The BLTS Archive -Hero Three
by Marie Whi Mitshue (DriftingPetal@gundamwing.org)

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Comments: My stories love going off on tangents!! They never go where
I first think they're going to go! Oh, well. SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG!!!
Zen Hugs and chocolate bunnies once again go to my great beta, C-chan.
//thoughts// *emphasis* (the more **, the greater the emphasis)

Beta reader(s): C-chan

Archived to the Web site on 07/01/2002.  Archived at EntSTCommunity
with the author's express permission. 

---

Dark. The world was grey and flat. Empty and blank.

Images skated across the empty landscape of his mind: Malcolm Reed
laughing with Travis Mayweather in the Mess Hall. The satisfied glow
in the Armoury officer's storm-sea eyes as he was called upon to use
his weapons.

The surprised, touched look on his strongly chiselled face as he was
presented with a pineapple birthday cake... Malcolm's desire-hazed
eyes as he moved against him in the crawl space.

The taste of Malcolm was suddenly on his lips and he felt heat burn
through him as the Englishman kissed him passionately. Suddenly,
Malcolm was torn from his embrace, with a desolate cry, and he was
left alone again. The world faded back to numb, grey blankness, even
as he screamed Malcolm's name.

No, it was red, red as blood and suddenly full of liquid bursts of
agony, pulsing, the pain rising then fading slightly, over and over.

Slowly the pain faded into dull aches, most centred in his head, and
he realised that the waves of pain coincided with the beat of his
heart.

His cheek was pressed against a cold, smooth surface, possibly metal.
His arms were twisted up behind him, shoulders and elbows aching with
the  pain and strain of the angle, wrists tied tight and chafed by
whatever had  been used to restrain him.

//What...where...?// Trip Tucker thought dazedly, then his eyes
snapped open as he remembered what had happened: crawling out of the
access way--after he and Malcolm had revealed their mutual
attraction--and being grabbed by a hulking Nassiccan pirate. He'd been
subdued and knocked out almost before he could cry out to warn
Malcolm--//Wait!// He thought frantically, seeing only the dull
unadorned metal of the Tellurian deckplate beneath his gaze. //Where's
Malcolm?! What did they do to him?! And Phlox?! Dear God, we left him
alone!!// He twisted around, trying to spot either member of his team,
ignoring the sharp spikes of pain up his skull as he did.

The familiar slight weight of his phase pistol was gone from his hip,
and the pocket on his upper arm that had held his communicator was
distressingly empty.

He recognised where he was. He was back in the cargo bay the
Tellurians were using as a makeshift Sickbay. But the wounded
Tellurians hadn't  been treated. Dr. Phlox was nowhere in sight and
all the Tellurian  crewmembers were tied up and lay along the far
wall. All were wounded; bleeding, burned, with broken limbs...it
mattered not. They were all restrained and gagged, with no thought to
the additional pain or aggravation to their injuries this would cause
them.

One of Dr. Phlox's medical scanners lay on the deck a few meters away,
carelessly or accidentally dropped.

Trip twisted again, squirming around to scan the other side of the
room.

There! Lieutenant Malcolm Reed was sitting on the deck, one leg
sprawled out straight, the other tucked in, leaning forward limply,
head  hanging, his back against a large, solid pipe that jutted up
from the deck and curved far above Malcolm's head to vanish into the
wall. His arms were pulled back; obviously his hands were cuffed
together behind that thick piping.

Trip's sea-blue eyes ran over Reed anxiously. He was unconscious, and
unarmed, only an empty holster at his hip, but he appeared unharmed
for the most part. It was a sure bet that his communicator was gone as
well. His head hung down, so the engineer was unable to see his face,
only the top of his dark head, but even as he watched a large bead of
blood dropped from Malcolm's unseen face, slipping from the curve of
cheek or chin.

Trip swallowed, eyes locked on the drop of red as it fell through the
air and splashed onto the deck, barely missing Malcolm's leg. The
small  puddle of sinister red on the dull grey deck, and the wet
splotch that  darkened the knee of Malcolm's uniform, attested to the
fact that however the Nassiccan had subdued Malcolm, it hadn't been as
gentle as the stun blast that Trip had taken. Sure, it had left the
Southerner with a whopdinger of a headache, but that was all. Malcolm
was bleeding, and Tucker saw red as rage rose up inside him, so thick
and terrible it almost choked him. Whoever had hurt the man he loved
was going to die, a slow, agonising death.

Tucker forced the rage down, took a deep breath. He had to stay calm.
He couldn't help Malcolm, or Phlox, wherever they had taken him, or
even  the Tellurians if he let his emotions control him. He grimaced
and thought //I've been spending too much time with T'Pol.//

He wiggled around some more and managed to roll from his stomach to
his side. He lifted his knees up to his chest, hoping to hook his
bound  hands around his feet and slip them up so his arms would be in
front of  him...no such luck. His restraints were too tight, and done
by a pro, and his  body was deadened and numb, lingering effects from
the stun blast; it felt  like it wasn't even his own.

Then all of the engineer's attention flew to the armoury officer as he
moaned, low and hoarse.

"Malcolm?!" He yelped, then squirmed a few inches closer to the bound
form of the Englishman. "Darlin', can ya hear me?" Unconsciously the
endearment slipped from his lips.

The dark-haired lieutenant moaned again, then mumbled something.
Tucker only caught part of it.

"Called me darling... have to be dreaming..."

Tucker chuckled despite their circumstances. He hadn't even realised
he'd said 'darlin'.

"C'mon, Mallie, I'll call ya darlin' as much as ya want, but we got a
problem here."

"Oohhhh...my head..." Malcolm groaned. "Did you happen to note the
number of the lorry that hit me?" He asked. His head rose and he
carefully  laid it back against the pipe he was tied to. "And don't
call me Mallie.  That's even worse that 'Mal'!" Blood covered his face
from eye to chin on one side, and streaked down his neck. His nose was
swollen and bleeding, his cheek split and discoloured, weeping tears
of blood, the bruising dark on his pale skin, but his eye had escaped
damage. He drew in a deep breath and spat out a mouthful of blood with
a distasteful noise. Tucker swallowed hard at the sight, muscles
bunching in hard little knots along his jaw line.

"Malcolm..." He choked out.

"Oh..." Awareness came back into the armoury officer's storm-sea eyes.
"Yes, I seemed to have lost a fight with a Nassiccan. Their stun is
not quite calibrated for Humans, though it did do a fine job on you. I
wasn't quite out of it after the Nassiccan shot me, so... he hit me."
He paused to breathe, wincing in pain.

"God, Malcolm, I'll kill him!" Trip snarled. Malcolm blinked, stunned
by the fury and feeling on Trip's face, in his voice.

"What? Why?"

"WHY?!" Trip yelped, finally managing to swing his numb legs up around
and wiggle upright into a sitting position, only an arm's reach from
the other Human. "He hurt you! He hurt the guy I love! He's SO going
to -" He stopped, mind belatedly registering what his mouth had said,
as Malcolm's eyes widened, mouth dropping open.

"Trip..." He whispered. "Did I hear you right?" He gasped. "Did you
just say...you love me?"

"Aw, hell..." Trip hung his head. "Yeah, Malcolm, I'm in love with
you. There. This isn't exactly the situation I'd imagined I'd be
tellin' ya that in--I imagined a nice candlelit dinner, maybe some
nice, soft music, some slow, passionate lovemaking ..."

"That would've been lovely." Malcolm told him softly. Trip's head came
up and his sea-blue gaze met Malcolm's eyes. There was joy shining in
those grey-blue orbs, so brilliant that Trip couldn't look away. "But
the trappings of the situation doesn't matter. I love you as well,
Charles, and when we get back to the ship..." A smile lifted the
corner of Malcolm's mouth. "That dinner and music and..." Malcolm's
voice lowered huskily, "...and slow, passionate lovemaking sounds
wonderful."

Trip stared back at him, and a huge grin spread across the engineer's
face.

"Wonderful! It sounds like I've died and gone to heaven!!" He
chuckled. "Charles, you called me Charles. Nobody calls me that, not
even my  mom."

"I won't call you that, if you don't want me to, it seemed to just
slip out." Malcolm said.

"Naw, call me Charles. I kinda like the thought of you, and only you,
calling me that. And I like the way you say it...'Chawles'." He
imitated Malcolm's British accent. Reed's swollen mouth twitched, and
his eyes glowed.

"Charles..." He repeated softly, and Trip shivered at the emotion and
desire in Malcolm's low voice.

"How...lovely." A harsh voice snarled. Both Humans twisted to see the
tall, ridged and fanged form of a Nassiccan pirate, armed with a
heavy-calibre disruptor rifle, standing in the open hatch. It was the
same Nassiccan that had captured them.

"Where is Dr. Phlox?!" Tucker demanded immediately.

The Nassiccan laughed. "Your doctor is performing his duty and tending
to my wounded soldiers. I am Nhorr, in command here, and you are my
prisoners."

"More Nassiccans..." Reed groaned in dismay.

Nhorr stared at Reed venomously. "You weren't supposed to be here.
It's your own fault for being so disgustingly attached to your mate
that  you had to go where he went." He snorted in disdain. "Weak. You
can always find another body, willing or unwilling, to sate your lust.
Only weak beings develop emotional attachments."

"I recommend you try it, obviously you don't know what you're
missing." Reed said coolly.

Tucker snorted derisively. "Don't bother. It's obvious that this
moronic muscle-bound sonuvabitch wouldn't know a good thing if it
bit'im on  the ass. He--" Pain exploded in Tucker's face, and then the
second blow  sent him sprawling backwards. He lay there, the room
spinning lazy circles around him, distantly hearing Reed yelling his
name, as if the lieutenant was miles away, fear and fury making Reed's
voice harsh and sharp.

//Funny.// He thought dazedly. //I never even saw Nhorr move. He's
fast...I... think I'm going to pass out now...// The hard blows had
reminded him that the receding aches and weak numbness from the stun
blast were still there, and fresh pain and dizziness swamped him.
Blackness yanked him under, even as he struggled against it, trying to
find his voice, to say something--anything--to quell the terror for
him that was starkly evident in Malcolm's voice.

"Trip! Are you all right? Charles! Charles!! CHARLES!!!"

And blackness engulfed him for the second time that day.

---

Malcolm Reed stared for one long moment at the sprawled, still form of
the man he loved. Then his eyes flew to the Nassiccan standing over
Tucker and those grey-blue eyes turned hard and cold; the eyes of a
soldier willing, even eager, to kill.

"You'll pay for that with blood." Reed snarled, voice almost
unrecognisable, thick with hatred, rage and fear.

Nhorr laughed at him. "With your blood, maybe." He told Reed
scornfully. Nhorr shoved a booted toe beneath Tucker's sprawled and
twisted body  and carelessly turned him over. Tucker moaned pitifully,
despite being unconscious, and Reed suddenly understood Tucker's
earlier rage at seeing the armoury officer bleeding. A trickle of
blood was oozing down the Southerner's beautiful face, lower lip
swollen and split. Reed felt his rage increase tenfold, vision turning
as red as his lover's blood.

"How many crew on your vessel?" Nhorr asked absently, staring down at
the unconscious engineer. It took Reed a second to find his voice. "Go
to hell!" He growled. The Nassiccan's boot thudded hard against
Tucker's side. He groaned in pain, even though he was out cold. Reed's
jaw clenched so tightly his face muscles ached.

"You are a security officer. What is the weapons capability of your
starship?"

Reed just stared at him, eyes almost incandescent with hate. If looks
could kill, Nhorr would have been dead already, of some horrible,
horrible death.

Nhorr growled, then lifted Tucker into a sitting position, propping
him up against a cargo container that had doubled earlier for a
makeshift  bed. He took out a slim, cylindrical object and pressed it
to Tucker's  neck. The Southerner's eyes flew open with a strangled
gasp.

As Tucker sucked in air, blinking in pain and confusion, Nhorr looked
at Reed. "What is the weapons capability of your ship?" He repeated
quietly.

Reed glared, mouth pressed shut in a thin, hard line. Nhorr sighed and
shook his head, but it was clear he wasn't unhappy about what he was
about to do. His massive fist slammed into Tucker's stomach, and he
lost all his breath in an agonised groan, doubling over, wheezing.

"Tell me." Nhorr commanded.

"Why...don'tcha...go...screw yerself?" Tucker wheezed, grimacing in
pain. His head snapped back as his remark only earned him a hard blow
across  the face.

"Leave him alone!" Reed snarled, squirming and yanking against his
bonds, desperately trying to free himself. He felt warm wetness
trickle down  his hands as his restraints cut into his wrists, but
that didn't deter him  in the least. He kept twisting against his
bonds, dismissing the blood slicking his skin as irrelevant, tortured
gaze locked on Tucker.

"That's very unlikely." Nhorr informed him. His heavy boot slammed
against Tucker's knee, and the commander cried out.

"Stop it!" Reed gasped anguishedly. "Please, stop!" His voice broke
slightly, shaking and full of mingled hate, rage, fear, and love.

"D..don't...tell'im any...thin', Mal..." Tucker growled through
clenched teeth. "That's...an order...aahhh!" Nhorr's foot connected
with the engineer's side and Tucker fell to the deck with an
involuntary shout as pain shot through him.

"Charles!" Reed shouted. As Tucker gasped and wheezed in pain,
sprawled on the deck, the Nassiccan took two swift strides over to
where Reed  was bound. His fingers tangled in the armoury officer's
dark hair, yanking  his head up.

"Tell me what I want to know!" Nhorr snarled in Reed's face, fingers
twisting viciously in the Englishman's hair.

"Why don't'cha...uh...bend over..." Tucker rasped furiously from the
deck, "...turn sideways...ahh...and go...fuck yerself!"

Nhorr turned his ugly, ridged face towards Tucker, glaring at him.
Reed tried to jerk his head out of Nhorr's grasp, but failed.

"You..." Nhorr growled--then stopped. "Hmm. Engineers are useful. And
it's obvious I'm not going to get anything from him." As he indicated
Reed, with a tone of loathing, he yanked the Englishman's head roughly
around. "Yes, a security officer...not very valuable to me, is he?
More trouble than he's worth..." He mused. He slammed Reed's head back
against the thick pipe as he straightened. Reed let out an involuntary
cry, starbursts of pain and light going off inside his head.

Nhorr smiled at Tucker, an ugly smile made worse by the cruelty and
thirst for suffering visible on Nhorr's face. "So, if he's not
valuable to me, what do I do with him, eh, engineer?"

Tucker struggled up into a sitting position, the pain in his body
forgotten as dread rose inside him. "Wh..what...?"

Nhorr strode casually towards an open equipment container. "Well, when
something's not valuable anymore, don't you throw it away? Get rid of
it?"

"No! SonuvaBITCH, you leave him ALONE!" Tucker snarled hoarsely, fear
glittering in his sky-blue eyes as the darted between Nhorr and the
dazed armoury officer.

Nhorr spared Tucker a disdainful glance, then reached into the
container and pulled out a long, sharp-edged knife. It was obviously
from an  alien galley or mess hall, but it was six inches long and
razor-sharp, and  would cut into Reed just as well as it would cut
into a joint of meat.

All the blood drained out of the commander's face, as Nhorr walked
slowly towards Reed, knife held capably in his large hand.

"Don't..." he whispered, voice failing him. His mind screamed //NO!
GOD, NO!!! I JUST FOUND HIM, JUST DISCOVERED HE LOVES ME TOO, IT CAN'T
END  LIKE THIS!! IT CAN'T!! NOOOOOO!!!!//

Reed blinked hazily at the Nassiccan, eyes still confused and dazed
with pain. Then those storm-sea eyes cleared, and his jaw firmed. He
glared  at Nhorr with contemptuous eyes.

"So," Nhorr said conversationally, "One of you will tell me what I
wish to know, or I gut the security runt, and take the engineer back
to my  ship when she arrives. You will not enjoy being my slave, or
sold to Orion pirates. Either way, you won't live much longer than
your mate." That nasty, horrible smile was on his face again. "Tell
me, and maybe, just maybe, I'll let you both live. As slaves, of
course. Still not a long life, but at least you'd be together until
you died." The Nassiccan laughed, the sound heavy with contempt and
arrogance. He looked from Tucker to Reed, and lifted the knife. "It's
your choice..."

Tucker's desperate eyes locked with Reed's burning eyes. 'I love you',
his eyes said. 'I can't lose you, I have to tell him, I'm no hero. I
CAN'T lose you! I can't watch you DIE!'

Reed's eyes narrowed, the silent message received as clearly as if
spoken. He shook his head slightly, gaze clinging to Tucker's. 'NO!'
His tempest-coloured eyes said. 'I'm not worth the death of our ship
and crew. I love you, too, but not even for you will I betray them.
And I won't let you betray them for me. No.'

Tucker's eyes begged, pleaded, wanting only to save Reed, all other
thoughts torn form his mind, but Reed's remained adamant. Those grey-
blue orbs were calm; the only fear in them was for Tucker's fate, not
for himself.

"No." He said out loud, eyes still locked with the engineer's. Then he
broke the intense eye contact between them, although it hurt to do so,
and turned his gaze on Nhorr. "No." He repeated, voice calm as a still
pond and firm as granite. Nhorr's face twisted in fury, and the knife
slashed down.

---

Captain Archer paced like a caged tiger around his command chair. If
he had had a tail, it would have been thrashing.

"Hail them again." He ordered, voice tight with concern and control.

"Yes, sir." Ensign Hoshi Sato pressed one slim hand to her earbug as
the other flew over her communications console. "ENTERPRISE to
Commander Tucker. Please respond. ENTERPRISE to Lieutenant Reed.
Respond. ENTERPRISE to Dr. Phlox. Respond, please!" Hoshi shook her
head, elegant eyebrows drawing together in worry. "No response, sir."

Archer stopped pacing, one hand on the back of his command chair. His
sharp blue eyes narrowed as he gazed at the Tellurian freighter on the
viewscreen. "Then try the STAR FREEDOM again." Archer snapped. As
Hoshi complied, Ensign Travis Mayweather glared at the viewscreen and
muttered, "For the fifth time..."

"No response, sir." Hoshi reported unhappily, biting her lip
nervously.

"T'Pol." Archer snapped.

The Vulcan straightened from her console, unperturbed by his curt
tone. "Sir?"

"Prepare a shuttlepod. We're going over there."

"Yes, Captain." The Science Officer started to rise then halted as a
shrill beeping came from her console. Her head snapped around and she
lifted one eyebrow. "Sir, a Nassiccan ship has just dropped out of
warp. They're charging weapons!"

Polarise the hull plating! Bring our weapons on-line!" Archer ordered.
"Put us between the Tellurian ship and the Nassiccans."

"Aye, sir!" Mayweather snapped, capable hands dancing over his
controls.

"Weapons on-line! Hull plating polarised!" Ensign Donovan reported
tersely from the Tactical Station.

Archer glanced at the Tellurian freighter as they slid past it, worry
for his three crewmembers burning in his belly.

Then T'Pol called, "They're firing!" and Archer had no more time for
worrying.

---

TBC