Disclaimer: Star Trek Enterprise is the property of Paramount Pictures, not mine.
Chapter 2
Silent Enemy
"Pineapple. That's my favorite. How on Earth did you know?"
That heartfelt sentence was several hours behind him now. Currently, he was on his knees, dejectedly heaving into the toilet and praying for the whole ordeal to be finally over with.
I am not touching pineapple for a few months again, Malcolm thought bitterly.
Modern medicine allowed him to enjoy his favorite staple of food – at least most of the time. Even with all the treatments available, his body decided from time to time to reject his favorite food and to remind him of its disapproval.
When the dry heaves that had been plaguing him for some time seemed to abate, he shakily stood up and washed his face under the tap. Rinsing out his mouth repeatedly to get rid of the taste of vomit, Malcolm risked a glance in the mirror, noting the pallor of his face.
Off to bed with you, Reed. You need to catch a few hours of sleep, or you are going to nod off at your station during your shift. Despite the Captain's permission to sleep in on the following day as the reward for their performance against the unknown ship the day previous, he had every intention to be at his Bridge shift at 8:00 sharp.
Few shaky steps later, he was laid out on his bunk, feeling as if his skin was starting to get few sizes too small continuously.
The miserable man gently massaged his eyes, trying to get rid of the unpleasant feeling of grit and to find a position in which he could fall asleep.
The crawling feeling was getting progressively worse.
Reed belatedly realized that his breathing was getting progressively raspier and more laborious as well.
He managed to push himself into a sitting position, feeling slightly irritated at himself. It is the middle of the night, for Lord's sake! I am not calling Phlox to deal with a…
His sluggish mind registered the swelled fingers.
Malcolm Reed was no fan of the Sickbay. But he was also no fool. He recognized the symptoms of a possible anaphylactic shock – even though it was several years since he last had it and Starfleet Medical believed that the injection treatments should have taken care of the issue quite handily.
He clumsily hit the intercom button next to his bed.
"Reed…" was as far as he got, feeling his throat finally swelling shut and sounding raspy even to his own rapidly diminishing hearing.
The next thing he vaguely recognized was the hard floor of his cabin as it made contact with his body.
The Communication Crewman on the Bridge frowned at his console – it was very late in the Gama shift rotation and most of the crew was deeply asleep.
There shouldn't be any com traffic at this hour.
He checked the origin of the call – Lieutenant Reed's cabin. That was beyond strange.
He hesitated. Not many on the crew were well familiar with the taciturn Brit after the few months they spent on their exploratory mission. As far as he knew, the man was running his people in the Armory as relentlessly as any slave driver from Earth's past. But on the other hand, the Armory staff practically worshipped him – and was not shy about making their love and admiration known to anyone willing to listen to their accolades of the man. At the same time, they were very careful to sing the man's praises where their boss couldn't hear them.
The crewman decided to compromise – instead of calling the man in question himself, he shot a quick text message to one of the Security guys on Gama shift in the Armory and asked them to check on their boss, when making the next round around the ship.
Author's note: Many thanks to LoyaulteMeLie, who suggested an update to the title. Hopefully, it is now correct.
