Disclaimer: Star Trek Enterprise is property of Paramount, not mine.


Chapter 3

Shuttlepod 1

"Any last words you want me to pass along?" The Armory Officer asked Trip lightheartedly. He was just carrying on with the banter they had started some time ago, trying to lighten the oppressive reality of them standing on the very real brink of suffocating before the Enterprise managed to get back to them.

The pause was unexpected.

Commander Tucker seemed to ponder the question seriously, unwrapping himself from the cocoon of the thermo blanket and hitting his legs several times with fists, trying to get some semblance of blood circulation back, slowly climbing up on the bench.

"Yeah. Tell Captain Archer that it was one hell of an honor serving with him."

Lieutenant Reed was momentously stupefied by the sheer incredulity of that statement, wasting seconds, when the Chief Engineer opened the airlock and started to painfully climb up into it.

"What are you doing?" he all but roared at his nominal superior. More of a friend now, Malcolm. Don't lie to yourself, you failed at respecting the fraternization regulations in his case a long time now, he mentally berated himself.

"We don't know whether or not they saw our little display of pyrotechnics, but either way, this will double your chances," Trip stated matter of factly, whilst visually reviewing the inside of shuttle pod's airlock.

"You are crazy! Now get down from there!" Malcolm roared in earnest this time, scared to witness his superior officer fully planning to commit suicide before his eyes.

"Sit down Lieutenant," Commander Tucker tried to order him.

"If anyone should go up in there, it should be me! You are the Chief Engineer!" he tried to persuade his superior officer, trying for logic this time. T'Pol would be proud of me.

"I'm also in charge of deciding who's going into this airlock. Do I make myself clear?" Commander Tucker shouted back at him, his hackles obviously rising at the ongoing argument.

Psyched yourself up to pulling the trigger, didn't you? And now you are scared that I am going to talk you out of it, aren't you? an unwelcome part of Malcolm, disciplined by his years in the Section whispered spitefully. Malcolm repressed it immediately, digging up the phase pistol from its storage compartment instead.

"Commander."

"What are you gonna do? Kill me?" Trip uttered in disbelief, one foot still up on the ladder leading up to the airlock, staring at the other man.

"It's set to stun. I don't want to use it, but I will," Lieutenant Reed threatened his superior.

"Put it down!" The order was delivered in a half-hearted attempt at a commanding bellow.

"Go to Hell!" Malcolm was fed up with this senseless stand-off. Enterprise needs you more than it does me, my friend. You are not throwing your life away today.

Trip slipped down the ladder, obviously in no mood to shout, but still fighting.

"Stop trying to be a hero. It doesn't suit you." he hissed in Malcolm's face, trying to disabuse him of the notion of them both dying, doggedly trying to wrench the blessing for his harebrained plan from the other officer.

"What would you know about being a hero?! It takes nothing but a coward to crawl up inside there and die, when there are people who depend on you making it back!" Malcolm shouted back at him, pressing the phase pistol into Trip's thigh and pulling the trigger.

The wild blue eyes found his, uncomprehending, showing the ultimate shock.

"The Enterprise needs you more, Chief Engineer, than it does me. I am going to double your chances of survival, whether you like it, or not." Malcolm Reed, Lieutenant on board the first Earth Warp 5 capable vessel smiled mirthlessly.

He efficiently stripped of his thermo blanket and jacket, arranging Trip on one of the benches, wrapped in both available blankets and jackets for added layers of potential insulation – he would think of the whole ordeal as an ultimate failure, if he committed suicide to grant his air supply to his superior officer and the aforesaid man succumbed to hypothermia before having had time to use it. A bloody merry afterlife meeting that would be, if such a thing exists.

He detachedly noticed that his body stopped shivering – a clear sign that hypothermia probably lost its fight with the adrenaline now coursing through him, at least for the moment. Trip, on the other hand, was still shaking, even stunned unconscious.

Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, Armory Officer on the Starfleet ship Enterprise, looked down on his shivering friend and smiled – a sad half-twitch of frozen lips.
"Sleep well, my friend. You have at least a fighting chance now."


Captain Archer was impatiently waiting behind the door to the launch bay, accompanied by Doctor Phlox, several orderlies and their medical supplies, as well as two crewmen from Engineering.

The launch bay team had the Shuttlepod One onboard and was repressurizing the bay as quickly as possible, but it still felt like an eternity to the Captain.

The scans for bio-signs onboard Shuttlecraft One were not conclusive, but the temperature readings were not exactly encouraging. Archer just prayed that it was faulty equipment and not something infinitely worse.

"Launch Bay has been pressurized, Captain. You are free to go."


The Engineering detachment managed to wrangle the frozen side hatch to the shuttlepod in record time, showing the frost-covered interior and a blanket cocoon on one of the benches. Doctor Phlox bustled in the shuttlepod, carefully peeling one of the blankets away and then promptly having the whole heap transferred to one of the gurneys.

The orderlies sped away with it.

"Doctor, who is…"

"Commander Tucker. He is still breathing. We are still missing Lieutenant Reed, it seems."

There was a nasty feeling in Archer's gut, all of a sudden. There was only one space on the shuttlepod that was not immediately visible from the interior

"Rostov. Open the airlock, please."

From the suddenly pale face of the Engineering crewman, Archer realized that he was not the only one to put two and two together.


Author's note: My thanks for the reviews. All have been answered. If anyone feels the need to throw some prompts at me, I would be more than happy to hear them.