The Captain And The Caridea

Posted on Sep 25, 2015 @ 7:16pm by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane

Mission: Civil War

"THE CAPTAIN AND THE CARIDEA"

(Continued from "Headhunting")

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Captain's Log, supplemental - I have finally made it down to the surface of Elandipole for some shore leave. I have gone out onto the world-ocean in a small skiff. Just me, my fishing rod, and a communicator (which is at the bottom of my bait box and will hopefully stay silent)...

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Location: Elandipole IV
Stardate: [2.15]0925.2315
Scene: On the ocean


This morning, I put my skiff down into the water off Shantytown's new jetty and rowed away from civilisation. The water was crowded with people on paddle boards, rowing boats, or simply splashing around in the shallows, but that kind of company was not for me. I rowed away from the atolls and the lagoons, out into open water where the kampos watched me like crocodiles from just beneath the surface and the waves grew larger and stronger. The noise of cawing brightwings and happy people playing in the sunshine faded away, and soon all I could hear was the breeze making the waves lap at the sides of my small skiff.

The sea was a beautiful crystal green, and shoals of small alien fish scudded here and there like underwater clouds beneath me. A mile or two from shore, I drew in the oars and began to affix my bait to my fishing rod, enjoying the ebb and flow of the waves. I had replicated the skiff at one of the industrial replicators before setting out - a simple design of a flat-bottomed wooden hull with a flat stern and pointed bow - and packed it with some food, a bait box, and a tritanium steel fishing rod. There was no real data on what the sea-fish of Elandipole ate, but if they were like any chordate life-form on a Minshara-class world, then some sort of insect bait would likely work. The bait - all replicated too - took the shapes and colours of dragonflies, eyeless sea-worms, and even small fish.

The tritanium rod came equipped with over a mile of fishing line. The line was heavy - I had opted for a half-inch thick lead-core line, capable of holding weights of up to over a thousand kilograms before being put under severe strain. Being more dense than a traditional line, the heavy lead core would ensure that the bait would trawl at deeper depths, and perhaps snag something a bit larger than the little surface fish. I worked quickly and with a smile, unfurling the spool and threading the line up through the guides on the rod, feeling the sunshine on my face, enjoying the solitude. I thrust the butt of the rod down into the floor cradle and let it rest there, pointing vertically up into the bright blue sky.

It had been years since I had gone fishing. There were fish in the river that ran through Thomond. The river ran on night and day. I used to think it was calling to me, beckoning me to come away with it to see what lay beyond Thomond's hills. The imagery of my boyhood was frozen forever into one sublime moment - the castle, the mountain, the thorn trees, the sight of the shrieking corncrakes taking flight through the misty rain - but the river escaped them all. It ran on and on to places I could only dream about.

One day, there was a rumour going around that a big pike had moved into the river from upstream - he'd been seen by a few other boys and we all wanted to see who could take him home and show our mothers. I spent days trailing that fish. I picked the best spot in the river, nice and dark under this big horse chestnut tree and let my line hang in the water all day. I could see the fish under the water, looking back up at me with its old, bad eyes. Oh, he'd been around the block, and he knew that I was after him, and maybe he would have come too, but for one thing. Bait. No worm or fly on the rod. No incentive for him to stick his neck out and take the hook. So he stayed there, in the water under the tree, until the summer moved on, and when the weather got colder, so did he, and I never saw him again.

Ahead, there was a strange line of colour in the water. Like a borderline between rival nations, the crystal green of the shallows suddenly gave way to a deep, rich blue as the seabed fell away from the continental shelf and down into the world-ocean proper. Beyond that line were trenches and abyssals so deep that no sunlight had ever penetrated them, where the water was dozens of miles straight down, down where the real Elandipole lived and breathed cold salt water.

I looked behind me, and saw that the Shantytown shore was almost out of sight. Part of me wanted to turn back. That would be the safest thing to do - to abandon this little adventure and return to familiar surroundings. But when I turned around again, the vast world-ocean was very close, and it stretched on into an infinity of blue. Come with me, it said, come and see what I have in store for you.

I did not look back at the shore. My little skiff crossed the line from crystal green shallows to midnight blue depths. Immediately I could feel the difference in the water. The waves were deeper, playfully flicking the edges of the skiff with a fraction of their true power. They passed behind me, around me. The shoreline disappeared, and I was all alone on the world-ocean.

Alright, I thought to the water. A little friendly competition, then, me against you. Checking that my bait was secure, I dropped it into the waves and the lead-core line followed behind it, unfurling from the spool like fire from a catherine wheel. I let a half-mile of it play out through my palms before I held it firm, securing the line back against the rod, locking it in place even as the other half-mile tried to escape down into the depths beneath my little skiff.

Out here on the world-ocean, it was a beautiful desolation. It was a million miles from starships and Neo-Essentialists and civil wars. No dark futures here, only the unending, unchanging blue. What matter if I was here, or gone, or never here at all? The world-ocean would still be here through it all.

There was, I knew, almost no chance of catching anything. The world-ocean was a vast wet desert. It held uncountable trillions of gallons of water, but there was only a finite amount of life in it. That life would stick to currents and migration routes which, although probably hundreds of miles long, were not likely to be more than a few miles wide. Tiny veins of life running over the world-ocean's enormous, empty patchwork. And alone in that vastness, one little skiff holding one little life.

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The tritanium rod clicked. The line got taut and started to lift in and out of the water. I sat forward in the skiff. The bait was around half a mile deep now, and something down there was interested in it. There was no sudden jerk of the rod, no heavy pull on the line, but every couple of seconds the line dipped deeper into the water and the skiff gave a little shake.

Whatever was down there, it was probably taking a nibble on the bait, trying to decide whether or not to take that big bite. I glanced behind me. The shoreline was long gone and I could no longer see the green shallows. There was only mile after mile of unbroken deep blue.

I wondered what time it was. I tried to get my bearings by the sun, and could only guess at it being late afternoon. There was another hour or two of daylight, I thought, thinking again about hauling the line in and turning back to Shantytown. But this was a challenge, right here, right now. There was something interested in my bait. What would be the point of turning back now?

Suddenly, the lead-core line jerked hard and was pulled hard down into the water. I let out a whoop as the ocean fish beneath me took the bait, and leaned forward to unlock the line. The rod, held secure in its cradle, bent forward furiously as something hauled hard against it. The line played out gently, and I grasped a hold of it with my hands, pulling back against it, trying to get a measure of the fish's strength.

The effect was instantaneous, and painful. Whatever had the bait was bigger and stronger than I gave it credit for. It jerked back against me with incredible power - the line cartwheeled away into the water, the reel singing a high-pitched whine as it unspooled, and the speed of it was so fast that the line sheared two wide red burns into my palms. I cried out as the pain hit me and thrust them into the water as the line continued to play out. I kicked out at the reel, re-engaging the lock, and the line snapped taut again. Looking down into the water, I saw two rings of blood appear as my palms began to bleed, and the sting of the salt water was murderous.

The line began to jerk spasmodically. The fish, aware now that it was caught in a hook, was pulling hard against it, trying to break the line, but the lead core held firm behind its lock. I pulled my hands out of the water and gritted my teeth against the pain. This wasn't sport any more. I was determined to kill this fish, to let it thrash itself against my line until its spirit was broken, then I'd haul it in and put an end to it.

But something was wrong. This fish was strong. With a sudden lurch, the skiff began to move through the water. I shook my head is disbelief - how could anything be powerful enough to pull a floating craft along with it? The line was still locked in place, but the rod itself was coming under strain as the underwater fish pulled against the line. With a sinking feeling, I saw that it was taking me out into open ocean, even farther away from the Shantytown shore.

Unlock the line, I thought. Just let it all spool out into the water. Admit defeat and let the fish go on down into the depths. It was probably maddened now and had only survival on its mind. Maybe it was dangerous, maybe it would turn to heel like a cornered animal.

I thought perhaps it would tire soon, but it did not. The minutes ticked by, and then an hour had passed, and I and my little skiff were drawn farther and farther into the dark ocean. Still I would not give up. I was determined to impose my will on this beast, whatever it was. Maybe it was some ancient Human imperative, maybe it was utter foolishness, but I grasped the rod as hard as my bloody palms could grip and pulled back against the fish's power. The tritanium strained, but held, even as the water lapped eagerly against the skiff's gunwales. I gritted my teeth- either the rod would break or the fish would. I would not.

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Night fell on Elandipole, and all the stars came out. I lay back in the skiff and looked up at them, seeing the great cloud of the Milky Way spread across the sky. It was useless to look for constellations - these were alien skies, and the perspective of the heavens was completely different than looking up from Earth. The weather had not turned all day - Elandipole's calm oceans had a deserved reputation - but the fish that was pulling me onward into the night had still not given up. Its rate of speed had slowed drastically, though, and as darkness draped itself over the ocean, I was hopeful that the battle would end soon.

You won't get away, I thought to the fish. I'm not giving up, and I'm stronger than you. I'm backed up by the irresistible force of all this technology. I could fry you from orbit in my starship if I wanted. I could burn off the whole world-ocean and leaving you gasping for air in some bone-dry abyssal.

"Do you hear me?" I roared suddenly. "I'm not giving up!" My voice carried across the dark ocean.

The line went slack. I froze, looking down onto the surface of the water. The waves shifted as my skiff blundered to a halt, then they began to change shape, forming oval and circular patterns, being pushed out of the way as something from below pushed upward against them.

I fell to my knees at the side of the skiff and tried to look into the depths. The fish had turned and was coming up, forcing a confrontation, the water churning ahead of it as it rose. There was an awful sense of approaching horror, coming up out of the midnight-blue ocean to wreak havoc on the surface, to destroy one little skiff, all alone in the vast blackness.

An enormous shell slid out of the water, and I recoiled. The thing was truly enormous, blue-black like the dark water, segmented and more solid than a hundred starship hulls. It must have been almost fifty feet long, dwarfing my craft by a factor of six. I looked around for a head or a tail. There was none to be seen, but starkly illuminated by the starlight I saw dozens of long white insect-like legs, splayed out like a sunburst in the waves, giving the creature buoyance.

Something flexed underneath me, and the skiff shattered like glass. Wooden splinters flew everywhere as one of those great legs erupted from the water, then descended to pulverise the skiff's bow, reducing it to matchsticks. Water flooded inward, and bore my bait box away into the dark. Another leg came up from the other side, flailing around blindly. In its waving, it tore the rod right out of its cradle, snapping the mile-long lead-core fishing line clean in two.

I fell backwards into the ruined stern as the skiff was destroyed, suddenly up to my neck in water. The thought of dozens of miles between me and the ocean floor was terrifying. Giants lurked in those depths. I kicked out my legs even as the monster, now conscious of a slacking on the line it was hooked to, began to sink once more beneath the waves, creating an awful drag that I thought was going to suck me down with it like a whirlpool.

Fish, I thought, you are going to have to die anyway. Do you have to kill me too?

As the behemoth sank downward, my reaching fingers seized upon my bait box. I threw it open even as the inky waves rushed back inward to swallow me up. The long hours battling this beast had all been in vain. It had been a hopeless cause all along, I could see that now. Sometimes you take on a fight that you can't win alone. Sometimes you need allies to help you out.

As the waves closed in around my head, I grasped my communicator and activated it. "Phoenix!" I yelled. "Emergency beam-out!"

White light split the night, and I was home again.

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NRPG: I've been itching to write something like this since I found the picture of the caridea somewhere on the Internets. With sincere and profuse apologies to Messrs. Hemingway, Melville, and Lovecraft.


Jerome McKee
the Soul of Michael Turlogh Kane
Commanding Officer
USS PHOENIX


"He speaks an infinite deal of nothing!"
- Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," Act 1, Scene 1.117

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