While Ran took Gaz to shore at Mieni Atoll, Joe the Pilot Fish lead Ralph and Rita the Remoras toward the sunken ship that they'd spotted. True they'd only been mundane fish either following the larger female Great White for scraps or for dealing with parasites that might give Gaz some irritation, but they did remember it. Ran even gave Joe a small water proof walkie-talkie that he'd had in the pockets to the swim trunks that he was wearing.
"This should let you communicate with Clara and Robbie," Ran said to him, "press this red button hear to talk."
Ran pointed to a red button on the top of the device and then continued.
"And then release when done," Ran continued.
"And they would magically hear me?" Joe wondered.
"No, not magic," Ran answered, "technology. Humans are big with that sort of thing..."
"Like nets," Ralph commented.
"In a way," Ran admitted, "but this is communications technology. It's different from a net. It'll send what you say in a signal that will carry your voice to Robbie and Clara. When you let go of the button, the way will be clear for you to hear a reply. Make sure they've finished speaking before you press the button again to talk."
Joe nodded, "We'll see if the ship could be used for anything..."
"Well for fish," Ran answered, "the uplifted Orcas will probably prefer something that would let them surface or breathe air while they sleep."
"Orcas?!" Gaz gasped, "There are Animalians of those killers too?"
Ran cringed and nodded. The Great White was a strong solitary hunter which had earned a reputation for being dangerous, but often that reputation was often overstated. In nature, most Great Whites reached lengths of around twenty feet, roughly the same length as the largest species of Hammerhead Shark and the Tiger Shark, but remained the "bigger" fish due to their greater and more muscular weight in comparison to these other sharks. However, the Orca, or Killer Whale, the world's largest dolphin, could reach lengths of thirty feet and was just as equally aggressive a predator in the sea, and in many places the Great White and the Orca hunted the same prey, seals, sea lions, and smaller dolphins. And some scientists had even found that the two predators did run into each other from time to time. One was something Ran had seen on TV in which a Great White investigated a mother Orca only to have been grabbed by the Orca and held upside down. When the Great White on the clip went into what was called tonic immobility, the Orca let go, ate the shark's liver and let the rest of the shark sink to the bottom. In this, Ran figured any uplifted Great White that had either been in areas where Orcas were for a brief time or directly competed with them might have some instinctive fear.
"Yes, there are uplifted Orcas," Ran admitted, "BUT they are bound by Animalia's edicts just as we are. They cannot attack us as we are not to attack them."
"Did they come along?" Gaz asked carefully.
"On this trip, no," Ran answered.
"Okay," Gaz said slowly.
Joe, Ralph, and Rita then watched as Ran and Gaz swam toward the shore. As they disappeared from view, Joe the Pilot Fish turned to the two Remoras.
"Okay, the big ship was in that direction," Joe said pointing, "let's go."
+++++++
It didn't take too terribly long for Joe, Ralph, and Rita to make it to the sunken ship. They found it to be large and in almost stared levels, though they were deep enough down that there wasn't much available light to see by. They could only faintly make things out and both Ralph and Rita nearly swam head first into the sunken ship before recognizing that it was there.
"It's big," Rita said looking down the long expanse of the hull, now covered in silt and dust from the ocean floor and whatever else sank to the bottom from the upper levels of the ocean.
"Yes," Joe nodded as he looked down the hull as well.
The ship seemed to have been built in layers and had various metal boxes of varying sizes with metal cylinders sticking out from them. These cylinders were also of varying sizes and also seemed to be hollow, but the openings were too small for them. Joe even noted that the largest openings in these cylinders were now too small for them. The three began to swim around the exterior of the ship. They were able to determine that it was resting on its side and that in addition to various hatches and doorways that led into the ship being clearly left open, Joe had also noticed large holes in the bottom of the ship's stern section.
"Hey I think there's something written here... human writing," Ralph commented.
Joe was quick to come over and found Ralph pointing to a section of the ship's stern And there, though partially covered with silt were what humans called letters. Neither Joe nor the two Remoras really understood it and things were just dark enough that making it out wasn't easy. Joe eventually scrapped off the silt to see the letters, which read: USS Pennsylvania BB-38. The letters were small for a ship of this size and Joe didn't exactly know what it meant, but he could tell that the lettering covered the ship's name. With that, Joe held up the walkie-talkie that Ran had given him and pressed a button.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" Joe asked as Ralph and Rita gathered around him.
He then released the button and waited a few moments. After a short while a voice did answer.
"My name is Clara," came a feminine voice, "You are... Joe?"
"Yes, Joe the Pilot Fish," Joe answered.
"Ran told me you were investigating a sunken ship?" Clara responded.
"Yes," Joe answered, "we found it out here in the deep... though it's deep enough that you can't see it from the surface and even close to it... it's only barely visible."
There was a lengthy pause for a few moments before a new voice answered.
"Yes, you're probably still on the shelf that's between the various atolls in this part of the Pacific," a male voice spoke, "though be careful. Some of those aren't very long and you could MUCH deeper that might be too deep for even an oceanic Animalian to survive."
"As a pilot fish, I am well aware that the ocean floor is not uniformly flat and at shallow depths," Joe answered, "I'm merely stating what we have found."
"Okay..." came the male response, "have you explored inside the ship?"
"Unformately not... because there isn't as much light down here from the sun, the enclosed spaces of the ship appear to be pitch black," Joe answered, "we may be able to navigate through ship but would not be able to see anything to make it worthwhile."
Again there was a pause before Clara spoke again.
"We'll see about getting a flashlight that can work under water if you wish to explore it more," Clara spoke.
Then the male voice asked again, "can you identify the ship?"
"It's big," Rita said to Joe.
Joe nodded, "it's a very large ship with various levels on its decks with various metal boxes with long cylinders protruding from the boxes. Many of them are laying over toward the side and the bottom..."
Joe then proceeded to describe the writing on the stern of the ship. It took a little while, especially as neither Joe nor the Remoras, Ralph and Rita, knew how to read. However, when the description was finished and others caught on there was some surprise in the voice of the man who answered.
"The USS Pennsylvania?" the man asked.
"If that is what the writing says, then yes, why? Is this an important ship?" Joe asked, "Or a dangerous ship?"
"It should be dangerous," the man answered, "The Pennsylvania was a battleship built during World War I. It was launched before America joined that war, but for various reasons, the Pennsylvania was not sent to join the British Grand Fleet. It remained in service between the wars, was damaged in the Pearl Harbor raid in 1941 and was updated and upgraded for World War II."
"And was sunk here in the war?" Joe asked cutting the man off.
"No, the Japanese NEVER sunk a US battleship at sea," the man answered, "their only success was in the Pearl Harbor raid and most of the ships damaged in that raid were re-flouted and repaired. Pennsylvania served through to the end of the war. According to records though... the Pennsylvania was used as a target ship after the war as part of the atomic bomb tests and was towed to Kwajalein Atoll where it was ultimately "cleaned" and scuttled after being written off from the US Naval Register. If you're still around Mieni... you shouldn't be close enough to be at Kwajalein."
"But many of these atolls are fairly close together," Joe commented, "perhaps your navy got lost when they sank the ship and misidentified its location in your records. There are times when I've swum past locations that I recognized as one location when I was in fact at a different place."
The was a silence for a few moments before the man answered, "Perhaps... but the navy's map makers and navigators SHOULD have been better than that... but then I'm an Army man and we're typically trained to think the Navy's full of idiots, so perhaps you're right. Come on back and we'll get things ready for more in depth exploration and perhaps some reading lessons."