DISCLAIMER: Characters and aliens from Star Trek: Enterprise do not belong to me and I'm making no profit from their use.

RATING: Due to language and pending violence this one is rated M.

TIME: Set early in the series but post-Shuttlepod One.

SUMMARY: After being attacked an alien vessel sends out a distress signal, but when the Enterprise crew tries to help they are mistaken for the attackers. For this species only blood will buy forgiveness; unfortunately for Lt. Reed, much of it will be his.

This story did not originally start out like this—I pretty much started it with Lt. Reed and a crewman under his command trapped on an alien ship, but disliked the idea of yet another nameless, faceless background character who existed solely to be "red-shirted". Plus, for whatever reasons, the idea popped into my head that Malcolm cannot possibly be the only guy in Starfleet that has a strained relationship with his father. Plot bunnies are restless creatures, and before I knew it I had the crewman's life history and these extra chapters that happen before the crew encounters the aliens. I'm hoping you'll find the first few chapters to be worth your while...I'll try to merge some of the shorter ones together so there will be fewer of them.

NOTE: A portaledge is a portable platform that mountain- and/or rock climbers use for camping or sleeping while on climbs. If you wanna see something REALLY scary, type the word into a search engine and look for videos to see them in use...

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He'd lost track of the number of times he'd gone up and down the rope but judging from the sensation in his arms and legs he'd been at it for quite some time. Nothing like a midnight climb to relax a fellow, even if he could only climb to the ceiling of the abandoned gym and back. He secured the rope so he wouldn't descend further and allowed himself to dangle a few feet below the ceiling.

It was the first time he'd fully relaxed in over two weeks. Well, truth be told, he'd been plenty relaxed one night last week, but that had been the result of too much scotch and too little food or sleep. Not a healthy mix, that. He remembered recording a rambling, depressing message to Grandma'am confessing his "transgression" against the ship's Armoury Officer, and thought he even remembered expressing a desire to resign and come home. Didn't quite recall exactly what he'd recorded, actually, but it had felt at least a little cathartic. It was a bit of a ritual for him when things went wrong: he'd record a message to Grandma'am giving all the horrid details, then delete the message. Somehow, pressing the delete button made him feel as though the problem had been washed away, or had at least been diminished to a more manageable size. The "phantom letters" and climbing were the two things that had always helped him clear his mind. Of course, he'd have to compose a real letter to Grandma'am soon—with all the extra shifts he'd been working he hadn't kept up his correspondence. He resolved to record—and send—a message to her as soon as he got through climbing.

Closing his eyes he leaned back, remembering overnight climbs when he would rig a portaledge midway up and sleep suspended above the earth. He found himself wishing that he could be dangling from the rock face, feeling the breeze nudging at him. A troubled sigh escaped him—if the lieutenant had anything to say about it, the opportunity for climbing back on Earth would probably come sooner rather than later.

He'd really botched it this time. What made it all the worse (besides the fact that he'd done nothing wrong) was that he admired and respected Lt. Reed, and had hoped to earn some measure of respect in return. He'd wanted to impress the man at least a little. "Not bloody likely to happen now," he muttered, then mentally kicked himself for using one of the words that had gotten him into trouble in the first place. "Gotta stop talkin' like that," he yawned, tiredly scrubbing his fingers through his curly red hair. Sighing, he considered his situation.

Wrongly accused of imitating the lieutenant, he'd been enduring the man's wrath with nary a complaint. Double shifts? No problem. Recalibrate targeting sensors for the eighteenth time? Yes sir right away sir. Scrub the Armoury top-to-bottom with a toothbrush? Well, it hadn't gone quite that far yet, but at this point it wouldn't surprise him. God knew he'd been assigned every other shit job the lieutenant could concoct for him. It hadn't taken David long to learn that beneath his CO's cold exterior there beat a heart of granite. Even working beyond all the extra shifts he'd been assigned had done nothing to soften Lt. Reed's opinion of him. He was almost to the point where he was seriously contemplating either transfer or resignation but, despite his drunken ramblings in that deleted letter, quitting was just not a viable option. Quitting meant admitting that Father had been right about him, and a slow death at the hands of his pissed-off CO was preferable to that.

What to do now? The love he'd once felt for his job had fled almost entirely, leaving an empty pit in his heart; his admiration for his CO had transformed into dread. Reed's voice, which David had once found so comforting, now only served to make his stomach tighten into a hard, painful knot. He also felt…what? Fear? Yeah, fear was not too strong a word, he supposed. If looks could kill he'd have been dead at least a dozen times over by now. And though he didn't think the lieutenant would really do him any bodily harm he knew that, despite size differences, the man was physically more than capable of doing so. That, at least, separated the lieutenant from Father by at least a degree or two. For not only was Father capable of inflicting bodily harm, he was more than willing to, and at times actually seemed to enjoy doing so. But David had eventually been able to escape from Father. From Lt. Reed there was no escape, short of an airlock.

Or he could cut the rope.

He dismissed the thought instantly. He'd seen the results of a climbing fall firsthand, and it was most assuredly not a pretty way to go. Besides, he was fairly sure that he simply wasn't high enough to guarantee death on impact, and it wasn't the sort of thing one would want to botch. Not to mention that it would confirm Father's gleeful assessment that he was too weak-willed and eager to quit when a situation got a little too tough. No, if he was destined to die in space it would most assuredly not be by his own hand.

"Looks like you were right after all, Father," David muttered to the empty room, a faint Irish accent creeping into his bitter voice. "Once a screw-up, always a screw-up. You'd laugh yer arse off if you could see me now, wouldn'tcha? You said I wasn't cut out fer it, and maybe you were right. Maybe I'm not. But I'll be damned if either you or Lieutenant Reed will ever hear me admit it. I won't give either of you the bloody satisfaction."

Father had tried to instill in his sons and daughter the belief that emotions were at best a hindrance and at worst an outright enemy. Laughter was tolerated (though barely) and tears were positively verboten. Privately the siblings joked that there must be Vulcan blood coursing through their father's veins. The edicts against emotional displays and outbursts were made all the more ironic by Father's propensity for outbursts on a grand and often terrifying scale. David recalled when Father's disposition had been at its worst. No matter what he'd done to please him, Father's mood remained constant—unspeakably foul and sometimes dangerous. By that time his older brothers were gone; his sister had always been off-limits. That had left David as the man's sole target.

Only when he had come to the realization that none of his efforts would ever measure up had he been able to tune out the insults and even the blows that had eventually landed on him. Just do what needs to be done and block out the rest. Indifference born of the knowledge that it didn't matter how well he performed had inexplicably, impossibly, crossbred with determination to complete the required tasks, and had helped him endure. Though he hated the way it had made him feel it was the only thing that worked with Father. He had to stop caring about the job—and the people involved—and simply do it. Complete whatever task he was given then move on to the next one, with the knowledge that even if the job were done flawlessly, flaws would be found. David had come to think of it as "survival mode." It had worked with Father and should theoretically work with the lieutenant. It had to. Getting the job done was all that could matter from now on; emotions could not be allowed to get in the way.

He'd been wrongly accused of imitating the lieutenant but he realized, with a measure of grim amusement, that he was going to have to imitate Subcommander T'Pol. Equally amusing in a twisted way was the secret knowledge that the lieutenant was doing a near spot-on impression of Father. If the man tossed a few pieces of furniture around the Armoury the likeness would be flawless. Well, except for his lacking the height and bulk of Father, but the lieutenant didn't seem to need those to be properly intimidating. David laughed bitterly.

"Well, Lieutenant, yer gonna hafta find yer entertainment someplace else, I guess," he grimly announced to the empty gym. As he hung there he felt tears trying to force their way out, and could almost hear Father's mocking voice chastising him for such weakness. Swallowing hard he squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the tears back and fighting to control his breathing.

"I will not cry," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Don't bend, don't break, never cry. Don't bend, don't break, never cry." He chanted his father's mantra over and over until the urge to weep subsided.

When he'd finally reigned in the bout of melancholy he felt an utter hollowness within. Deciding that he'd best finish his climb so he could get back to his quarters and pretend to get some sleep David shifted his weight, raising himself to an upright position so he could begin his descent. Loosening the line so he could start down his stomach lurched as the rope suddenly slipped, sending him plummeting toward the deck below.

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She played the message again, frowning. She'd been overjoyed when she found it waiting for her—as she felt with the arrival of all her grandson's letters—but after playing it she'd become irritated. And the more she pondered it the angrier she'd become. Her bright blue eyes had darkened considerably; had her husband been there and seen the look in her eyes he'd have known to beat a hasty retreat. Edward had learned early in their relationship to never rouse the wrath of an Irish woman, and most certainly never this Irish woman.

David's previous letters had been filled with the usual details of his experiences on his beloved starship, no matter how seemingly mundane, and always included at least one anecdote about his vaunted CO. The boy was so happy there, happier than he'd probably ever been in his life. And Lord knew he deserved to be happy—the lad had earned it, after all he'd had to endure at the hands of that no-account father of his. Her son-in-law had always been stern, probably due to his military upbringing, but as the years passed and David showed little inclination to follow his father's plans for him, the more beastly the man had become. 'Bloody hell, Edward is a Navy man and he was never like that!' Indeed not, for Edward had no doubt known instinctively that his beloved Colleen would not have hesitated to literally toss him out on his ear if he had.

She stopped the playback midway through, pondering David's predicament and feeling at least partially responsible for it. When her grandchildren were young she'd seized every available opportunity to have them stay with her, claiming grandmotherly privilege. Anything to help them escape their increasingly mean-spirited sod of a father. And though she'd had enough self-control to refrain from speaking ill of the man within earshot of the children, she'd done little to reign in what Edward tactfully referred to as the "colorful phrases" she used in common conversation. (Being career Navy, Edward knew "colorful" when he heard it, whether in English or Gaelic. And he also knew that his wife could out-swear any Navy man he'd ever known, Royal or otherwise.)

Colleen had never been one to hold back, always opting to voice her opinion and often in a manner that caused those in close proximity to blanch noticeably. David more than the other children had, perhaps inevitably, picked up some of her favorite turns of phrase and occasionally peppered his conversations with a few favorites from what the children had all come to call "Grandma'am's Lexicon." Though David didn't realize it he'd even picked up a slight bit of his grandmother's brogue, which came out stronger when he was either exhausted, flustered, or drunk.

As soon as she'd learned of David's posting on Enterprise Colleen had begun scouring databases, learning everything she could about the ship and (more importantly) the crew. It had been the same when she'd fallen in love with Edward—she'd felt it vitally important to know exactly to whom she was entrusting the life of her then-future husband. It was now equally important to know who was looking after her David. Consequently the highlights of the senior staffs' biographies were soon committed to memory, with the officer directly above her grandson earning special scrutiny.

His name had been immediately familiar to her and she'd prayed that she was wrong. She wasn't, and she had been nearly overwhelmed by the sense of foreboding that had washed over her. A vast majority of her lexicon (both English and Gaelic) had flashed through her mind and across her lips when she'd confirmed her suspicions, remembering her blessedly infrequent encounters with the man's family. But his service record had helped put her at ease, and when David's missives from the ship had begun coming she had relaxed a great deal more.

David loved the ship, loved the work, and was getting along famously with his crewmates. And the CO he described was, Praise Be, nothing like what she'd dreaded. Where she'd expected to hear of an insensitive, bollocks-for-brains lout she found instead descriptions of an admirable, cultured man; firm but fair, intelligent, with a razor-sharp wit and an accent that David said reminded him of his Grandsir. It hadn't taken long for David to develop an immense respect for him, and Colleen in turn had begun to like and even trust the man she'd heard so much about, coming to believe that perhaps the father of David's CO hadn't totally ruined him after all. But now…?

Lips pressed into a thin, angry line and blue eyes blazing, Colleen resolved to knock some of the starch out of one Lieutenant Malcolm Reed.

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"Still miffed at Saunders, huh?" Trip asked, setting down his pie and milk as he joined Malcolm at the only occupied table in the Mess Hall. A noncommittal 'hmph' was the only reply from across the table.

"Y'know," the engineer continued, undeterred, "it's been over two weeks. If yer gonna ride him about it much longer, you should prob'ly at least get a saddle for him."

That made the sullen Armoury Officer look up from his cup of tea, annoyed that he had to explain himself. "The man has to learn respect for his superiors. I'll be damned if I'll have my staff doing impersonations of me behind my back. I will not be mocked," he added, shaking his spoon at the engineer for emphasis before using it to stir his tea.

"An' workin' the guy to death is gonna teach him to respect you?" Trip asked before filling his mouth with a huge bite of his dessert.

Malcolm snorted indignantly as he lifted his cup. "I'm not 'working the guy to death', Commandah." He paused to sip his tea before continuing. "And how, may I ask, would you feel if your Engineering staff ran about impersonating you?" Trip shrugged, swallowing the mouthful of pie and waiting for Malcolm to take another sip of tea before answering. He wanted the timing to be perfect.

"Most of 'em already do from time to time. Hell, you should hear Hess—her imitation of me is almost as good as the one you do. Maybe better."

Malcolm choked on his drink. 'Timing really is everything,' Trip thought.

"I do not—"

"You do and you know it," Trip insisted, pointing his fork at Malcolm and grinning. "Don't hear me complainin', do ya? An' I'm sure not makin' any of you work double and triple shifts for over two weeks just to get even with you."

"I'm not 'getting even'…and I'm not working him any harder than I work myself."

"Thought you didn't want him imitatin' you," Trip teased. "Besides," he added, growing serious, "from what I've heard he wasn't makin' fun of ya. Accordin' to the folks I've talked to, he talks like that when somethin's gone wrong. Hess heard him spout an earful a couple months ago an' he told her about his Irish grandmother's knack fer swearing. Travis says it's even more impressive to hear him cut loose in Gaelic. Hoshi had a blast workin' on the translations." Trip paused to wash down another bite of pie. "Spent alotta time with his mama's folks when he was a kid, an' apparently Granny wasn't too bashful when it came to expressin' herself. So, near as I can tell, yer pissed off at him fer impersonatin' his gran'ma."

"Hang on—did you say triple shifts?" Malcolm asked. Trip nodded. "Trip, I never assigned him triples."

"Well, scuttlebutt is that he's been workin' triples, assigned or not. You didn't know?" Reed shook his head silently. Tucking another forkful of pie into his mouth, Trip studied Malcolm as the man cast his gaze into his mug of tea. When his friend remained silent for what he deemed too long, Trip swallowed then broke the silence. "You should talk to him, Malcolm," he gently urged. "Clear the air. Hell, at least find out for sure which one of ya he was imitatin', you or Granny."

Reed shook his head. "It's the middle of the night, Trip."

"Well, I didn't really mean for you to do it right this second. Just…next time ya see him. 'Cuz even if he was being disrespectful, you bein' on him about it fer so long just…well…it makes ya look petty and vindictive. And I know yer not. At least, not usually."

Malcolm stared into his mug a long while before meeting the gaze of his friend. He smiled ever so slightly, sighing as Trip shoveled in the last bite of dessert. "Mistah Tuckah," he said softly, "do you have any idea how annoying it is when you're right?"

Trip nodded, a pie-filled Cheshire Cat grin plastered across his face. "M-hmm," he hummed around the mouthful of food.