Beneath Water and Rock...

Track 1 : Gamma Ray by Meta

It was a cold, sharp morning over Vector Drilling Station Ξ. The immense, sprawling under-sea drilling facility emerged from the waves like a perverse, mechanical crab; a cephalopod with hardened steel inlaid with glass geodesic domes instead of bumpy chitin, tall sensor stacks instead of eyes, long titanium support structures instead of legs, and a huge, roughly cylindrical column descending down below the frigid waves of the Antares ocean.

Long curtains of ice hung from the supporting legs, illuminated by the lights of life and action within them, giving off a dim ethereal glow. The coatings of frost were evidence of it's sub-Arctic location, positioned above rich deposits of both hydrocarbon fuels and rare mineral resources, in low supply anywhere conventional. Below the frosted, three meter thick steel shell of the central platform itself layers of minuscule windows and gantries extended from the underside, twinkling in the yellow dawn glow. As the layers curved in towards the base of the drilling column, the windows lessened, and the machinery began. Struts and supports held the ultimately hollow tube in place, reinforcing the outside in hexagonal patterns not dissimilar from the graphene tubes used in the micro-filtration of the rarest precious minerals. Down this tube innumerable machines went up and down, 24 hours a day, transferring materials to and from beneath the seabed below; from the mines...

Too inhospitable to venture outside regularly, the many and diverse residents of Drilling Station Ξ inhabited almost purely inside the superstructure, in a macrocosm of large corridors, tunnels and passages, linking the innumerable habitation spaces with the massive, open domes bursting with life, both plants and the lives of those who congregated in the communal spaces in their free time. They were shopping centers and meeting places, jungles and countryside. It was a much needed dose of nature for the Eques inside.

Among the residents however, there were divisions and fractures in their society, some deeper than the pits under the sea. Some were a species known as Homines, tall hairless creatures with long limbs descended from apes that were the miners in the deep mines below the surface. As versatile creatures, tall and strong, with quick minds and skilled hands, they had always dominated their surroundings throughout history. Now they were slave labour, their population automatically controlled by their overlords through proxy servitors, and they worked from maturity to death in a vicious cycle of pain.

Most were Eques, much smaller, sturdier horse-originating creatures that were split into three sub-species, each with their own adaptations and limits. Eques were naturally harmonious beings, adept at various types of powers they believed to be magic, that abhorred all suffering and hurt of other animals. How ironic that they used adapted technology to enslave the species that made such a thing possible with their natural innovation and invention. To all of the Eques, Homines were a myth, not the labouring slaves that lived and died without ever seeing their captors.

The Saxi subspecies featured extremely dense, durable bones along with an affinity for rock and stone, and athletic physiques. They were at the bottom of the heavily stratified society, the workers, the labourers, the builders. Mostly manning the factories, they were most numerous, by a small amount, trained from foalhood in the operation of machinery, practical repair skills and teamwork. Being almost entirely supported by the station authority, they led happy, if tough lives.

The second, the Pinnae, were characterised by lightweight, lithe frames enabling them use of their large wings. More intuitive and technologically adept by nature, they were natural soldiers, engineers, researchers and tech operators, sitting above the Saxi, though below the most highly developed of the three. Filling up the more technology and service based jobs, they resided around all the dome structures on the top of the station, the only places they could truly spread their wings and fly.

The Unicorns, that sported bio-electromagnetic field manipulators in their horn on their forehead, were capable of manipulating all sorts of small objects with EM repulsion without contact, and finely tuning electrical and electronic devices. Their higher intellect and natural evolutionary superiority meant they were the overseers, the managers, the scientists, the designers. They held their preferential treatment of each other in high regard. They were mistrusted by the lower races, but most did not care. They were the ones with any true power on the station.

Status quo was maintained. New mineral quotas and machinery designs from the Unicorns descended to the Pinnae, who tested and developed these new modifications, refining them for the Saxi to mass-produce and distribute down the shaft, to the pits. What happened to it from there it seemed as if all Eques did not think to consider. Their triumvirate of races was above the dark, animalistic creatures that toiled day and night in the gloom of the mines, the savage things that were confined down there, never to see the light of day. The Homines, the barbarian race of old. Sittting in their steel and plastic palace, the Eques had left all their problems at the bottom of the sea bed, to work for them in servitude into eternity.