It was oppressively dark, inky black crushing in from all sides and making vision out the small windows nigh impossible. That was expected, though the crew of the small bathyscaph expected that much when they undertook such a deep ocean job. Around them, the hull of the craft was letting out the varied groans of stressed metal, a fact that drew concern to the muzzle of the mephit girl sitting at the instrument station.
“Any sign of the wreck?” asked the captain, a rather typically stocky alligator. “I feel like we’ve searched the entire Atlantic by now... and I’m starting to wonder if the coordinates were anywhere near accurate.”
“No sir,” the skunk replied. “I don’t know why either... the GPS report clearly marked the Lady Jayne as going down in this region, and it was confirmed by interviews with the survivors. She should be down here somewhere, but we’ve already searched just about the entire slip zone. This abyss is pretty much the only place we haven’t looked, but Captain...” she pauses. “We’re at about 13,000 feet already, and the sonar indicates the trench is close to a mile deep. I’m not sure were can go down there, especially since I’m not reading anything on active sonar that might indicate a wreck.”
Another creak, though this time it was simply a lapine woman leaning back in her seat, long ears flopped over to one side. “Of course, the walls of the trench might be blocking the signal. Jean, do you think we could go deep enough into the trench to make sure there’s no interference at least? We wouldn’t have to go to the bottom to get a decent scan, just partway.”
In response, the skunk nodded. “We should safely be able to get another thousand feet or so, but after that, we’re risking damage to the hull.”
The captain nodded, and picked up a microphone. “Scavenger, this is the Horizon. We’re going to check out that trench; we can’t be sure the sonar isn’t echoing off the walls unless we move over it. How’s things topside?”
“Pretty good, no sign of trouble. Be careful though, Fen. We don’t know if the sub that sunk the Lady Jayne is still lurking about or not. You know the stakes here, and what that cargo is worth,” crackled the speaker.
“Roger that, G. We’ll keep a sharp lookout, but at this depth it’d be suicide for a combat vessel. Ray,” he nodded to the casually dressed wolf sitting at the helm. “Bring us over and prepare for descent.”
