-1-
Yamato descended to the water planet Aquarius in combat readiness.
The surface of the planet spread out beyond the window of the first bridge. What had previously appeared to be a pearly sheen gradually became a light blue as it drew closer. Between the swirling white clouds, the blue sea became visible. Here and there on the blue sea, several green objects could be seen, like small, scattered pieces of a puzzle.
Without making a sound, the crew of Yamato stared intently at the surface of Aquarius that spread out outside the window.
“What are those green things I can see between the clouds…?” Yuki murmured.
“It’s a floating continent,” Shima answered, still looking out the window. “It looks like there are only a few small floating continent under the thin clouds.”
“And the rest is all sea,” Susumu continued. “It really is a water planet…”
He didn’t take his eyes off the window for even a second. After a moment of silence, Susumu shook his head in disbelief and added, “This planet gave the Earth water and the seeds of life. The mother water planet…”
Soon, Yamato entered the atmosphere of Aquarius. A floating continent shaped like a piece of a puzzle approached ahead.
“Descend to that floating continent,” Okita ordered from the captain’s seat.
Shima, who had been staring blankly out the window, suddenly turned around,
“Got it!” he shouted, and clutched the control stick.
Yamato descended through the sky. The floating continent below was quite large, and was covered entirely in dark green plants. It was like flying over the Amazon jungle. Yamato flew slowly about a kilometer above the floating continent.
“These plants are amazing…” Nanbu muttered.
“But why is it as bright as day, even though there are no stars nearby?” Shima asked Sanada.
Sanada shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s like this water planet itself is glowing…”
Shima looked ahead while holding the control stick. “I wonder if there’s something in the core of that water…”
The green sea of trees stretched out as far as the eye could see, and a white mist covered the distance, making it impossible to see through. The sky was covered with white clouds.
“Look, Shima!” Susumu pointed outside the window. “Isn’t that a lake?”
Shima blinked and stared. There was a lake, almost oval-shaped, alone in the sea of trees.
“Yes, definitely a lake.” Kodai concluded. “It’s quite large. Yamato can land in it easily, don’t you think?”
“Kodai, do you see something around that lake?”
Susumu looked at Shima’s profile for a moment, then turned forward. In the sea of trees around the lake, several brown objects could be seen.
Sanada spoke up before Susumu. “They seem to be ruins. They’ve collapsed, but they’re clearly man-made structures.”
Everyone was silent again, gazing intently at the approaching lake and the ruins scattered around it.
“Shima.” Captain Okita suddenly spoke up, and Shima quickly answered.
“Yes!?”
“Land Yamato in the lake ahead.”
“Yes, yes!”
Shima gripped the controls and aimed the ship toward the lake. Yamato came to stop over the water, then slowly descended. Yamato‘s ability to land on water was checked in an instant. The calm water surface became wavy as Yamato landed. The shock of landing caused the hull to sway for a while, but that soon subsided.
Yamato came to a stop on the surface of the lake. A faint mist was flowing over the lake, covering the entire surface. But the water was clear and you could see quite deep into it. There didn’t seem to be any living creatures in the lake.
Outside the bridge windows, the lake and the sea of trees beyond it were visible. From above the sea of trees, several brown, collapsed buildings could be seen. It looked somewhat like a stone altar from the Mayan civilization, but since it had almost lost its original form, it was impossible to tell what kind of structure it was.
The lush trees were about ten meters tall, with twisted branches and a strange leaves similar to those of a banana tree. There was no sign of animals. Susumu and the others approached the window and looked outside.
“It seems that the people who built that stone structure have already perished,” Sanada said to Susumu. “There are no life signs at all, other than theplants.”
“What’s it like in the lake?” Susumu asked.
“It’s the same.”
Susumu stared at the sea of trees ahead and wondered, how in the world did this water planet with a floating continent, Aquarius, make a warp? Almost everyone, except Captain Okita, was now standing by the window, looking outside.
“Damn it… Where the hell are the enemies?!” Susumu clenched his fist.
At that moment, the scenery ahead of them suddenly started to become foggy. White mist drifted in from the right and left at a considerable speed.
“What’s going on?” Susumu looked at Shima
“That’s strange… How could the fog just suddenly appear…”
While they were wondering, the fog quickly covered the entire field of view ahead, making it impossible to see the sea of trees or the ruins.
“This is strange…”
Susumu and the others became nervous. They could no longer see the sky above, or even the surface of the lake. Susumu turned to look at Captain Okita, but he was still sitting in the captain’s seat, staring silently at the fog outside the window.
Sanada called out to Susumu. “Kodai, look!”
Susumu turned to the window in a panic. “Ah!” he blurted out.
The mist outside the window began to glow dimly. Not only that, the whitish light began to flicker as if it was pulsating slowly. Susumu and the others stared at the mist in a daze. Without a sound, the fog slowly pulsed like a heartbeat.
The light was by no means dazzling. Rather, it was a mysterious glow that drew the viewer in and would not let go. Gradually, the light changed to a pale purple. Susumu felt a strange sensation, as if he was falling asleep. He tried to make a sound, but he couldn’t, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the glowing mist. It was as if he was under hypnosis.
Not only Susumu, but everyone was staring at the mist with glazed eyes. Then, from somewhere far away, he heard what sounded like a woman’s voice. He wondered if he was hearing things, but the voice gradually got louder.
It wasn’t something he was hearing with his ears. It was coming directly into his head. At first, it was small and vague and hard to understand, but it gradually became clearer. Everyone heard the voice coming directly into their heads.
“I am Queen Aquarius…” That’s what it sounded like to Susumu. The message was coming from far away.
“I am Queen Aquarius…” It was real. Then, like a curtain being drawn, the fog cleared up just as it had risen, and the upper half of a giant woman’s body appeared above the sea of trees, rising far into the sky.
-2-
All the crew members on the first bridge held their breath and looked up at the illusion outside the window. It could only be described as an apparition. With the sky of white clouds and the sea of trees in the background, the upper body of a giant woman, more than 100 meters tall, appeared like a hologram projected into the air from somewhere.
The woman had chest-length hair and a slender face. She had long eyelashes and an extremely beautiful face, but she had a somewhat sad aura about her.
“I am Queen Aquarius…”
The voice echoed in the heads of all the crew members who were looking up at the illusion.
“To those who have been given life by this water planet…”
“What is this…?” Nanbu asked Shima, but Shima ignored him and looked up at the sky.
Susumu and the other crew members were also looking up at the queen’s illusion, captivated. Nanbu quickly glanced up at the sky again.
From the window of the medical room, Sado and the young Dengil boy were looking up at the queen’s illusion in amazement. The vision of the Queen of Aquarius blurred for a moment, as if out of focus, but quickly returned to clarity. Soon, the Queen began to convey a message to the crew of Yamato.
“In the distant past, this water planet, Aquarius, bestowed the blessings of water and life upon your Earth. Now you stand on that mother planet…”
The Queen smiled.
“Aquarius was both a mother planet and a father planet. In other words, while it gave you the grace of birth to you, its children, it also gave you the trials you needed to grow up after that. It caused various abnormal weather events, wiped out those that had thrived, and washed away with floods the civilizations you worked so hard to build.”
“It gave you many trials to develop only the most promising species among the organisms that have arisen on Earth. The species that can overcome the trials and achieve the next stage of evolution…”
Susumu thought as he listened to the message from the Queen.
“The Queen may not only be referring to us, but to all organisms that have arisen and evolved on Earth. In other words, did Aquarius choose the planet Earth as a place for experimentation, and conduct a great experiment on the development of life there?”
“They evolve organisms, then put them through trials to eliminate the bad ones, and select the most promising ones and develop them further. After being sifted dozens of times, the organisms with the highest potential that remain at the end are us, the human race…”
Susumu looked up at the Queen and shook his head to clear his mind. What was Aquarius trying to do by giving birth to and developing the human species? What does the next stage of evolution mean? Does it mean that humanity will be further sifted and evolve into a new and different species? What exactly is Aquarius?
Susumu pondered this with a hazy mind.
“Right now, before our eyes, she appears as an easy-to-understand vision of a queen, but what is conveying her message to us? Is this water planet merely a tool being used by someone?”
Susumu was startled to hear the next message from the vision of the queen.
“The creatures on Earth have overcome the trials that Aquarius has given them and have developed. And finally, they have taken the form of humanity, created a higher civilization, and have continued to exist to this day. Only the species that overcome the trials Aquarius gave them may conquer the future.”
“Trials are also a blessing and a source of love. Love is not always gentle and sweet. It is often painful, harsh, difficult, and frightening…’
The crew was completely intoxicated by the queen’s message.
“Humanity must fight against it. Please, be brave and face the current challenges. The time will surely come when you will reach the next stage of evolution. Until then, you children must accept the challenges.”
“However, it was supposed to be six thousand years before Aquarius would visit Earth again. The ones speeding it up are those with evil powers who were cast out from Earth as an evil species. Their name is the Dengil.”
Everyone looked up at the queen in shock.
“Dengil…”Susumu muttered.
“Your enemies, the Dengil, are the descendants of those who built an ancient civilization on Earth ten thousand years ago. They escaped into space from the flooded Earth and created a new nation. But that was not the result of overcoming a test. You could say that they were banished into space as an evil species.”
“Before they knew it, they had built a civilization on the planet they were banished to. Aquarius, which appreciated their efforts, decided to give them one more test as a final chance. However, instead of working together to overcome the test, they simply escaped and chose the easy way out, using their evil powers to try and take back the Earth from which they had once been banished.”
Everyone gasped in surprise at the message from the Queen.
“Your enemies are not here on Aquarius. Now, fly away, children. In order to gain further development and evolution, you must first fight the evil ones who are trying to take the Earth. This is not a test given by Aquarius, but it is one of the trials.”
“Fly away, children, to seize the future…”
The Queen’s message echoed in Susumu’s head, gradually fading away. At the same time, the Queen’s vision disappeared, blending into the atmosphere. After the vision had completely vanished, all that remained were white clouds and the sea of trees.
Susumu and the others came back to their senses and looked at each other. They all had bewildered expressions, as if they had been dreaming.
“That wasn’t a dream, was it?” Nanbu asked Shima.
“Yeah… What a strange experience…” Shima turned to Susumu. “Kodai, what was that?”
“I don’t know…” Susumu shook his head. He was surprised at how easily he had accepted the Queen’s vision and message. “I don’t know, but I think everything the queen said…or whatever took the form of the queen said…was true.”
All the other crew members looked as if they had been deceived
“To that queen, we humans are just like children…” Shima said.
“Yes. I think that’s true. Whatever sent that message through the queen’s illusion may be a great being, far above us humans. Perhaps it was the universe itself…”
“What?” Shima tilted his head at Susumu’s words.
“No, nothing.” Susumu hastily avoided answering. Then he continued. “Anyway, it’s a relief to know that our enemy is the Dengil people.”
“Yeah. According to the Queen’s message, we share the same ancestors…”
“An evil species, a trial for the next stage…” Susumu muttered.
“Eh?”
“N-no. It’s nothing.”
At that moment, a call came in at the combat station. Susumu hurriedly ran over and switched on the communicator. A voice immediately came over the speaker.
“This is Kato from the Cosmo Tiger team, reporting results of the recon!”
“Kato! What’s the situation!?” Susumu yelled into the mic.
Upon hearing Kato’s call, the crew left the windows and returned to their posts. Everyone’s faces immediately perked up. Captain Okita was sitting in the captain’s seat, his eyes half-closed. No one could tell how Captain Okita had received the message from the Queen of Aquarius.
