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NX-01 Enterprise - present day

Malcolm had been performing a repair on the rear phase cannon when disaster struck. A piece of debris - a remnant of the explosion that had damaged the cannon in the first place - had been missed in the sweep, and sliced straight through the hose that connected the oxygen tank to his helmet.
“Shit! Shit shit shit!” he swore.
“Lieutenant Reed, report,” came over the comm in his helmet.
“Oxygen supply hose severed,” he answered tersely, trying to conserve oxygen as best he could. They trained for these sorts of emergencies, but that didn’t make it any less concerning.
“Can you make it to the hatch?” the captain asked.
“Affirmative,” Malcolm said, and started walking cautiously in that direction, not wanting debris to damage his suit further.

The walk to the cannon hadn’t seemed all that long, but the return journey felt like he was climbing Everest, as the remaining oxygen within his suit steadily depleted. He was about two-thirds of the way to the hatch when his vision became hazy, and he stopped, looking in the right direction but unable to see where he needed to go.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he lost consciousness, and all was darkness.

Captain Archer had been watching Malcolm’s progress on the monitor, and when he saw the tactical officer stop, he gave the order.
“Trip, Travis, you’re with me. T’Pol, Hoshi, you wait here. Tell Phlox it’s gonna be worse than we hoped.”
The three men closed the faceplates on their helmets, double-checked the seals, and headed into the airlock, closing and sealing it behind them, then heading out the same hatch that Malcolm had been aiming for.

Childhood

“Where are we going, Father?” Malcolm asked.
He was a small boy - the smallest in his class by height, and as cord thin as his surname suggested.
“Out on the boat,” Stuart Reed answered gruffly.
He didn’t like being questioned by his subordinates, and his son was treated like the lowliest of new recruits in an effort to toughen the boy up. It wasn’t working.

Though a terrible father, Stuart Reed was a superb sailor - a Navy man through and through, like his father before him. Today’s excursion was intended to teach Malcolm one of the most important skills any sailor can learn - the ability to swim. They’d tried at the local pool, with Stuart ordering his son around, expecting results which his methods failed to deliver. Stuart had decided that what Malcolm needed was incentive .

Anchoring the boat well off-shore, Stuart stood, looking down at the slender little figure before him with disdain. “You’re going to swim today, boy,” he said sternly.
Malcolm looked up at him, fear evident in his features. “But Father, I cannot swim yet.”
Stuart lowered his face to be level with his son’s, and growled. “You will swim today. No arguments!”
Malcolm’s lower lip trembled, and he swallowed hard, holding back the tears that he knew would only enrage his father further. “Yes, Father.”
Stuart straightened, nodding. “Sit on the edge of the boat,” he ordered.
Malcolm did as he was told, hesitant but trying to obey.
“Now turn around, facing the water.”
Malcolm’s eyes went wide with fear, his skinny chest heaving, and he shook his head, knowing what the next order would be. “Father, I cannot-”

The next Malcolm knew, his father had grabbed him by one leg - his large, calloused hand wrapping all the way around - and thrown him in the water.
“SWIM, DAMN YOU!” Stuart bellowed.
Malcolm tried. He really, really tried. Skinny arms and legs flailing, he tried to do what his father commanded, but it was no use. The fear and lack of skill combined to take him under the surface, gulping seawater as he did.
He continued flailing, getting his head above water momentarily and screaming, “No! Help! Father!” before submerging once more, without resurfacing.

Beneath the water, Malcolm heard voices. Two women, calling his name, asking him to return to them.
“Mother?” he thought.
But it didn’t sound like his mother. His mother had an accent much like his own, and these women didn’t. Who were they? Mermaids, perhaps. He had always enjoyed tales of mermaids, beautiful women with tails like fish. He wished he had a fishtail, he might be able to swim if he did.

Stuart Reed sighed, dived, and retrieved his son from the water, dumping him into the boat before climbing back in himself. Stuart sat, putting Malcolm face-down over his thighs, and began to smack the flat of his hand against the boy’s back, expelling the water from his lungs. He then turned Malcolm over and began cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. It was no use. His son was dead.

HMS Enterprise

Lieutenant Malcolm Reed was a third-generation Navy sailor - an armoury officer with expertise in ship-to-ship combat and weapons design. He’d personally worked on the installation of new cannons for the HMS Enterprise - they’d finally wrested that name back from the wretched Americans - and it was time to test them out.

With targets selected, Malcolm and his second-in-charge cross-checked each other’s work, agreeing that the targeting systems were aligned, and the cannons charged.
“Ready to fire on your command, sir,” Malcolm said to the captain.
“Fire!”
Malcolm entered the command into the system, and the port side cannons fired, striking their targets precisely.
“Bring us about,” the captain said to the helm officer.
“Aye, sir.”

When the ship was repositioned, the captain nodded to Malcolm. “Fire when ready, lieutenant.”
He entered the command again, but this time instead of precisely destroyed targets from all cannons, there was an almighty explosion, the bulkhead nearest Malcolm coming down and knocking him unconscious.

“All hands, this is the captain, abandon ship. I repeat, abandon ship!”
An order Malcolm didn’t hear, and could not comply with.
As the ship sank, he heard voices - two women, calling to him.
“Rebecca?” he thought.
But no, Rebecca was in Australia, it couldn’t have been her. He didn’t know who the women were, but he wished he could answer them.

The HMS Enterprise sank at sea, the result of a cannon malfunction during testing exercises. There was only one fatality - a lieutenant and third generation Navy man with bright prospects.

Shuttlepod One

“It can giggle all it wants, the galaxy’s not getting any of our bourbon!”

It wasn’t the galaxy giggling at all, but Hoshi responding to their distress call. Enterprise hadn’t been destroyed, and was coming to get them. They just had to sit tight and wait, shivering from the cold.
Malcolm looked over at the unusually quiet chief engineer, and frowned.
“Commander?” he said. “Commander?!”
Malcolm nudged the chief engineer with his elbow, but it was no use - Trip had lost consciousness. Another tremor ran through him as his muscles spasmed, trying to maintain circulation. He’d already lost feeling in his fingers and toes, the chill creeping into his bones from all directions.

Eventually Malcolm’s ability to remain conscious dimmed entirely, and all was darkness. He could still hear Hoshi though, somehow. And was that T’Pol’s voice? They were asking him to come back, but back from what? He was right here, waiting for them to retrieve him and Trip. He didn’t understand.

Sitting in his ready room, Captain Archer had tears rolling down his cheeks. He’d lost two of his senior officers in one fell swoop - one a good friend, and the other a man he’d respected deeply. And now he had to contact Starfleet, and their families. Enterprise would probably be recalled to Earth. The Vulcans would no doubt try to keep them there another five years after this. If only they’d arrived ten minutes earlier, Phlox could have saved them.

IKS Somraw

With Hoshi’s translation of the Klingon console, Malcolm fired the Somraw’s photon torpedoes, riding the shockwaves in an effort to propel the ship higher into the gas giant’s many layers. They rose, little by little, and the hull pressure decreased slightly. They needed to get the ship high enough for Captain Archer - and the Klingon woman who’d stolen their shuttlepod - to reach them for rescue, before the ship was crushed.

Malcolm frowned. “If I’m reading this correctly, I think we’ve started sinking again,” he said.
Hoshi came over and looked at the readings, a frown of concentration on her own elegant features as she read the Klingon and translated it. She nodded in confirmation, and Malcolm swore.
“Are there any further methods of regaining altitude?” T’Pol asked, ever the pragmatist.
Malcolm shook his head, “that was the last of the torpedoes, and I don’t have any other ideas that we could implement in time.”

Malcolm was very confused. He could hear T’Pol and Hoshi calling to him, but they were all together on the Somraw, so how could that be?
“Malcolm, please, come back. Please, please, please, love. Come back to us,” Hoshi pleaded. Why did it sound like she was sobbing? And had she called him ‘love’?! He liked her well enough…perhaps a little too well, if he was entirely honest with himself, but they were friends, nothing more. And T’Pol…it sounded like T’Pol was struggling to contain her own emotions. That was even stranger. Malcolm really didn’t understand.

Captain Archer watched the Somraw sink back into the depths of the unnamed gas giant, unable to reach the Klingon crew or his own. Bu'kaH sat beside him, watching in silent horror. They saw the explosion as the Somraw’s warp core was crushed by the pressures surrounding it, thankfully protected by the very same gases that had just taken the lives of their crewmates.

NX-01 Enterprise - 2.5 years ago

Malcolm fidgeted beside Hoshi, visibly bothered by how long they’d been quarantined. T’Pol appeared to be meditating, though how successfully it was going seemed unclear.
“Would either of you mind if I sing to pass the time?” Hoshi asked.
T’Pol opened her eyes. “That might be a welcome distraction.”
Malcolm shook his head. “Sorry, I think I just want peace and quiet. There’s going to be an awful lot of talking once we get out of here.”
Hoshi was obviously disappointed, but tried to hide it as best she could.

Derbyshire, Earth - many years later

Malcolm Reed had a productive and successful career in Starfleet, before retiring to England some twenty years prior, at the insistence of his doctors. He now felt a very old man indeed, and some might describe him as wizened. But all the wisdom in the world couldn’t save him as the cancer riddled his lungs for the second time. He’d had transplants shortly after retirement, but it seemed his body was solidly determined against maintaining his ability to breathe.

He lay in bed, struggling to get enough air despite the prongs of oxygen tubes poking into his nostrils, and thought he heard voices. Two women, though certainly not either of his nurses - the accents were completely wrong. He knew those voices, or used to. His sluggish mind finally brought the answer to the surface. Hoshi! And T’Pol! They were fading now, hard to hear, but he could still just make it out. They wanted him to return to them. If only he could do so, he might not be dying alone, just as his father had predicted in his youth.

NX-01 Enterprise - present day

Travis carried the stretcher as he, Captain Archer, and Trip walked as fast as their boots could carry them to Malcolm - standing in place, his magnetised boot soles holding him to the hull of the ship. Between the three of them they got him onto the stretcher, carrying him back to the hatch, stepping carefully through, and sealing it behind them. The airlock had no sooner pressurised than Hoshi and T’Pol were joining them, stripping Malcolm of his helmet and the bulky chest piece of his EV suit.

They laid Malcolm gently on the stretcher once more, kneeling either side of him - Hoshi blowing big puffs of breath into his mouth before T’Pol started compressions, thumping rhythmically with tears in her eyes.
“We can do that-” Trip started.
T’Pol gave him a glare to rival that of Medusa, and he stepped back, watching silently as the two women worked on saving their partner.
Captain Archer contacted sickbay, having a hushed conversation with the crewman Phlox was training as an assistant.
Phlox himself arrived moments later, swiftly opening his equipment case and moving into place beside Hoshi, as T’Pol continued compressions. When she paused for Hoshi to do more breaths, Phlox swiftly cut away the fabric of Malcolm’s suit, pulling it aside and placing the pads of the defibrillator on Malcolm’s chest.

“Clear!” Phlox ordered, and the two women moved back as he did, the electric pulse making Malcolm’s torso jump from the deck slightly. The attached monitor showed that Malcolm had a heartbeat once more, though it wasn’t strong. Phlox pulled the connecting tubes from the side of a portable oxygen tank, and placed the mask over Malcolm’s mouth and nose, adjusting the straps before nodding to himself.
“Right, let’s get him to sickbay,” Phox ordered.
Trip and Travis helped the ladies stand, before picking up the stretcher. Archer ran ahead, clearing a path, and setting a brisk pace which Trip and Travis matched, while T’Pol and Hoshi followed close behind.

At sickbay they hurriedly got Malcolm moved to the biobed and into the imaging chamber, Phlox working on stabilising him while his assistant watched T’Pol and Hoshi for signs of shock. It took time, but eventually all of Malcolm’s vital signs settled into more normal rhythms, and he was brought out of the imaging chamber. Phlox pressed a hypospray to his neck, watching the monitor to ensure everything remained within expected levels.

Stretching momentarily, Phlox came over to T’Pol and Hoshi where they sat huddled together on a biobed, watching anxiously.
“Is he…?” Hoshi asked.
“I’ve sedated him for the time being, to give his body time to recover, but I do expect him to make a full recovery,” Phlox answered.
T’Pol’s control finally slipped, and the tears that had been threatening now rolled down her cheeks. Hoshi had seemingly run out of tears for the time being, having already shed them while Phlox worked.

The next few days felt like they lasted decades, though Malcolm’s vital signs continued to improve. They slept in sickbay, pushing three beds together so they could be either side of him, talking softly between restless napping - telling Malcolm he was safe, and asking him to come back to them. Four days after the accident, he finally woke - T’Pol and Hoshi seated either side of him, holding his hands in each of theirs, and also holding each other’s, resting lightly on his stomach. Their eyes were closed, as though performing one of T’Pol’s guided meditations.

“Hi, loves,” he said croakily.
Their eyes flew open, T’Pol gasping, fresh tears streaking down Hoshi’s cheeks.
“It worked?!” she said in a breathless whisper, and T’Pol nodded.
“What worked?” Malcolm asked.
“We employed touch telepathy to call to your subconscious,” T’Pol explained. “I was uncertain that it would work, but our bond is strong, and we were determined.”
“I could hear you!” Malcolm said. “I dreamt I died…five different ways, I think it must have been. But every time, I could hear your voices, calling to me. You never stopped.”

Phlox discharged him from sickbay that afternoon, with strict instructions to rest - he would be off-duty a while yet, but at least he could sleep in his own bed, with his own pillow, and the two remarkable women he loved beside him.
Luckiest. Man. Alive.