A/N: Right – all Malcolm this chapter, and boy is the tension rising. I fear if I keep this up then the rating will follow suit. Hope you enjoy!

To my ever-patient reviewers:

firebirdgirl: I think I may need a spider to help me sort out the plot I've ended up with! Thanks so much for reading.

burrcat213: Oh dear... first AS exam in the first week of May. Let's commiserate together! Hope this gives you some light relief (but not, of course, distraction!) from revision.

Alelou: Sheepish grin. I hope your addiction can survive my notoriously late postings. Thanks for reviewing, hope you enjoy the rest!

Verity Kindle: Glad you approve. And you want tension? You got tension...!

Note: I was a bit concerned that people would be a bit prudish over the Billy development, but I'm glad that people's reactions to it were quite positive. There's quite an emotional roller-coaster in store for Billy... but then again, the same is true for the rest of the characters!

Now... go read! And above all else, enjoy!

Disclaimer: If I owned Enterprise, the episodes would have been about three months apart, wouldn't they?!

Chapter Nine

Target Misalignment

It wasn't until the ensign tapped him on the shoulder that he even realised he had been speaking to him.

"Sir? Are you alright?"

Malcolm blinked slightly, then nodded.

"Yes – just daydreaming, that's all."

The ensign shot him a look to the effect that he could think of nothing more worrying than the head of the armoury daydreaming whilst fiddling with a phase pistol, but wisely made no comment other than to say;

"I've finished the rota, sir, for the weapons training." He held it out. "I've sent messages out to all the crewmen involved, you should be getting your first one in," he glanced at his chronometer, "about fifteen minutes."

Reed nodded, and the ensign beat a hasty retreat – too hasty. Suspicious, he glanced down at the PADD which the ensign had handed him, and his worst fears were confirmed when he saw the combination of names at the top of the list: "0800 hours, Lieutenant Reed – Crewman Mackie". Just what did his crew think they were playing at? Or the Captain, for that matter?

The Captain had cornered him the day before, a slightly fanatical gleam in his eye.

"Well, Malcolm, you know you're always going on about extra security?" He had asked, and Malcolm had immediately felt alarm bells ring – red alert, or at least yellow. The Captain had regained some of his confidence – not to mention his recklessness – now that the Expanse and the Xindi were almost a year behind them. "Well, I've been talking to Crewman Derner," (at this the Captain's eyes had taken on a slightly different gleam, and Malcolm had nodded, remembering the tall red-head who had gone on that away mission) "and she told me that the only training she or anyone in the same team as her ever got was a single day's course on basic defence – including one hour on the old Mark Two pistols."

It was quite true, Malcolm had agreed. Upon entering the Expanse, most of the crew had received extra self-defence training but, working on limited time and in dangerous conditions, the crew in the extreme below-decks had been overlooked – after all, what would the Xindi want with seven repairers of torn zips? There was a more practical reason, of course – whilst the MACOs' job was to protect the crew and the ship, the Quartermaster's team was busy furnishing Enterprise with everything it would need in the Expanse, from spare parts to more weapons and even checking the supply of ration packs. The time had simply not been available. It was, however, available now, and following the incident on the planet of the corrupt and naïve Clendavins, Captain Archer had clearly decided that it was time to remedy the situation and provide the crewmen of the Quartermaster's store with adequate security training – on Malcolm's time.

"One day," Archer had said, and Malcolm had groaned internally at the realisation that the Captain was trying out another of his inspirational speeches – he seemed to have recovered the knack for them since the Expanse – "one day all crewmembers – from captains to crewmen – will have the opportunity to step onto new worlds. When that day comes, they need to be prepared." Archer had slapped him on the back, smiling widely. "I know you'll make a great teacher, Malcolm. Report back on their progress this time next week, ok?" And with that the Captain had departed, humming slightly, leaving Malcolm Reed cursing the day Archer had ever thought to talk to the Vulcans about gazelles and so get a taste for public speaking.

"Um – Lieutenant?"

Malcolm started to attention and mentally scolded himself – it was the second time his attention had wandered in as many minutes, never a good sign – and stiffened when he realised that the person to break him out of his reverie this time was not his slightly jumpy junior officer but Henny Mackie, her hands clasped nervously behind her back and her hair pulled into a messy but practical ponytail at the nape of her neck. Hardly thinking as he led her into the area used for target practice, he nodded approvingly at her hairstyle.

"I'm glad I won't have to break into my stash of hair bands for you, Crewman." He said – quite truthfully, for her kept a small box of elastic bands in his office should any of his female crewmembers have the short-sightedness to enter the armoury with their hair down. He did not, after all, want any messy incidents involving any combination of hair and fire, as had famously occurred with one of engineering's more glamorous crew – she had been forced to wear a wig for months afterwards.

"Indeed, sir."

Reed glanced up at Mackie's cool tone and repressed a sigh. This had been exactly the reason why he had not wanted to take the task of training Henny. It had been two weeks since their somewhat uncomfortable conversation (from which, Malcolm made no attempt at deceiving himself, he had emerged looking like an over-reacting cad), and every time he had passed Crewman Mackie in the corridor – it seemed to occur with noticeable frequency – she had looked away. Better than Crewman Manning's reaction, which had been to glare at him every time. No doubt the entire Quartermaster's team now held a grudge against him – one good reason not to go anywhere near them with phase pistols whilst they could still claim to be inexperienced enough to 'accidentally' hit the instructor with a beam set to stun.

"Crewman," he said, deciding that, considering his profession, it would probably be quite apt to bite the bullet, "I understand that you may not want to talk to me, but we do both have a job to do, and it would greatly help mine if we could at least be civil to each other."

Mackie opened her mouth, and for a moment Malcolm was quite sure she was going to tell him precisely where he could stick his phase pistol, but after a pause she nodded curtly.

"Yes sir." Her tone was still cool, but not quite so much as before. Malcolm shrugged. He could live with a compromise. After all, she had laughed at him, and Starfleet officer or no he could not entirely ignore the injury to his male ego.

"Good." He locked the phase pistol's charge pack into place and handed it to her, noting the slight hesitation before she took it. She held it up, and seemed to inspect it before nodding. She glanced at the target, currently hovering peacefully somewhere at eye level on the opposite wall.

"Alright." She said. "Point and shoot, right?"

"That would be the general idea, yes." Malcolm replied, raising an eyebrow, but she smiled slightly, straightening her arm and shutting one eye slightly as she went to aim. Malcolm closed his eyes in mild despair, feeling the common exasperation of a professional at the sight of an amateur mistake. "Open your eyes, please, Crewman. Both of them."

"Oh." Henny – Crewman Mackie, he mentally corrected himself – smiled sheepishly and turned back to the target, carefully keeping both eyes open. "Right." She tensed her arm and pulled the trigger. A beam of light – completely harmless, for Malcolm had manually set the pistol to training levels, which meant that anyone who got in the way of the beam would receive nothing more than a slight static shock – shot out of the pistol and missed the target by inches. Mackie pursed her lips, pulled the pistol up once more, and made the shot again. And again. And again. Each and every time, she shot wide, and Malcolm knew exactly what the problem was – and how to fix it. He was, however, rather reluctant to employ such – well, close measures.

"You trained on the old Mark Fours, didn't you?"

"Yes sir." Henny glanced at the target, still hovering in the air, happily unblemished by shots. "I know I'm still accommodating for the phase shift – I can't seem to change it, though."

"Hmm." Malcolm said, then added without thinking: "Well, you managed to hit those rocks, didn't you?"

Henny's expression – and her entire body – stiffened suddenly, and Malcolm realised exactly what he had said.

"Damn – I didn't mean..." he trailed off, shaking his head. Then, deciding that distraction was the better part of valour, he stepped behind her, mimicking her pose and grasping her wrist. She started, and Malcolm felt a small surge of triumph. Distraction accomplished.

"What are you doing?" She asked, but made no move to step away from his grasp. She was, however, slightly red around the cheeks, a fact that Reed noted with a slight flush of his own.

"Adjusting your grip." She raised an eyebrow and he gave a brief smile. "Believe me, this is the easiest way."

"Hmm." Henny sounded dubious. "I bet you enjoyed training the Captain how to use a phase pistol." She glanced at him, their cheeks almost touching as she turned. "Or is there a different method for male crewmembers, hmm?"

Malcolm snorted, and jerked her hand up into a firing position. She let out a hiss of surprise, but allowed him to make slight accommodations to her grip and her aim. After a few moments he forgot the awkwardness of the situation as he became engrossed in his task, rolling her arm over slightly so that her shoulder was in a direct line with her target. With a nod of satisfaction, he stepped back.

"Fire away."

She did so, and Malcolm smiled slightly as six out of her next ten shots hit the target, the rest missing by a far smaller margin than before.

"Well done," he said, glancing at his chronometer, "shall we say same time next week? Try and get some practice in the meantime."

"Aye sir." She nodded, handed back the phase pistol, and exited, leaving Malcolm to muse what had just occurred. Part of the reason, he admitted to himself, that he had found the rumours of their supposed love affair so very frustrating was that, far apart from any concerns for his reputation (the Captain, at least, hadn't believed the rumours, though he had been forced to endure several days of jokes about them), a very small part of him rather liked the idea of them being true, especially now, with the memory of her hip brushing his, of her arm and shoulder moulding under his grip. He shook his head and dismantled the phase pistol, knowing full well that as much as his brain insisted that he in no way whatsoever found the young (too young) crewman attractive, his less rational body was telling him something very different.

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A/N: Go on... review, and I promise I'll update soon. Not that I'm bribing anyone here... :) Hope you enjoyed it!