Something clicked in Abram’s mind then on how to reach the outside world.