“There’s something out there, Captain.”  Harris sat at the table, listening to the Palasa Trasport captain.  He’d abandoned his ship and flew his escape shuttle to Deep Space 47.  “The ship…it…something took control of it.  The computer, the engines…it started slow until nothing worked.”  He shook his head as he remembered, “It took the crew…one by one.  They vanished into thin air.”  Another sigh, “I don’t know how it got them…or how it took them…but there was no one left on my ship.  By that point…every system had shut down and wasn’t responding to my control.”  He accepted the cup of water and drank deeply before he continued, “That is not the strangest part.  There were…voices.  Not just one voice.  I checked.  My communications systems were working just right.  But the voices…they started whispering…then they were shouting…then they were yelling.”

Ambrose was making his notes on his PADD, “What were they saying?”  He wasn’t sure if he should take the man seriously.  He smelled real alcohol as the man had told his story.  And yet…the details were solid, and didn’t seem like he was making them up from some kind of fever dream.  There was some truth to whatever he had seen or heard.

“I have no idea.  It wasn’t Standard, that’s for damned sure.  It sounded Vulcan…or Romulan.  It was angry, I can tell you that much.  It was mad as hell about something.”

“Nothing familiar in the speech patterns or even words you recognized?”

The man thought long and hard, taking several minutes to search his brain until he sputtered out, “Ashv’cezh.  That was one that I heard over and over.” Harris tapped at the PADD for a translation and frowned at the translation. He felt the hair on the back of his neck raise slightly.  The transport captain looked at him expectantly, “Well, what does it mean?”

“The literal translation is, ‘”revenge worse than death’.  Are you sure you heard it right?”  The man nodded and then shook his head.

“I need to leave and report back.  It is a Vulcan word?”  Harris returned the nod.  “Goddamn it.  Thank you for your time, Starfleet.”  With that, he was up and out of the room before Harris could ask further questions.  The man wasn’t in custody and had done nothing wrong.  Still, there was something about his reaction.  Ambrose jumped up and gave chase, finding him at the dock of his shuttle as he began to check out.

“Something’s got you spooked.”  

The man spun to face him, “This isn’t your business, Starfleet.”  

Harris disagreed and held his hand over the console, preventing the man from departing, “We were asked here by the Palasa Group.  I’m not going to stop you from going back home and reporting on what you saw…but you know something.  Whatever this is is going to need someone willing to poke at it.  I need to know what I’m going to be annoying.”

The transport captain stared at him and sighed, “There’s a rumor that someone disturbed a Vulcan holy ground or something out here.  That whatever they did, stole, or whatever…is out for revenge.”  He shrugged, “I didn’t believe it…and now look at me.”  He gestured to the console, “Can I go now?”

Harris stepped back.  A Vulcan holy site?  Here?  The word he had remembered was clear, and the translation unmistakable.  Something was out here.  What, who, or why required answers.  Ambrose took off, walking back to the Mackenzie.  They had a mystery.  And he had a Vulcan XO.

“It is highly unlikely.” T’saath was sitting in the seat across the desk from her captain as he’d just finished his report.  “There are no records of Vulcans traveling to the Thomar Expanse.”

Ambrose shrugged, “You know as well as I do that plenty is missing from the records on Vulcan.  Just because it isn’t there doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.  Vulcan mysticism is not completely understood…and that includes Vulcans.”

She indicated with a slight tip of her head, “You are correct.  Research and archaeological work have continued on Vulcan and the surrounding worlds.  There have been questions raised as to how far we traveled in our early and later years.  That particular line of reasoning has not been explored due to a lack of interest and evidence.”

Harris acknowledged her statement with a return tip of his head, “Well, we’ve got some evidence that may point us in a direction here in the expanse.”

She narrowed her eyes, “Evidence that is not substantial or physical.  We have the word of a pirate.  They are notoriously untrustworthy.”

He tried again, “And if we find something out there?  Something… substantial or physical?  You’ve read the reports on the Blood Dilithium in the Delta Quadrant?  The souls of the Brenari collected into the stuff?”

She had read the reports and studied the test that had been performed along with the various findings that had been presented.  “It was…an unusual situation.  I was not present, so I am unable to verify for certain the true validity of their findings.”  She allowed, “Logically, I can accept that the various scientists were competent and reasonably investigative in their processes.  There are a great number of explanations that would give credence to other answers in that situation.”

Ambrose stared at her for a moment and stood, “Your concerns are valid and noted, Commander T’saath.  We will set a course deeper into the expanse at 1100 hours to further the investigation we’ve been ordered to pursue.  I’d suggest getting the department heads ready for our departure and completing systems checks for departure.”

She stood as well, “I’ll begin immediately.”  T’saath turned and walked out the door.  Harris sat down roughly in his chair.  She was a Vulcan, that was certain.  There was something else within their conversation.  An almost instinctual resistance to the possibility of the inexplicable.  He made a note to do a longer investigation into her file and history.  He had a final meeting with his operations chief scheduled to review the final list of supplies from Deep Space 47.

Then they would be off into the darkness and the unknown.  What was out there, and what was it…really?