Chapter Text
Two days after what the senior staff were referring to as ‘the incident’, Jonathan Archer’s chief engineer and armoury officer were missing again - sort of. What he meant by ‘missing’ was ‘had not turned up for dinner’, and therefore, he’d gone to look for the most likely culprit - Malcolm Reed. While he was an outstanding officer (Jon really needed to find some excuse to promote him) he wasn’t exactly the best at taking care of himself, and since they’d woken up in sickbay, Trip Tucker had been following poor Malcolm around like a duckling with its mama. Therefore… if he could find Malcolm, Trip probably wouldn’t be too far away.
“Malcolm.” Jon entered the shuttlebay, and stopped when he saw his armoury officer - or, to be more accurate, half of his armoury officer, because the other half was buried in the bow of shuttlepod one, doing god only knows what.
“...yes Captain?” Malcolm drew back and looked up from where he was carefully attaching… something… to the front of the nearest shuttle. Jon raised an eyebrow, and leaned on the wall, regarding the slightly spiky thing Malcolm was working on. It looked distinctly dangerous. And surprisingly grubby, judging by the black smudges of dirt all over Malcolm’s arms, hands, and one on his face.
“Care to explain what you’re doing to my favourite shuttlepod?”
“I’m improving it, Sir.” Malcolm replied calmly, scanning the something and making a face at it. At Archer’s feet, Porthos whined - he recognized this human. He was the one who didn’t like cheese, and would drop it for Porthos to snaffle up when Jon wasn’t looking. But it didn’t look like he had any cheese with him now, instead, he was adjusting something black and dangerous looking, which he was evidently setting into the front of the shuttlepod.
“Improving it how, exactly?” Jon asked after watching him tinker for a minute or so. “Please tell me that it doesn’t involve rigging it to explode or anything.”
“I’m fitting it with better weapons, Sir. Commander Tucker has already upgraded the scanners, the communicator, and the protection on life support systems including oxygen. At risk of sounding a little… as though I’m trying to take your job…. I do believe that none of the crew would like a repeat of the incident. Especially myself or Commander Tucker.”
“And this?” Jon indicated the black box, skeptical, and malcolm smiled tightly.
“Spare phase cannon, Sir. I managed to shrink it enough to fit into the nose of the shuttle.”
“A phase cannon? On a shuttlepod?”
“It’s best to be prepared, Sir.” Malcolm’s voice was slightly strained, and Porthos whined again, trying to put his front paws up on his leg. Malcolm glanced down, and absently patted his head. “After what happened to me and Commander Tucker-”
“Malcolm. There’s no need to be so formal.” Archer reached out to touch Malcolm’s shoulder, sighing when the brit shied back. “Why are we back to this again?”
“Back to what, Sir?” Malcolm asked, raising his scanner again and adjusting a setting. Jon frowned, and coaxed Porthos back from where he was trying very hard to climb up Malcolm’s side.
“Porthos, sit.”
“It’s alright.” Malcolm glanced down again, and Jon saw the shadow of a bruise on his cheekbone that Phlox must have missed, or else that he’d received after the… adventure. “I’m almost finished. And he’s not actually preventing me from working. He sometimes sneaks out of your quarters for a quick explore, you know.. He’s visited the armoury a few times.”
“You’re almost finished… fitting a phase cannon to my favorite shuttlepod. And he visits the armoury because he knows you’ll feed him.”
“We’ll do the same to the other shuttlepod.” Malcolm gave a quick half-smile, dropping something from his pocket that Porthos dived for. Jon raised both eyebrows this time.
“He’ll get fat.”
“I’ll walk him. On the treadmill. I ah, grew up with a family dog. A Yorkshire Terrier, actually. Philip.” This actually got Malcolm to smile, and Jon made a mental note to speak to his contacts.
“Fair enough. You know, the shuttles really don’t-”
“Better to be prepared, Sir. I thought you were a scout.” Malcolm’s eyes flicked to his for a second, before he looked around as Trip entered, carrying something that looked almost twice as deadly as whatever it was Malcolm had fitted to the shuttle’s nose.
“What is that, Trip?”
“It’s a miniature phase cannon, Sir. Except building two of them got a bit boring so we decided to combine this one with a plasma rifle. It fires teeny tiny little torpedos.”
“...why.” Jon asked simply. Both the other men shrugged innocently. “Malcolm, you’re rubbing off on Trip. Combination weapons do not belong on shuttlepods.”
“Well, there wasn’t room to fit them separately!” Trip pointed out cheerfully. Jon groaned.
“Then why didn’t pod one get the multi-weapon?”
Malcolm made a face at Shuttlepod One. “Because it tried to kill us. It doesn’t get nice things.”
“Are you feeling quite alright, Lieutenant?” Jon asked mildly, while Malcolm had picked up the cannon-rifle and was carrying it over to shuttlepod two, looking rather more excited that anyone about to disembowel a shuttle had any right to look.
“I’m fine, Sir.” Malcolm slid the black object into a space clearly designed for it. Trip moved over to help secure it, and Jon sighed, resigned to the shuttlepods being heavily weaponized. If it made the pair happy, it was worth it. Malcolm seemed happier than he had since waking up - and Jon doubted that it was entirely because of the fact Porthos was bounding around his feet. He whistled to get the pup back to his own heels, and watched the pair - he was considering dubbing them the ‘meddlesome twosome’ for the amount of time they spent ‘improving’ things - for a minute before leaving the shuttlebay to make a call.
By the next week, Malcolm’s bruises were fading, and both he and Trip seemed to be back to normal - which was lucky, because the Enterprise had a visitor.
Shran stepped through the airlock with a box in his arms, nose slightly wrinkled as he handed it to Jon.
“Pinkskin. Here is your… package.”
“Thanks.” Jon opened the flaps and grinned at the contents. “Thank god that Nelson had one spare. Getting one here from Earth…”
“What is it, exactly?” Shran asked skeptically. Jon grinned.
“Present for Malcolm.”
“...what?”
“Malcolm Reed, my armoury officer. He’s been a little down recently, so…” Jon indicated the box. “Wanna come with me to give it to him?”
“I barely know him!”
“You’re not even a little bit curious?”
“...perhaps a little.” Shran sighed and followed Jon down to the armoury, where Malcolm was tinkering with something that looked suspiciously like it could blow up a small moon.
“Malcolm?”
“Sir?” Malcolm looked up, and smiled slightly as he saw Shran. “Commander.”
“We have something for you.” Jon held the box up, smiling, and Malcolm set the explode-y thing down to approach.
“For me?”
“For you.” Jon handed him the box, and Malcolm turned to set it on a nearby counter, and lifted out-
“A puppy, Sir?”
“A puppy.” Jon confirmed, as the tiny puppy - a teacup Yorkshire Terrier, according to the cargo ship captain who’d agreed to give the small creature to Jon - wriggled excitedly, trying her level best to climb out of the box. After a moment, Malcolm lifted her out, settling her against his shoulder.
“She’s beautiful - why, though, Sir?”
“You seemed a little… down recently. And Porthos could do with a friend.” Jon shrugged. “Maybe she’ll distract you from weaponizing everything in sight?”
“Sir!” Malcolm protested, as the puppy licked his face enthusiastically. “I do not weaponize everything. Only the things that would be improved with an arsenal of-”
“You were right.” Shran commented. “He does need distracting.”
Malcolm looked abandoned, but was quickly distracted by the puppy. “What are you gonna call her, Malcolm?”
“...Torpedo.”
“Malcolm!”
“Tor for short.” The puppy yapped her agreement, licking him again, before wriggling free to sprint across the room (she only slid a little bit) to end up at Trip’s feet as the engineer wandered in. He looked between Malcolm, the puppy, the captain, Shran, back to the puppy, and then Malcolm again.
“...what’s she called, then?” he asked, scooping her up - she fit into one palm - for a quick hug. “Wait, no, let me guess. She’s Malcom’s?”
“She is.”
“Plasma. Rifle. Cannon. Phaser.”
“Trip!”
“Am I close?”
“...yes.” Malcolm admitted sheepishly. Trip glanced around, then grinned.
“Torpedo?”
Tor barked as loudly as she could, entire back half wagging. Trip handed her back to Malcolm, amused.
“Just don’t weaponize her, okay?”