Aquari by DD White

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  While Begalius quested for the virus in the core of Magphoreus, Aquari flew through the Scuton-Crux arm of the galaxy. Aquari pondered that his trajectory had taken him only about 200 light-years from the Sree Seree civilization. Aquari recalled discovering these beings millions of Earth years ago with assistance from Svetat the First Born. Svetat had been a younger gallivanting space adventurer at that time, with his own warp-fusion virtual particle drive ship that he used to smuggle anything of value between rival Incaprican galactic civilizations.

  Svetat had been chased at the time by primitive terrestrial mammal aliens who had somehow become exposed to Incaprican galactic civilization. Some aliens of terrestrial nature can benefit from this exposure to become prematurely galactic. There always had been a consistent problem with lesser-evolved species acquiring the ability to travel between stars before their time. The aliens chasing Svetat were that kind of a species, and they used the technology they inherited to become pirates of the surrounding galactic cultures.

  Four large alien battleships were chasing Svetat into a cloud of nebulae dust with faster-than-light pulse lasers. Svetat hoped he would manage to lose the well-armed pirates. Although Svetat was guilty of Incaprican smuggling violations at the time, he still decided to send out a sector-wide distress signal in case that was going to be his only hope of salvation here. No Incapricans ever responded to that signal, but Aquari happened to be flying in the area and perceived it. The old cosmic curiosity sent Aquari on an intercept course with the distress call.

  Then Svetat discovered the Sree Seree planet, concealed deep within the galactic dust cloud he had ducked into hoping to evade his pursuers. They lived on a peaceful little planet that orbited a white dwarf star similar to Tze-Doldus in size. Svetat sought refuge on their world. He ended up captured in a force field, and surrounded by hundreds of small beings who were the Sree Seree.

  The Sree Seree, for all anyone knows, never ventured beyond their single planet, which only technically defined them as terrestrial beings. They were probably even more advanced than the legendary Nephapricans who attained the star-door technology. Sree Seree seemed to have different uses for that knowledge other than speeding along from star to star. Svetat found himself teleported into Sree Seree captivity, surrounded by a multitude of beings that were barely 12 inches tall at best.

  Svetat had not actually been an unwelcome guest, and would have been allowed to leave, but unfortunately the pirates also discovered the Sree Seree world at that moment, and assumed four battle cruisers were enough to take over a primitive terrestrial planet of miniature beings. Svetat and the Sree Seree watched as galactic pirate battle cruisers pummeled a Sree Seree city with destructive particle accelerator cannons that leveled everything to a pile of radioactive rubble.

  When the pirates landed to pillage the city that they had just leveled, it all became revealed to be a remote Sree Seree illusion that enraged the disenfranchised pirates. Svetat pleaded to the Sree Seree at that moment to let him have his ship back to confront them. The Sree Seree were chronically non-violent by nature, and had no way of comprehending violence as any kind of solution to a problem. They didn’t want Svetat to kill them if he could avoid it so they gave him a weapon that would defend him without killing anyone. That would become the dimensional time-warp ring Svetat wears to this day. He had also been given at the time, a now long lost teleportation device that used to be kept in his ship, which he could use to teleport from anywhere to anywhere instantly with a hand held remote control device. When Svetat took off after the pirate invaders, the Sree Seree sent out their own form of distress signal.

  In a typically incomprehensible example of Aquari’s cosmic serendipity, Aquari just happened to be nearby to respond to that distress call. That had been how Aquari first discovered the Sree Seree of the Scuton-Crux arm of Magphoreus, as well as his old friend Svetat the First Born. The pirates threatened to devastate the planet in a violent fit that expressed their frustration toward the illusory little people, but Svetat succeeded very well with infiltrating the landed battle cruiser, and taking it over. The Sree Seree were horrified, but did very little to stop Svetat from killing all of them on two ships by flying the battle cruiser from the ground, and crashing it right into another one of their ships orbiting above. Just before sharing in the explosive results of crashing two ships together Svetat teleported back to his ship with the hand-held remote control device. The exploding battle cruisers made majestic fireworks in the mostly starless skies of the little white dwarf star’s planet tucked away from the rest of the galaxy in a dark cloud of nebulae dust. Svetat figured, quite logically, that the only way to keep pirates from returning to that planet to pillage would be to just kill every one of them. Svetat had never been known to be much of a pacifist, especially considering the highly evolved First Born Incaprican species that he was. Svetat had not been a typical Incaprican, but First Borns are so diverse that they tend to deviate away from typical.

  To make a long story short, Aquari provided a different solution for the Sree Seree. It actually wasn’t even the first time Aquari solved a pirate problem this way, which is often caused by prematurely advanced terrestrial species in the galaxy. Aquari had the ability to re-arrange the genetic makeup of beings that he inhabited. He had a way of instantly reorienting the perspective of an intelligent species. Some speculate that Aquari’s ability to do this may even have been the origin of all intelligent life in the galaxy in the first place. Svetat would reluctantly concede the solution to Aquari after the cosmic being inhabited the pirate commander of one of the last two ships. Just a few moments in the presence of Aquari would be enough to change the commander in ways that could even effect the very history of the galaxy for all time, and maybe did. The commander had suddenly become cosmically enlightened, and savage acts like pirating to the captain’s newly enlightened mind suddenly became the simple folly of non-evolved children. By the time Aquari left the commander’s body he had become a changed alien. He made the rest of the pirates depart, assuring them of the riches beyond their wildest dreams that were not much further away with the knowledge that the commander suddenly possessed in his newly evolved mind.

  That is the story of how Aquari first met Svetat over seven million Earth years ago, and they shared many adventures together since then as friends. Aquari wondered what ever became of those pirates so long ago, but he made the decision not to visit his old friends the Sree Seree at that time. Instead Aquari continued his 700+ times the speed of light trajectory on a rendezvous with Tze-Doldus somewhere ahead in the Orion arm, still beyond telescopic sight. The Carina arm of Magphoreus approached Aquari on the other side of a great galactic rift much emptier of stars. After crossing this rift between the Scuton Crux and Carina arms, the great rift between the Carina arm of Magphoreus and the Orion arm still ahead to yet be crossed by Aquari the impossible comet.