A/N: Hello all! Look – I'm updating on time again! This must be a world record for me, lol. I'm a bit concerned that the number of 'hits' on each chapter is dwindling – I hope I'm not losing people! If anyone thinks this is getting boring, please say (though not too harshly!), and I'll re-assess things. I have a feeling this is going to be one of my longer stories, since I have written up to chapter eight already and am nowhere near to completion. I hope you guys see this as a good thing!

Anywhoo, to my reviewers:

volley: Well, you can't have a good story without at least one cliffhanger... and of course it's blackmail, we all love reviews! LOL. I hope no.51 lives up to your expectations...

Verity Kindle: Scottish? I'm a bit confused! Thanks for reviewing, anyway!

General Kunama: Your reviews all seem to centre around eating something! Lol... the 'yummy' scenes don't start just yet but we do have romance lurking around the corner... along with possible capture, injury and torn uniforms. All in a day's work for the good ship Enterprise... hope you like the next chapter and many thanks for your review!

Begoogled: Ah, whose to say that Malcolm gets out of it? Lol... only teasing, of course! I'm really glad you're enjoying it, and thanks for reviewing!

Bineshii: A new convert! I hope you're still reading and, if you are, you enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't even actually own the idea of the Clendavins and the problems on their world, since I've borrowed that straight from history, so no, I have very little legal claim on a fair number of the ideas and characters within this story!

Chapter Five

Just Throw It

There were shots flashing above his head, his captain and five other crewmembers were in mortal danger, and he was bloody well stuck. The falling rocks had knocked him down and trapped his leg. By the amount of blood he could see oozing out of the wound – fortunately adrenaline was stemming the pain, for the time being – he didn't particularly fancy the idea of trying to force it out. Dust and smoke was in the air, and in the midst of his own hacking coughs he heard another, familiar, voice:

"Lieutenant Reed! Are you awake?" The crewman. Reed felt the urge to groan. Pretty though she might be, in a situation like this he would really rather have had someone with a phase pistol to hand, but as it was he and his ensign were the only two members of the away team armed – and due to the rocks which trapped him he couldn't see, let alone aim at, the aliens who were shooting at them.

"Affirmative, Crewman." He coughed again, and squinted at her as she shuffled closer to him.

"Give me your phase pistol." She said.

"Give you my – what?!" The shots continued to whizz above their heads, and Reed was as trapped as ever. But give a gun to a crewman whose main qualification was – it had to be said – straight stitching?

"I can get a shot at them, I'm sure. Lieutenant! Please!" The shooting seemed to intensify, and Reed's hand went to his pistol. He hesitated.

"I could pull myself out, I'm sure I could..." he tensed his arm behind him but promptly desisted as pain filled his thoughts. Through what seemed like a buzzing in his ears he heard the crewman shouting:

"Give me your pistol now you – you suicidal maniac!"

With what was left of his strength Malcolm Reed reached into his holster and handed the pistol to Crewman Mackie. She nodded, then turned away from him, looking beyond the outcropping of rock which impeded his vision. He watched as her back tensed, and a beam of light shot from the pistol she held. There was one more shuddering crash as more rubble fell from the ceiling, and then all was still.

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She had killed them. As she stepped out into the alien sunlight, the brightness seeming almost improper, it was all she could think of. There had been time enough, in the half an hour it had taken for them to dig out of the cave, to go over it time and time again, but still she could not fathom it.

The aliens had been wearing tattered clothes quite unlike those of the Enterprise team's host, but they were the same species. By the time Mackie had managed to prise the phase pistol away from Reed they had already managed to shoot both the three other aliens and the other security officer, and they were closing in on the Captain and Jill whilst Tiller and Heron had taken refuge in an indent in the wall, Tiller protecting Heron's body with his own. The Captain in turn had been standing in front of Jill, but without a gun to hand it was a futile effort. The aliens were some five metres away from the two, and directly between them and Henny. Her aim was poor and her hands shaky. She knew that she had more chance of hitting her own people than of the hitting the aliens. But there had been an outcropping of rock directly above the aliens' heads.

There had been an outcropping of rock. Then, she had pulled her trigger, and there was no longer an outcropping of rock. There were no longer two living aliens, either.

"You saved our lives!" Jill, still blinking in the light, ran up to her, her hair flying in all directions and her hands – with which she reached out and clasped that of Henny's which was not holding the pistol – still shaking. "Henny! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She said, and saw Lieutenant Reed – assisted from the cave-in by the three aliens and his own team-member, who had it seemed been only stunned – raise his eyebrows. She looked down at her feet, not caring that the grass was the wrong colour, or a different colour from the grass on Earth. She had discovered something on this planet, and it was not just blue sheep. She held out the phase pistol to him.

"Take it." She said, which he did, wincing slightly as he shifted his leg to replace the gun in his holster. She knew, however, that neither he nor the Captain, who was also watching her carefully, missed the fact that she wiped her hand on her uniform leg upon dispensing with the pistol. The Captain nodded at her, his green eyes narrowed in both concern and, she thought, shrewd assessment. He flipped open his communicator.

"Archer to Enterprise. I want you to lock onto the biosigns of Crewman Mackie and Lieutenant Reed. Tell Phlox he'll be receiving a patient." Even in her daze, Mackie could not miss the sigh which escaped Reed's lips at this statement. Archer cocked his head to one side, listening to the person on the other end of the communication link. He pursed his lips suddenly. "We're all... fine. I believe it was a group of... insurgents." He glanced at their host at this, and Mackie wondered if whether in a few minutes the three supposedly friendly aliens would not be regretting the fact that they had actually escaped the cave.

"Sir, I must protest -" Lieutenant Reed started to speak, but even Henny could tell that he was slightly half-hearted in his 'protest', aware as he was that one of his own men was to remain on the planet. Archer held up a quelling hand, smiling slightly, humour returning to his eyes. Henny had to admit that it suited them.

"Of course you must, Malcolm." He spoke into his communicator again. "Two to beam up." Archer glanced back at the other three members of the Quartermaster's team. "We still have supplies to collect, after all."

"Wait." It was Reed again, holding out the phase pistol. The phase pistol. It would always retain such import in Henny's mind, and she felt irrationally that though it were identical to every other phase pistol on Enterprise, she would always recognise it. Archer nodded, and it was the last thing Henny saw before the glitter of transport surrounded her vision once more and she felt the cold, comforting feel of the transporter pad beneath her feet.

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Reed stepped off the transporter pad into the inevitably waiting ministrations of Doctor Phlox and found Crewman Mackie gazing in apparent concern at his bloody leg.

"'Tis but a scratch." He said heartily, offering a smile, but receiving only a tightening of lips in response.

It was only a scratch, which possibly made him feel worse. Archer, carrying a scanner, had checked before removing the rocks above it whilst in the caves, and upon seeing that there was no damage to the bone and that Malcolm was still actually conscious, had with the help of the burly male crewman managed to free the leg which had already received more injuries than its owner could count. And true, he might not have been able to free himself, but he could have tried harder, which would have saved the crewman next to him from –

"Damnable thing." He said, as they entered sickbay and Phlox thrust him down onto a biobed. (He spoke to distract the both of them, for he usually found that the best way to stand the humiliation of treatment was to talk to another, and her eyes were too hollow for him to be able to just look away and do nothing). "Captain Archer and that other crewman -"

"Tiller." She interrupted, and Reed inclined his head.

"Crewman Tiller. Well, both were being bloody gallants, weren't they? And what was I doing? Being defended by a woman!"

There was a silence for a moment, and it held long enough for Malcolm to look back over his words and realise just how offensively old-fashioned and sexist they must have sounded, before the girl laughed.

"I hope I didn't offend your male sensibilities." She said, and he raised an eyebrow, trying desperately to ignore the fact that Phlox was tutting happily over his leg and reaching for (what else?) the glass box which he had privately dubbed the pet tank of horrors, but had wisely never shared this with Phlox.

"Do you have to use those damn slugs, doctor?" He asked, glad to see that his own grumbling had elicited a slightly wider smile from the girl than before. Phlox looked at him with an expression that on a human would have looked disturbingly close to a pout.

"Of course, Lieutenant. We don't want a repeat of last time, do we? I'll be back in a moment for you, Crewman." And, with a wide grin as he deposited the foul creature on his leg, the doctor departed for his office, humming happily. Reed looked from the slug (which had come to know him intimately over the last few years – the only thing which had) to the young woman standing beside the bed. The latter was a much less harrowing sight, and Reed settled for studying her expression, which had become suddenly distant.

Fairly dark brown hair, matched by brown eyes which, at this moment, were clouded, lips slightly open. What was she thinking? Should he allay those thoughts?

"You know," he said, his voice sounding heartily cheery even to his own ears, "it always amazes me how Doctor Phlox can make me feel like a five year-old again."

This elicited a response in the shape of a somewhat mocking smile.

"Maybe it's because you act like one." After a second, her eyes widened as though she had just realised what she had said. Reed now supposed they were even for his earlier faux pas.

"First I'm a suicidal maniac, now a five year-old..." She opened her mouth to apologise and he shook his head. "I think we can forgive that, however, in light of the fact that you did my job for me."

"I -"

"Ah! Crewman Mackie." Phlox barrelled out of his office, a hypospray in hand. "I've set up a mixture that should help ease any aches but not set off any of your allergies."

Two rather irrelevant thoughts crossed Reed's mind at this point. The first was 'allergies?' and the second a slightly uncharitable reflection to the effect that Phlox's bedside manner around his pretty female patient was far more genial than it was around his most frequent one and definitely male one. He was even tempted to feel childishly jealous at the care with which Phlox pressed the hypospray into her arm, but then he caught sight of that hollow look in her eyes again and realised that there was very little for which he could envy the crewman.

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A/N: Well, they're alive, at least, which is I suppose all that can be said. So, have I given you lot enough action yet? Only one way to tell me – press the blue button!