"Can you walk on it?"

"I– ow, fuck!– sort of?"

Mariner bit her cheek, thinking, and then huffed and nodded. "Okay, that's that then. We're going back to the shuttle."

"I'm sorry," Boimler sighed as he slung his arm over her shoulder and began to hobble along beside her. "I screwed up the whole mission…"

"You didn't screw up shit, stuff happens on away-missions," Mariner scoffed, supporting him as they slowly made their way through the undergrowth. "I'll take a twisted ankle over a pulp-crime space-hotel or weird village full of Irish stereotypes any day."

"Yeah, by the way, has anyone figured out why that keeps happening? Like I know the galaxy is big but that is a weirdly specific thing to keep coming across."

"I don't know man, but whatever you do, don't bring it up around Chief O'Brien. He's really not a fan."

"Oh don't worry, Professor O'Brien scared the shit out of me at the Academy and I wasn't even an engineering student."

They continued to chat as they limped their way back through the jungle in the direction they'd come, mostly to keep Brad's mind off the pain. His ankle was throbbing with the hot, pulsing pain that meant if he didn't get it iced and elevated soon, he was going to be in a world of trouble with Dr. T'Ana. "–Look man, O'Brien's like a cactus; sure he's a little prickly on the outside, but once you get to know him you find out he's a total softy," Mariner reassured Boimler as she helped him over a fallen tree.

"Yeah but he's so famous, I mean everyone knows the Enterprise and Deep Space Nine would have fallen apart withou–"

Both of them heard it at the same time and froze. It wasn't a sound so much as the absence of sound: every bird in the tree, every small rodent or lizard rustling in the undergrowth had suddenly gone dead silent.

With bone-aching tension, the pair silently turned their heads. Two large, yellow eyes gleamed out from under the shadow of a clump of leaves. Below the eyes there were whiskers. And teeth. And a little pink nose that might have been cuter if it weren't attached to a hundred solid pounds of silky silent death.

"Nice kitty?" Boimler tried weakly.

It pounced.

Thank the cosmic koala for muscle memory, because years of training took over and the man managed to get his phaser up before the beast landed directly on top of him, pinning him with crushing weight to the ground. "Bradward!" a voice shouted as a maw with way too many teeth roared in his face; Boimler, who could hear himself screaming, found himself looking down a fleshy pink gullet, screamed louder, and pulled the trigger

The cat-like creature yowled in pain and scrambled back off him (so much for stunning shots!), and in that moment two arms reached down from either side of his vision, scooped him up and whirled him around, carrying him at full-tilt through the trees. Boimler shrieked again and threw his arms around Mariner's neck in a bid not to fall out of her arms, as behind them the cat let out a hissing roar and charged after them.

"Don't just sit there, Boims, shoot it again!" Mariner screamed in his ear, and he realized he was still clenching the phaser, white-knuckled. Clinging to her with one hand, he aimed over her shoulder with the other and fired. It hit with a red flash of light, and the cat fell several paces behind with another hiss.

They broke through the tree-line into the clearing; Mariner bodily flung them both into the door of the shuttlecraft, unceremoniously dropped him onto his good foot (leaving him to pinwheel and then brace against a chair) and slammed her palm into the control panel. The door hissed shut a moment before the cat slammed into it from the other side and let out a feline screech of pain. The humans watched, panting for air, as the large cat snarled and scratched at the door, glaring at them through the window. The thumb-sized claws skittered harmlessly off the shuttle's space-proof transparent aluminum but left unpleasant thoughts about what kind of damage they would have done to something less resilient—flesh, for example.

Eventually, with a final frustrated snarl, the creature turned and stalked away, vanishing into the foliage. Both let out sighs of relief, and then Boimler winced as the less-pressing matter of his injured ankle made itself apparent again. "Ow. Okay, I think I should probably elevate this here soon…"

"Here." Mariner helped him into a chair. "You okay otherwise?"

"Yeah, I-I think so…" He gave a little shudder, shaking off the adrenaline, and then frowned as he saw Mariner sit down on the floor in front of him. "What are you doing…?"

"Well obviously we need to get your boot off, now hold still." She quickly undid the laces and pulled off his shoe and sock before wrinkling her nose. He scowled.

"Hey, I've been walking around a jungle all day, don't judge–"

"It's not that, Brad, it's your ankle." She was right; the skin around the joint was already swelling and turning a mottled purple-yellow that showed all the more lurid on his pale skin. Mariner whistled. "Yeah I don't think this is just a rolled foot, Boims; this looks like you tore something."

He bit back a noise as she gingerly poked the growing bruise. "Yeah, that would explain the pain…"

"Yup. Wait here."

"Aw, but I wanted to go take a walk around," he tried to joke through the pain as she stood up and dusted off her pants. "Who knows, maybe our furry friend is still outside."

She stuck her tongue out at him and walked over to the replicator. "Yeah, yeah. Computer, cold medical thermal pack."

"One medical thermal pack, cold," the ship's speakers repeated as the equipment appeared. Mariner returned and set it down on the dashboard.

"Let's try to get your leg up, c'mon."

Brad managed to help her lift his leg onto the ledge, but let out a hiss as she started applying the cooling pack. "I'm sorry," he said through another grimace. "I know I basically volunteered us for this and then I went and got myself hurt and nearly killed. And in such a dumb way, too…"

Mariner shook her head fondly as she gently fastened the velcro strap holding the pack around his ankle. "Why did you ask Ransom for this mission, anyway? Thought you were having fun being lieutenant-J-G for your little ensign buddies."

He rolled his eyes, but not unkindly. "First off it's lieutenant junior grade, and secondly don't talk about them like they're five, we were ensigns ourselves literally two months ago."

"Hey, it is the prerogative of every senior officer to view any junior officers as helpless munchkins in need of a guiding hand." Apparently content with her work, she gave his ankle (or rather the pack around it) a light pat and sat down in the pilot's chair to power up the shuttle. "Plus, you didn't answer my question."

"Fine, fine. To tell you the truth," Brad relented, "I asked Ransom for this mission because I…miss doing missions with you. I mean now that we're lieutenants we keep getting assigned to do middle-management stuff with the ensigns. I miss hanging out with you on the clock."

Mariner looked over, surprised, and then grinned. "Aw, you big softy. You really like working with me that much?"

"Seriously? You're really asking that after three years?" he scoffed, leaning back in his seat as the shuttlecraft's engines hummed to life. "Of course I like hanging out with you, Mariner—even when we get chased by murderous alien jungle-cats."

"Yeah well, you're welcome for literally carrying the team," she joked as she piloted the ship off the ground. When Boimler didn't answer right away she looked over, tilting her head. "Boims? You good?"

"I, um, I just realized—you carried me all the way in here," he stammered, much to her confusion. "And that's not, um, the easiest position to carry someone in– you didn't strain your back or anything, did you–?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, no," she said, blinking. "I'm fine, you're not that heavy."

"Oh," he said, in an odd voice. Was it just her imagination, or were two little pink spots starting to appear on his cheeks–?

A moment later it hit her, and she felt her eyes go wide and a blush start to creep up her own face. Mariner quickly turned away back to the console, piloting them into the sky. "Y-Yeah, so– we should probably just get you up to the ship, have Dr. T take a look at your ankle–"

"Right. Yeah, good– good thinking."

"Yeah."

The shuttle fell into silence. He's just embarrassed, Mariner insisted to herself, without, exactly, knowing why. He's embarrassed you had to stop the mission and carry him back to the shuttle. With his arms around her neck. As she'd literally swept him off his feet and carried him out of danger.

As they reached the outer edge of the stratosphere and the warm glow of the planet faded away, she chanced a glance over. Brad was looking out the window, but even in the fading blue light she could see the red flush spreading all the way down his neck and to the tips of his ears. With a confusing flip-flop in her stomach and a smile even she didn't really understand, Mariner turned back to the console and laid in their course for home.