text: There had been a tale, and old legend. Back in WWII, there was a top secret recon submarine, the *USS Ishmael*, able to dive to depths no enemy could fathom, reching even into the midnight zone. It was on patrol in the western pacific ocean, shortly before the US dropped the A-bombs. Their mission was to make sure the japanese had not set up any fortifications or Anti Aircraft mechanisms along the eastern japanese coast. As they were patrolling the southern section, the sub mysteriously went off the radar several hundred miles south of the japanese coast. The radio control on land were perplexed, as there had been no reports of seamines in the area, and even had there been, the sub would have been too deep for ttraditional sea mines to affect it. There was no way they could search for the sub, as planes would not be able to see that deep, and ships would be in hostile territory. The only thing they could do was attempt to communicate with it. The radio control dispatched a message, asking for a status report. They got a response, but it wasn't anything they would expect. In morse, the submarine relayed one mysterious word: DRES All further communication attempts failed to get a response. Due to the high secrecy of USS Ishmael, it and its disappearance was forgotten about, and the case went cold. But then again, tales are just tales, right? *73 years later* "Moby One to mission control. Moby One has just reached the entrance to the trench. Do you copy?" "Copy Moby One. Setting up backup communications." I knew that backup communications took at least 30 minutes to set up so I had nothing to do but wait. I sat in the small observation sphere. I looked up, and saw the dimly lit sun, like a lone firefly at midnight. I looked down, and saw an abyss staring at me, piercingly. Nobody has been down here before, this deep. At least to our knowledge, that is. Anything I saw down here, I would be the first to see. I waited. The mission was dangerous, and although I was the only one manning this vessel, I was not the only one on this mission. There was another vessel, the *nautilus*, that would be stationed right above the fissure of the trench. The nautilus had a cable attached to my vessel, which would tow me up in case the worst happened. After what seemed like forever in solitude, mission control spoke to me. "Alright Moby, all communications have been established between us. Check your communications with Nautilus, and then you are clear for diving." "Nautilus, this is Moby One. Do you read me?" "Loud and clear, contacting mission control to confirm that all communications have been established" replied morgan, captain of the Nautilus. Despite the fact that we were both miles underwater, our communications were crystal clear. Communications take forever to set up, but only milliseconds to relay a message. Before I could even realised it, mission control contacted me. "Mission Control to Moby One. Moby One, you are clear for diving." = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = == People say the deep ocean is like outer space. Its dark, hard to get to, dangerous, mostly empty, and most imoportantly, we hardly know anything about it. I had no clue what to expect and I drove my sub down past the opening of the trench, and past the midnight zone. I imagine this is how the astronauts felt like when landing on the moon. While in the midnight zone, the only light there was was from the spotlight attached to my sub. Also, there was no radar on my sub to show what may be around me. Apparently, the radio signals that the radars use wouldn't be able to go through the submarine material if the radar apparatus was placed inside the sub, but if the radar apparatus was placed outside the sub, it would be crushed by the pressure. Fortunately for me, the Nautilus, which was at a higher altitude, had a radar that was set to scan the trench, and alert me if I was approaching anything potentially dangerous. As you can probably tell, this mission was incredibly risky, as there was almost no visibility. At these depths, striking anything hard and making even the *smallest* dent could compromise the sub, the mission, and kill me. I hadn't contacted either mission control or the nautilus crew for over an hour, and my blood pressure felt so high that I may as well have been a bomb building pressure, so I was obviously extremely apprehensive. I then heard a loud scratching-like sound, and just about jumped out of my skin. "Nautilus to Moby One, please stop diving for a moment" said Morgan. Thank god, the scratching sound was just momentary static from the radio "Jesus Christ, Morgan, you scared the living hell out of me," I replied. "Sorry. I just wanted to alert you that our radar has picked up something hard a few meters away from you, and the return signal on our radar indicated it may be actually be metal. I just wanted to alert you." "Thank you Morgan. Metal, you say? Should I examine it or steer clear?" "I don't know. Its up to you. If you are unsure, then I recommend you contact mission control." Honestly, I really didn't want to contact mission control, because then it defaults to an endless chain of commanders and takes forever for them to make a decision. My mind was racing. The entire goal of the mission was to explore the unknown. After all, the Mariana trench *is* the deepest part of the ocean, but what if I screw up, and compromise the whole mission before I even get into the *really* low parts of the trench? Then again, it was my relentless curiousity, even since I was a child, that landed me a this job as an "abysstronaut." This mission was commisioned by the government, and I was held at an esteem as high as the astronauts. Before long, my curious nature took its grip, and I was going to examine the object Morgan notified me about. "Morgan, I've made up my mind. I'm going to go check out the thing" "Alright. I have the crew on alert in case somthing happens" "Don't worry, Ill be fine" I assured her Supposedly the thing was metal. I was thinking it was probably an ancient meteorite, or an underwater iron deposit. Once I was close enought to the thing that I could see, it, I noticed it was unnaturally round. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = I started going around the strange object, eyeing it carefully. It was obvious this was not natural, as it was way too round, and I could even see welds and seams. As I got around to the back, I saw something impossible. I couldn't believe my eyes, or, at this depth, any other of my senses. Right there, welded on the back of the object, was the soviet hammer and sickle emblem, and right underneath it, big and bold, the letters U.S.S.R. "Morgan, I'm going to turn on the camera, and you tell me if you see what I'm seeing." I wanted to make sure that I wasn't hallucinating, because lack of oxygen could cause me to hallucinate, and require me to be pulled up. I turned on my camera. "Oh my god. Wait a second...... This is impossible. Impossible." she said, obviously hard of breath. Morgan usually wasn't a type of person to be startled, and she went into this mission expecting anything. She was the type of person that seemed to expect anything, anytime. As a matter of fact, there was a game that some of the crew, including myself, would play while stationed. We would make bets with each other, doing pranks and other such things with her. A person would place a bet that they could do something that managed to get a reaction out of her without hurting her, even managing to make her flinch or jump. If they succeeded, everyone who accepted the bet had to pay them what they betted. If they lost, the "prankster" would have to pay everyone else what the bet was. 9/10 times, the prankster lost money. I contacted her again "Morgan, are you alright?" I asked "Yes" she responded "You seemed to be caught off guard, thats not normal for you" "I know, but this is different. Its a bit of a long story." "Well, I have all the time in the world, tell me" She proceeded to tell me the story of the USS Ishmael, and how her father was actually the man in charge the Ishmael's radio control. He didn't tell her the story until she graduated college, and told her about how it went off radar within 100 miles of the Mariana Trench, and its last transmission: DRES. "It just clicked into my head that DRES is an anagram for REDS, which was a nickname for the soviets." She told me. "Wait, so are you saying that the Ismael may have been..." "Yes, hijacked by the soviets." She cut me off. She continued, "there's no way that we can confirm that its the Ishmael, or that even had anything to do with its disappearance, unless..." I dreaded what she was going to say next,"unless you go inside." = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = In my opinion, it was a miracle that the scientists behind apollo 11 managed to make a working spacesuit that actually could withstand the immense vacuum of space, despite never having tested one before. Well, I had my own suit, a diving suit designed to withstand the immense pressure of the ocean, and it had also never been tested this deep before. Morgan had already contacted mission control, and they approved of the exploration of the strange soviet vessel. I put on my hulking diving suit. It's resemblance to the spacesuits used for the moon mission was uncanny. I went into the airlock, closed the vessel side, prayed, and opened the outside latch. Before I even knew it, I was submerged in water, just meters away from the strange vessel. I swam through the water, thanking god that the suit worked, and that I wasn't crushed like a bug. "Morgan, I'm out of the ship." I told her. "Great. Look for an entrance. You probably find yourself in an airlock, but if the ship really is the Ishmael, everything written should be in English, unless the Russians wrote over it." "Alright. Tell me if anything else shows up on your radar." "Roger that" I swam around the object without any sense of direction. At these depths, I had no idea what way was up or down. Eventually I did find an opening. I twisted on the wheel covering the airlock hatch. I thought it would be rusted shut, so actually didn't expect it to open, but it did. When in the airlock, I could see a large red button with a sign above it that was taped over and had russian text. I peeled off the tape, and the sign read "Drain.