Taan's team was loaded on the shuttle, and he ordered the doors closed and the pilot to guide them to Etrusia. Even with the quickest shuttle, it was at least a two-hour cruise. 

He gazed out the front portals, trembling inside with the news he had received this day. His hands gripped the seat hard, if he could have seen his knuckles, he knew they would have been protruding and white. Instead, he focused on the scene that met his eyes. A lit track flew by beneath their view. It wasn't attached to the ocean floor, but hung suspended in most places, a fine strong cable that could be activated when transportation approached. 

Down here, darkness reigned. The shuttle had its own dim bluish glow that conserved energy as they traveled and made them less of a target for large sea predators which were seldom inclined to investigate them.

Every so often a sea creature could be seen, glowing cheerily alongside, or else floating aimlessly. Occasionally a school of fish of some kind swam ahead or around them. Taan had never been interested in the sea or its creatures only about getting himself and his people out of it. 

There were those who studied it and he held them in high esteem, for they had accomplished much good in their research. But his concerns had always been different. Land and air were in his blood. He had fought on land once, and although he'd had to retreat to the sea to survive, he missed the land.

Taan remembered his grandmother, Kolana clearly. She'd been weathered and spry, agile and extremely wise up until her last breath at the ripe old age of one hundred. To him, she had been quick and playful, but he'd seen her firmly lead the Council and install Kai, conceiving of theories and ideas to heal their planet. Forever an optimist, she'd instilled in him the mandate to continue the search for a way out.

It had been two hundred years since the pioneers had settled on Folara. He felt old. Maybe too old for this kind of mission. He couldn't leave it to Galantyne. Galantyne could lead another land war. He could not.

With the news that Ondrea was alive, he had to believe that The Council of Ladies had been involved in deceiving him. To what purpose? For what gain? His heart twisted to think that a viper's nest had been bred in the council of Ladies in Aquaria. As he thought of each member he realized that only one name stood out to him.

Nimiane. He'd never quite trusted her after she returned from the land. She was still Quildor's wife.

He thought of his daughter, Kara. She was obviously being groomed by the council to take her rightful place among the women there, and just as obviously she was her father's daughter and had a warrior's spirit. 

She was too hot-headed. Too much like Galantyne, too committed to answers and not committed enough to those who remained stationary. Kara would never remain stationary.

His thoughts turned to Jerrika, the daughter he'd raised and ignored. And also the mysterious Avarona who had come as a child with Ondrea. There was something he didn't understand about these women and about his wife.

His heart constricted. Ondrea, Ondrea! You're alive! 

Beautiful, smart, cunning and clever Ondrea! There was no one in the realm like her. No one as lovely, as mysterious, as compassionate and thoughtful. No one fit his needs like Ondrea; no one challenged his thinking or pushed his limits like Ondrea. With no other person had he ever felt such bonding teamwork. They were mates, perfect and soul-linked. 

He'd never stopped mourning her death. She was there in the back of his mind, always her face swam in the night nearby even when he made love to Lynette. He missed her more than he could ever say. It wasn't fair to Lynette, but he couldn't change it. 

When he had settled the medical problems with Etrusia, and found and retrieved Archer, he'd go to Valdemar himself and plead with Ondrea to have him back. If she had never died, then his second marriage was really of no effect. He would put Lynette aside, give her a grand home and all the riches she could want... he'd still raise Conn to be an heir.

His heart clenched again. Lailoken, Galantyne's oldest son, could have been heir. But he was so ambitious, so self-centered. A King, Taan had learned, needed to think of his people first. Selflessness served him far better than ruling people, as did Quildor.

He heard his team talking softly in the background. Short bursts of animation as they discussed epidemics and pandemics that had infiltrated the history of their home planet. All such germs had been eradicated by the time the three pioneer ships had left earth. Where had this one come from? They were speculating about that right now. Vermin, spontaneous molds, and fungus mixed with chemicals and non-sterile apparatus. 

There were many differing opinions, and none of them mattered until they got to the city and found out for themselves the conditions there. Then they'd be able to use the knowledge they'd brought with them from their studies of earth disease and illness to find a cure.

They were all confident that a cure would be found immediately. Stations were being considered for testing of the living and the dead population. Taan closed his eyes, believing that these very well educated and passionate men would be able to solve the plague issue. His main concern was finding Archer.

*******

The captain of Taan's standing army wasn't even a true soldier. Galantyne roused the young man from a sound and unconcerned sleep, standing at attention inside a dinky hole in the wall apartment in the small army quarters. There had been no need and no anticipated need for an Aquarian army in the last nineteen years and only a few spots had been maintained. Unlike Galantyne's forces who were each and every man and woman trained to fight.

This young Captain struggled in the dawn light to raise his own pants, looking like a bumbling fish fryer. Galantyne lost his patience and yelled obscenities until everyone in the barracks was roused, all twenty of them.

"How many recruits are there Kane?" Galantyne thundered, his own frustration at having to raise the soldiers in this unorganized fashion a gall to his father's upkeep. Had Taan simply counted on Galantyne's forces to protect and fight for Aquaria? This young Captain couldn't be older than Lailoken or Faherdin, possibly in his early twenties and certainly not trained as anything. Young women in cloth robes emerged from apartments as well, as their men struggled into a file of sorts at the angry tones coming from an obviously trained warrior.

"Twenty-five, sir!" Captain Kane announced, still brushing his hands through his sleep-tousled hair, and trying to eyeball his men into coming to attention.

Galantyne blew out his breath in disgust. He couldn't blame these clumsy, inexperienced youth for their lack of training when his own father had made them this way. He walked painfully down the hallway in the barracks, eyeing each young man in turn as if they were bugs that had simply crawled out from under a rock.

"I relieve you of rank, sir." Galantyne announced to Kane whose shoulders slumped as if he'd been expecting this blow eventually. "I invoke the right of command of your army in the name of King Taan of Aquaria. I am your new commander, and you are each going to obey me without question. We are at war, men! Do you hear me?"

A few mumbled and Galantyne winced. "Do you hear me?" he yelled and as one the small group including the sleepy looking women straightened, not sure what to do.

"You answer me, Yes sir!" he yelled at them, cracking his palms together for emphasis as he turned abruptly on his heels and faced them.

"Yes sir!" a few answered half-heartedly.

"Those of you who can't answer me with the dignity and the energy of your rank will be killed. I want your answers now, sons! Do you hear me?!" he yelled at them and all of them managed to stand up tall, the fear finally penetrating their conscious minds. They hadn't had any direction at all and had never responded to anything even remotely resembling a muster.

"Yes, sir!" Most of them shouted, with the exception of one who simply stood there pulling on the waistband of his pajamas with an idiotic look on his face. Galantyne drew his sword and plunged it into the man's heart and as he dropped Galantyne turned to the next man in line. "Clean this up!" He yelled and when the man didn't move for shock, Galantyne yelled at him again. "Son, do you understand me? Clean this up, or you are next!"

The first and relieved Captain of Taan's pathetic army was blubbering at the sight of a friend killed before his eyes and Galantyne turned to him. "As your commander, I give you only one order and I expect it to be carried out to the letter. This City is under my rule and my law. Go gather every able bodied man and bring them back to this training field within two hours. I expect to see five hundred men on this field. Do you understand me?"

Tears were streaming down the cheeks of the young former captain, who nodded and gulped and cried out in a high-pitched whine the best that he could. "Yes, sir!"

The rest mimicked his lead and Galantyne marched abruptly back the way he had come, thoroughly disgusted at his father's lackadaisical approach since the last war. He stopped at the entrance to the barracks and didn't move, and was satisfied to hear the scrambling of frightened feet racing to do his bidding.

*******