Malcolm Reed's History
Lieutenant Malcolm Reed was a 22nd-century Human Starfleet officer who served as armory officer on board Enterprise NX-01 under the command of Captain Jonathan Archer.
Malcolm Reed was born on September 2, in the early 22nd century, into an English family with a strong naval tradition. His grandfather was an ordnance officer in the Royal Navy and his father and great-uncle (who had died in the line of duty aboard HMS Clement) had served as well.
rowing up, Reed was raised on the water. He knew how to handle a boat before he could ride a bicycle. He studied all the great naval battles, and like his ancestors before him, he wanted to serve aboard a seafaring vessel, but his aquaphobia, which he thought he might outgrow, rendered him unable to follow in the footsteps of his family.
Reed had one sister named Madeleine, an uncle named Archie, and at least two unmarried aunts. Reed had a rather distant relationship with his parents, who questioned if he was in "some kind of trouble" when contacted by Archer. He also found it hard to make close friendships, and he had several unsuccessful romantic relationships before joining the Enterprise.
Unable to follow his family's tradition, Reed decided to join Starfleet. Reed took a rather serious and traditional approach to his position as a Starfleet officer, finding it, for instance, rather improper to socialize with senior officers. When Captain Archer invited him to eat breakfast with him once, he felt rather awkward and uncomfortable, and as a result could not relax in the captain's presence.
Around 2149, Reed, as a young ensign, was recruited into Section 31 through former Starfleet Security officer Harris. At the time, Reed was a fresh officer who was excited to be in "covert operations." However, he later left the organization, or so he thought, and initially having no further contact with Harris after 2151, until he was contacted again in 2154.
Reed was the senior armory officer aboard Enterprise. He helped complete the ship's first mission, which was intervening in a Suliban plot to cause civil war in the Klingon Empire.His quarters aboard Enterprise were located on B Deck.
Reed was a master of adapting to difficult situations. In an early battle, during the mission an alien force attacked and attempted to capture the crew so they could drain them of their bodily fluids. After Enterprise's weapons failed to penetrate the enemy's shields, he cooperated with an Axanar cargo ship to drive off the enemy.
He was part of the landing party that landed on Terra Nova, a lost colony of Earth colonists who believed that Earth had poisoned their air. The Novans attacked the party and Reed was shot in the leg with a projectile weapon and held hostage in the underground caverns. He was released after Archer was able to reason with the Novans.
He led a rescue team onto a planet housing the monastery at P'Jem when Archer was caught in a dispute between the Andorians and Vulcans. He and his team planted charges behind the wall of the atrium. When the walls collapsed, his team was able to rescue Archer, T'Pol, and Tucker. He also helped to expose P'Jem as a listening post of the Vulcan High Command.
He and Travis Mayweather became two of the first Humans to walk on a comet. They were stranded, and the Vulcans saved them by the use of tractor beam technology.
Later that year Enterprise was attacked by an unknown enemy. The weapons on Enterprise were not powerful enough to deter the enemy. Reed and Tucker led the team that built phase cannons so that the ship would be prepared in case of another attack. The weapons of Enterprise had no effect on the enemy, until Reed recreated a power surge and transferred it to the weapons. The blast disabled the enemy ship and it retreated.
He and Hoshi Sato boarded a disabled Klingon ship that was losing orbit and falling into a gas giant. The crew had been disabled by a toxin. They became trapped, and in order to push the ship to a higher orbit so they could be rescued, Reed fired the ship's torpedoes, which pushed the vessel into higher orbit.
He and Tucker attempted to rescue Archer from Coridanite rebels. They were captured by the Andorians, who had become involved in the civil war. Shran set Reed and Tucker free, and helped in the rescue effort.
When Enterprise came upon a Kantare settlement on a planet after crash landing, Reed discovered that there was no way the settlement could survive with so many people. It was discovered that the settlement was a hologram, as were all the people except for two.
Reed and Tucker, while on a shuttlepod mission, were cut off from Enterprise and, seeing debris, believed that the ship had been destroyed. As they lost life support, they were contacted by Enterprise. They were not aware that the shuttle was damaged, but Reed and Tucker jettisoned their impulse drive and imploded it as a signal to Enterprise. With air running out, Tucker decided to leave the shuttle and seal himself in the airlock, so Reed could survive. Reed argued him down and even pointed a phase-pistol at him, though it was set to stun. Reed would have both of them dead than one. They were rescued.
Reed, in the disguise of a Suliban infiltrated a Tandaran concentration camp where Archer was being held along with innocent Suliban. Detonating explosives, Reed knocked out the guards, while creating a way to freedom. He helped disarm the commander Grat and released Archer and the other prisoners.
Archer, Tucker, and three others were captured by a symbiotic being that was trying to integrate them into one being so it could survive. Reed and his security team fired EM radiation at the creature. The organism writhes in pain, but when the bio-signs of the trapped crewmembers become erratic, Dr. Phlox orders Reed to stop firing. The organism was absorbing the crewmembers' nervous systems into its own. Reed installed an experimental EM force field to limit its growth. Once Hoshi Sato communicated with the creature and found that it only wanted to go home it released Archer, Tucker, and the other three crewmembers. T'Pol, Sato, Reed and Phlox take it to the planet's surface. During a vacation on Risa, Reed and Tucker made dates with two exotic females. The females turned out to be morphs who robbed the two and left them half-naked, tied up in a cellar.
Silik and the Cabal took over Enterprise after Archer was transported to the future by Daniels, a temporal agent. Reed used a piece of equipment that Daniels had left behind in a previous visit to help Archer return to his timeline, and retook the ship.
In 2152 Enterprise became trapped in a Romulan minefield. When one of the mines attached to Enterprise, Reed went out in an EV suit to try to disarm it. During an attack by the Romulans, the mine was jostled and a metal spike from the mine pinned Reed's leg to the hull. Archer went out to help Reed, who talked Archer through the disarming of the mine. Reed was rescued when Archer used a torch to cut him free, despite Reed attempting to commit suicide with the intent of compelling Archer to leave him behind. During a stop at an automated repair station, Reed's leg was healed by the station. Reed participated in covert exploration of the station at the urging of Tucker. The station was discovered to be a parasitic cyborg harnessing humanoid brains for use in its computer core.
Reed also helped a mining colony defend itself from Klingons who were stealing their deuterium. He taught them self-defense and target practice. He almost was executed by a pre-warp society that he and Archer visited. Reed left his communicator and when they went back to retrieve it, they were captured. The general who captured them believed they were super soldiers developed by his enemies. They were ordered to be executed, but saved by Enterprise.
After Enterprise gave asylum to Takret men fleeing the military, everyone had to take refuge in the catwalk to escape a deadly radiation storm. The Takret military boarded the ship to capture the refugees. Thinking the ship is empty, they tried to restart the warp engines which were shut down during the storm. This endangered the ship and crew and Reed left the catwalk, shut down the engines and saved the ship. Reed discovered that a ship found by Enterprise was from the future and could hold the key to the Temporal Cold War. He also led a rescue party to free Archer from a penal ship.
Reed's personal emphasis on starship protocol caused him to notice the inefficiency of Enterprise's crew when reacting to combat situations. This prompted him to devise a state of Tactical alert, which he saw as a means of improving readiness. Captain Archer approved of his idea, only mandating he find a less annoying alert signal to replace the grating klaxon, and it was quickly implemented.
Enterprise encountered a large vessel unlike any the crew had seen before. Reed along with Archer and Tucker took a shuttlepod into the ship for exploration. An alien wisp took over Tucker's body and informed Archer that that it wants to peacefully explore Humanity. Reed was overtaken and attempted to mate with T'Pol. Phlox was able to rid Reed and the rest of the crew from the aliens who really wished to keep their Human bodies.
In the latter part of the year, he encountered the Borg, although he did not know what species they were. While pursuing the Borg, Reed and Archer boarded the transport and fought off these lifeforms, attaching several charges to the ship's EPS manifold, then transporting back to Enterprise. The resulting explosion crippled the transport, which was then destroyed by a few torpedoes.
In the early days of the mission to stop the Xindi from destroying Earth, Reed accompanied Archer to a mining planet to interrogate a Xindi. They were imprisoned by the foreman of the miners who intended to use them as slave labor. They rescued the Xindi, but he was killed in the escape attempt. He managed to give Enterprise the coordinates of the planet before he died.
Reed was part of an away team that boarded a stranded Vulcan ship in the Expanse. The crew had gone mad and tried to kill the team. After escaping, the ship was destroyed by Enterprise. He was a part of an away mission on a planet whose population was extinct. However, the Loque'eque had left behind a virus that would change other humanoids into their species. Reed became one of them, but was cured by Phlox.
Reed subsequently met with a merchant, B'Rat Ud, who could sell him trellium-D, a substance that could protect the ship from spatial anomalies which were a common feature in the Delphic Expanse. During this visit to the Xanthan planet, he helped Archer rescue Rajiin, a woman who was being sold by a slave trader. She turned out to be an agent of the Xindi.
He, Major Hayes, and Archer infiltrated a Xindi industrial facility to examine what the Xindi weapon would be powered by. They tried to persuade the Xindi-Arboreal that Earth was no threat to them. The Xindi gave them a canister of the power source.
During the mission to find the Xindi weapon, Reed was unhappy with the assignment of Major Hayes and his team of MACOs to Enterprise. He felt that Hayes was trying to subvert his authority in an attempt take over security on the ship. This caused Reed to react poorly when Hayes suggested a series of training sessions for the senior officers with his team. A "training session" between Hayes and Reed ended up as little more than a fist fight, and both were chastised by Captain Archer. This had the effect of clearing the air between them, so much so that Hayes told Reed that he and his people no longer felt like outsiders.
Though Reed was fortunate enough to escape injury in the Xindi attack in the Azati Prime system, two days later he suffered from severe exposure to heat when helping Commander Tucker close down a leaking plasma conduit that was creating a huge plasma fire. Fortunately, he recovered quickly.
During the final days of the mission, he led a team that boarded a sphere in order to get information about the Sphere-Builders, the aliens who were behind the plot to destroy Earth. During this action one of the MACOs, F. Hawkins, was killed by the sphere's defenses. This had a profound effect on Reed. After Major Hayes was killed in the attempt to rescue Hoshi Sato, Reed took over the MACOs. He led them on the final mission aboard the weapon and helped to successfully destroy it.
Reed aided in restoring the timeline after aliens tried to change it by aiding the Nazis in conquering America. He also defended Phlox in a bar fight against a group of xenophobic Humans.
During the Augment incident he, along with Archer, tried to retake Cold Station 12 where Augment embryos were stored. He was also part of a rescue team along with Mayweather when they attempted to rescue T'Pol and Archer from the The Forge before the Vulcan High Command attacked the religious sect hiding there.
Along with Mayweather, his body was taken over by an Organian observer who wished to experience Human customs and ways. While teaching the inhabited Mayweather how to play chess, he revealed he was the ship's champion.
When the Romulans sent a ship with "chameleon"-like capabilities to further destabilize Andorian and Tellarite relations by attacking their ships, Reed and Tucker boarded it and became stranded when Enterprise's transporter went off line. Their oxygen supply was running low but they continued to investigate and were shocked when they found no one on the alien ship. It was a remotely-controlled drone ship. They began to sabotage the drone ship as it engaged in a fire fight with Enterprise. After damaging the ship, Reed and Tucker ejected themselves out into space where Enterprise transported them back to the ship.
Reed had not had contact from Section 31 since he joined the crew of Enterprise. This affected his loyalties during a crisis involving the Klingon Empire. The Klingons had attempted to develop their own Augments using DNA from their contact with Malik and the other augments developed by Arik Soong. The Human DNA caused a virus that threatened to wipe out the Klingons. Reed was contacted by Harris, an agent of Section 31, who had a job for him. At first he refused, but was told if he did not cooperate, Phlox, who was kidnapped by the Klingons, would die. He covered up the fact that the Rigelian ship that kidnapped Phlox was destroyed by Klingons. When Archer found out Reed lied to him, he was relieved of duty and put in the brig.
After Augment Klingons sabotaged Enterprise, Reed was released and helped Tucker repair the ship. Archer found out about Reed's involvement with Harris and demanded answers. Harris contacted him and told him that Section 31 shut down a security grid on Earth that allowed Phlox to be kidnapped. They believed that if Phlox did not find a cure, the Klingons would react with all-out war, which would have grave implications for many worlds. Reed felt his loyalties were with Archer and he informed Archer the location of the base where Phlox was held. Phlox did cure the virus and Reed, along with Archer, rescued him. Reed contacted Harris once more and told him never to contact him again.
Reed contacted agent Harris to acquire information about the terrorist group Terra Prime – despite his previous attempt to withdraw from Section 31, Archer, now that he knew of Reed's involvement, decided to use that connection to get better answers than those he had received from Earth political figures. In a rescue attempt to free Tucker and T'Pol from the group on Mars, his shuttle was sabotaged and he had to return to Enterprise.
Reed was still serving aboard Enterprise with the rank of lieutenant when the ship was decommissioned in 2161. He participated in the crew's final mission to rescue Shran's daughter, Talla, from alien kidnappers on Rigel X. Although the mission was a success, his friend and crewmate, Trip Tucker, sacrificed himself shortly thereafter in order to save Captain Archer. Afterward, Reed was in attendance at the founding ceremony for the United Federation of Planets. Prior to Archer's speech, Reed conveyed his desire to continue working with Captain Archer on the latter's next assignment, believing Archer was not yet ready for the Admiralty.
