I've actually almost finished this whole fic. Believe it or not. (people who know me will go with the latter). But I wanted more R/S moments (there just aren't enough in the actual series).  So here is the next instalment.

Malcolm looked intently at his work as he sat on his bed; the chairs Trip had provided were to uncomfortable, even for an indestructible man like Malcolm. His schematics for an improved torpedo system were riveting. If implemented, they could improve efficiency of the torpedoes by 56.78% while increasing damage by impact by 34.41%. Malcolm felt smug. He was a genius.

He looked over his work, to see if he could further improve the system.

That's when he spotted it. He was supposed to add the logarithms, not divide them. When he changed the numbers, he saw disaster.

His system would blow up the Enterprise, not the enemy.

Bugger. He had just wasted five hours on worthless calculations. "Bugger, bugger, bugger," he muttered under his breath.

He was supposed to be one of the best and brightest. But he couldn't even deal with logarithms. He continued to chant bugger quietly.

"How about yIH?" Hoshi said, not stealing her eyes away from her own PADD.

"What?" Malcolm said, surprised that she was there. But then he remembered where they where.

"yIH," Hoshi said again, still not looking at him.

"Yjihg?" asked Malcolm, even more confused. He was beginning to worry.

"yIH . I just thought you wanted some variation," she replied with a smile, and looked into his eyes.

"yaih?"

"yIH," Hoshi said. She enunciated clearly and waited for Malcolm to try again.

"Bugger," he replied definitely, but with a grin. "What language is that?" he asked.

"I don't know," Hoshi said. "But it's some sort of small furry animal. It's supposed to be repulsive." She tried to decipher more of the language.

"By most standard, small furry animals are considered adorable. Not repulsive," said Malcolm.

"No, its described as quite repulsive, I assure you," Hoshi said.

"I do not doubt your abilities as a linguist, Hoshi. I'm just saying that..."

"It's Klingon," Hoshi interjected.

"It's what? How can a fury animal be a Klingon? A Klingon is definitely not a cuddly animal. Repulsive, perhaps. But not…"

Hoshi grabbed her pillow and promptly threw it at him. She missed.

"…And I see we still need to work on your shot," he said.

"The translation is Klingon!"

"For a communications officer, you are not very good at communicating. I mean, first you were saying that Klingons were small fury animals…" Malcolm loved doing this, winding her up. He loved to see her get annoyed, frustrated, confused. Not seriously of course. But like this, well, she was simply adorable. If he was more debonair, he would have simply told her "you look beautiful when you are angry," and kissed her. Like in a movie.

Then something hit his head.

"And for being a tactical officer, you're not too good at dodging shots," Hoshi said, as her carefully aimed pillow collided with Malcolm's head.

"Touché," he said, as he picked the pillow and returned it. Ever the perfectionist, Malcolm's volley hit Hoshi in the stomach.

"You know what this means?" Hoshi said, as she gathered her few pillows around her.

"I thought you were the interpreter," Malcolm said, trying to anticipate Hoshi's next move.

"This - is – war," Hoshi said, crouching behind her barrage of blankets and pillows. She could see how Malcolm's eyes slowly narrow, preparing to fight. Part of her was scared that Malcolm would get too competitive. But a bigger part of her was feeling the rush of the game.

She hurtled two pillows in rapid succession at Malcolm, barely hitting him.

"Miss Sato, it would be unwise to waste all of your ammunition so quickly," he said from behind his own fortress.

"Ahh, says the coward," she retorted. Malcolm peeked from behind his pillows, and fired his own volley.

But Hoshi rushed forward and jumped on top of him, pinning him down.

"You know what they say? The best defence, is a good offence."

"I will have to start giving you less self defence sessions, Miss Sato," Malcolm grunted from under Hoshi's firm grip. Personally he didn't mind being under the control of a certain beautiful Asian linguist. But being pinned down was starting to hurt his pride.

Before Hoshi realised it, she was under Malcolm's firm grip. Not that she minded of course. Personally, she had hoped that many a target practices would end this way.

"If you wanted to be on top Malcolm, why didn't you just say so?" she said.

At first Malcolm smiled at her. Hoshi thought that she could even see some lust in his eyes mirroring her own. But then the killjoy Lieutenant Malcolm all-prim-and-proper Reed flashed into his eyes.

"I don't think that this is appropriate,"Malcolm said, rising up before helping Hoshi up.

"Oh for heaven's sake. It was only a joke Malcolm," Hoshi exasperated turning to make him face her. But Malcolm refused to look her in the eyes.

"Ensign, we must return to our work immediately," Malcolm said, getting his PADDs together. Seeing as there was no point but to leave him alone, Hoshi did the same.