Author's Note: Again, very sorry for taking so long. I've just been more and more busy and I finally founded the time to finish the chapter. This is a longer chapter, so I hope it tides you guys over until the next one. I am eager to get done with "In Search of Ashes" because I am planning a follow-up. Again, normal disclaimers, Star Trek owned by Paramount and stuff. Oh, and I've tried to fit in the Andorians of Enterprise (as witness on tonight's episode "The Aenar") with the Andorians of the books. Hope it's believable. Enjoy.

Chapter Eight

One hit from the cloaked vessel had effectively knocked out all of the Enterprise's communication, much like the Romulans had done for the Titan earlier. Another blast rocked the ship and most weapons were down. But as soon as Dr. Clint Tyler Neilson grabbed a hold of the biobed on which he was treating a patient with a fractured metacarpal, having been thrown off balance by the ship's sudden quaking, the attack had stopped.

The doctor, having been born and raised in Boston, being a seismically sound area, had never really gotten used to the feeling of the ground quaking beneath him. So every engagement on every ship he'd served on over the last half a century had left him with the same sudden fear that everything would collapse around him.

Not that such a concern were unfounded, he was one of the surviving crewmembers of the Hood, the ship with the highest casualty rate of any Starfleet ship during the Dominion War. He had seen so many bright, young faces fade away well before their time. He'd seen virile youths torn apart by Jem'Hadar polaron phasers, there remains sent home in body bags not even half the size of their actual bodies. He'd seen mangled, defiled corpses left scathed by Jem'Hadar blades. To think that the creatures couldn't even respect the Federation's dead enough to let them die in one peace horrified him.

The Hood had engaged in nearly every decisive ship-to-ship battle of the war; no small feat for an old Excelsior-class starship. But the fact that he'd been among the few to survive had been a terrible burden. He was in his seventies and had a good fifty or sixty years before he had to go, but these young officers all had a good century ahead of them before they met their Maker. Just the numbers of dead was the worst thing about the war, but seeing how it broke so many people as well. On the Hood, he'd had a young doctor working under him, Kieth Hughes, who'd lost his wife and child due to the war. Hughes had resigned from Starfleet as soon as the war ended, but he at least went to a subsidiary of the Federation Red Cross to help people in need.

But Hughes was the classic case; a man who had had so much to live for and then lost it all. Neilson had nothing to lose but himself. Neilson's wife, Bethany, had been in Boston back on Earth through the war, which meant she was out of harm's way, save for the attack on San Francisco that was still across the continent from where she was. Beth was Neilson's one great love, and if he had lost her like Hughes lost his family, he likely would have done the same thing. The worst part of the man's ordeal was that the Hood was in orbit of the planet where his wife and child were. His mother-in-law asked them to come and help her move to Terra Nova with them, well out of the frontline's reach. They had been unable to contact Hughes before leaving, and the frontlines hadn't reached that sector yet, so they went to help, thinking it would be safe to go there.

When the Dominion attacked, Neilson and Hughes set up a mobile triage in the capital city, less than two kilometers away from his mother-in-law's home, he wanted to go off to find her and bring her to safety when he couldn't find her on any refugee registries. He was tied up by treating the wounded and it was thirteen hours before Neilson got a chance to let Hughes take security detail to check on her. When he arrived, the Jem'Hadar had just attacked that section of town and he feared the worse for his wife's mother. When he got into the house, the sight of his wife lying on her back, clutching their child to his chest, greeted him. Both of them were dead. He had no idea they were on the planet.

Neilson felt a large degree of guilt for this event, for if he had allowed Hughes to leave even two hours earlier, he would have been able to save his family. But because of Neilson's drive to save those who could not be saved, he delayed too long and caused the deaths of at least three innocent lives. Who knows how many people Hughes would have brought back?

"Doctor?" asked the young crewman with the fractured metacarpal, "I think I may need to get to my post now, since we were just attacked and all."

Neilson snapped out of his brief lapse of attentiveness, finished up with the young man and began receiving several patients with mild injuries due to the attack.

V V V

Counselor Lukiana Laurence had no more than arrived at the turbolift to go to the bridge when the attack ended. Knowing that it was her duty to report to the bridge, she continued on when red alert was dropped down to yellow. The blaring klaxons had stopped and the ship had stilled, but she could still sense something out there, beyond the Enterprise.

Amusement, she thought to herself. Someone was toying with them.

She entered the 'lift and proceeded to the bridge, finding it a little smoked, but otherwise in normal condition. She noticed one of the science consoles in the back of the large ovular room had caught fire, causing minor burns to a young crewman on duty. She quickly found Commander Madden sitting in the command chair, going over a preliminary damage report. She took a deep breath, ignoring the agitated thoughts of the crewmen around her and tapped the commander on the shoulder. When the commander's eyes swung up to meet hers, she simply asked, "Can I speak with you in the ready room?"

Madden gave a quick, silent nod, seeing that something was bothering the full Betazoid woman and gave a gentle pat on her shoulder has they headed for the Captain's Fortress of Solitude, as some of the newer crewmembers such as herself had come to call the ready room.

She followed him into the office and took a seat in a guest chair in front of the desk. Madden didn't say a word until she had finished composing herself.

"What is it, Counselor?" he asked in a concerned tone.

"They're playing a game with us," Laurence informed him. "Distracting us."

"How so?" Madden asked.

"They're trying to keep us off their trail, I can feel it."

"The other ship? Are they trying to keep us from finding it? That was only one of the Reman warbirds that just attacked us. We know there's another one out there."

Laurence nodded. "There's only one here. I can sense the animosity from whoever is on board."

"Then we have to find the other ship if we hope to find Captain Picard and the others…"

"Yes," Laurence said.

"All we can hope is that Shon and Commander Donatra can find out about where they might be going from that Tal Shiar computer core. That's the only good thing that seems to have come out of that little excursion to the base on Remus."

"Indeed," grimly replied Laurence.

V V V

Shon sighed. He and Commander Donatra had had plenty of time to work on the Tal Shiar computer core, seeing as the Valdore and the Enterprise had nowhere they could go until a lead was found to take them to wherever the ship that held Captain Picard, and Commanders Worf and La Forge was going. And since she had had more dealings with the Tal Shiar than any of the other crewmembers of the Valdore were willing to admit to, she seemed the perfect candidate to assist the Enterprise's operations/science officer.

It had been a tedious task; the Tal Shiar did not make it easy to infiltrate their computer systems. First they had to disarm an explosive hidden within the core. Then another safeguard had to be bypassed to keep the core from wiping its own memory. All that was left was breaking the entry code. And considering the complexity of the Romulan language, Shon was very glad Donatra was there to assist.

First, the two had set up a program to randomly input any Romulan words that could be spelled with six characters, just as the entry code would have been. It had six slots, each could be filled with Romulan characters. That had proved in effective. So they told the computer to input any combination or words that, when put together became six characters.

The biggest problem was the size of the Romulan alphabet. There were five hundred and nine characters, which meant impossibly high amounts of combinations.

Shon sighed thoughtfully and reclined in his chair. He and the Romulan commander had been in the lab that Commander Data had often used for his own self-diagnostics, though most of his equipment had been removed by the Daystrom Institute for uses on Data's "brother" android, B-4. The fluorescent ambiance of the room reminded him slightly of the way the moon reflected off the ice caps of his home region of Andor, or Andoria as some called it. Over the last two centuries, Andor had gone into a period of global warning. Two hundred years ago, in the time of the founding of the Federation, it had been a world dominated by ice, now it was mostly archipelagoes with one main continent to the north. Andorian biology was adapting, but at a cost. It was causing their already complex mating cycle more so by making it harder to mate without finding genetic matches early in life.

The warming had also caused the off-world emigration of the few remaining Aenar, a blind, telepathic subspecies of the Andorians with white skin and penetrating, yet empty eyes. The "white-skins", as some still called them, had been in failing numbers two centuries before and were finally getting back on their feet. Oddly, the Aenar hadn't been as plagued with genetic problems as their cousins, the "blue-skins".

But breakthroughs were beginning. Thanks to the discovery of a moss that utilized four gametes on an Andorian subcontinent, methods of manipulating the Andorian reproduction system were being tested that extended the narrow period of fertility as well as made the system more productive, increasing the amount of children a bondgroup could sire.

"Thinking of home?" asked Donatra inquisitively, suddenly breaking Shon's wandering thoughts.

"What? Oh… Yes. Yes I was. I've not been to Andor for over a year. After this mission is over however, I will return. I must return," Shon said, somewhat distantly.

"Why?" Donatra asked with blazing curiosity. Shon was, quite frankly, surprised with how active the Romulan commanding officer was with her pursuit of knowledge from him. Shon wondered if perhaps he was too influenced by the general Federation stereotyping of Romulans as heartless conquerors.

He gave a brief description of his obligations to child rearing. He severely doubted that an off-worlder, let alone someone from outside the Federation, could truly grasp the importance of his return to Andor.

Donatra nodded slowly, clearly comprehending what little information Shon had divulged. He was considering going into detail when the program that was trying to break the Tal Shiar code suddenly alerted to a match.

"Have we broken the code this quickly?" Donatra asked.

Shon moved quickly to see what the display said. He allowed himself a brief smile of a complacent nature, something Andorians seldom did, and nodded. "I believe so."

Shon noticed Donatra lean in over his shoulder. She had an intriguing aroma about her that smelled faintly sweet. Her silver tunic rattled slightly as her brow furrowed, examining the results of the encryption breaker.

"Well, this must be the password, but I don't understand the wording behind it. It seems… well, like gibberish."

Shon nodded, "Most likely to help avoid cracking the code."

Donatra nodded in agreement, "Likely."

Shon suddenly found himself curious about something, "What exactly do the symbols mean?"

"They spell out to something… Well, I don't really know what it is," Donatra stated, obviously confused with the seeming randomness of it.

"What does it say?"

"Na-da-sha Ya-re," stated Donatra.

Shon suddenly realized something. He suddenly got up from his chair and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Donatra asked, generally puzzled.

"If I'm correct, we may have an idea of who's behind this," Shon stated with an air of confidence.

V V V

"Admiral Tomalak," Jean- Luc Picard stated with heavy sarcasm as he leaned away from his guard's grip, "How lovely to see you again under such pleasant circumstances."

After having been led out of his cell in the middle of what Picard viewed as night and forced to walk across the length of the mammoth of a ship that he was on, was both relieved to be out of his cell and to see a face that he could place blame on for everything that had happened in the last week.

Tomalak leaned forward, placed his hands on his desk and interwove his fingers in a thoughtful manner. The Romulan admiral's hair had grayed by several shades since Picard had last gone toe to toe with him. He also wore several large medals and insignias on his uniform to show his status has an Admiral and legion commander. Lines of worry and stress had formed over his brow and under his eyes, giving the middle aged Romulan an older appearance. Tomalak seemed to regard Picard with thoughtfulness, though it was obviously as sincere as Picard's greeting.

A mug filled with some form of hot liquid sat next to a stack of pads on his desk. Behind the admiral was a viewport with the large raptor emblem of the Romulan Empire. The stars streaked by as the warbird went at warp speeds.

"It's nice to see you as well, Picard," Tomalak said, adding with a sneer, "Especially under such pleasant circumstances."

Picard took notice of a dark corner behind the admiral. It was heavily shadowed and he could tell that there was someone, fairly short in stature, standing, shrouded in the shadows. He returned his focus to Tomalak.

"What do you want from me, Tomalak?" Picard asked, cutting right to the chase.

"Oh, nothing more than your death, Picard. You and your friends in the brig." Tomalak's eyes widened as if he suddenly remembered something. "Ah, yes," he said, looking to the guard, "Send in the other prisoners as well, they should witness this as well."

The doors of the office slid open. Captain Riker, Ambassador Spock, Geordi La Forge, and Commander Worf, as well as several members of the Federation were led in by Romulan gaurds. Picard could see that none of them seemed to have been treated any worse than he had. Worf was obviously angry at being captured, but otherwise he was calm. La Forge simply stayed as cool and collect as he normal was.

Ambassador Spock was the first to speak. "It is but logical that you are involved in this, Tomalak. You always have been against peace."

The person in the shadows suddenly spoke, "You never did know when to shut up, did you, Vulcan?" It was a feminine voice, but strong, with excellent force to it.

Spock looked at the shrouded woman quizzically, "Quite the contrary, I know perfectly well when it is logical and advantageous to not speak. I simply do not view this moment as one of those times."

"Be quiet," said the woman in the shadows, forcefully, "You're just as annoying now as you were eight years ago."

Picard raised an eyebrow in a very Vulcan-like and looked at Spock. The ambassador glanced briefly in the captain's direction and nodded slightly.

"Then, Admiral Sela, I would just recommend that you don't listen to me."

The woman stepped into the shadows, revealing the face of former Enterprise security chief, Natasha "Tasha" Yar. It was Sela, of course, born from the time travel of a Tasha Yar from another reality. Picard knew it was a farfetched story, but he trusted Guinan, his long time friend, and her judgement when she first confirmed Sela's story.

She glared at Spock with sudden anger, "Just like a Vulcan." She then suddenly smiled slightly and shrugged. "It doesn't matter, you'll all soon be killed anyway. We won't have to deal with you much longer."