Malcolm Reed

Malcolm Reed was a male human Starfleet officer, who served on the Enterprise (NX-01) under Captain Jonathan Archer, from the years 2151 to 2161 and later served as Captain of the USS Pioneer (NCC-63). He was born on the planet Earth in the country of England.

Early life
Malcolm was attending the Evington Academy as a boy in 2136, when he heard the sounds of a fight. Malcolm investigated and discovered several older students delivering a horrendous beating to a defenseless student named Victor Renslow.

Malcolm, swinging a rake, came to Victor's defense and got the older boys to retreat. The older students, led by a boy named Leslie Morris, retaliated immediately after, savagely beating Malcolm and attempting to drown him in a school fountain.

Malcolm was saved by the fortuitous arrival on the scene of a member of the schools faculty. Despite his timely rescue, the incident scarred Malcolm with a pathological fear of drowning and large bodies of water. This phobia would remain with him well into his adult life.

In the two years that followed, Malcolm planned his revenge by befriending and tutoring several larger students and gaining their loyalty. Two years to the day after his savage beating, Malcolm and his cohorts ambushed Morris and beat him to a pulp. When Malcolm saw the fear in Morris' eyes, he realized that he had sunk to Morris' level, and was no better than he.

After this incident, Malcolm decided that if he couldn't serve on the sea, a family tradition, then he'd serve in the stars, where he hoped to find redemption.

Early career
As a cadet, Reed, along with first-year cadet John Mayhill, was on a tour of the Cochrane Research Facility on Sirius IV when the reactor exploded. Twenty people, including Mayhill, were trapped in the radioactive core, and Reed watched them die of radiation poisoning from the shielded observation room. Even years afterwards, Reed would occasionally have nightmares about that day.

Section 31
When Reed was an ensign, he was recruited by the rogue covert intelligence agency that would be come to known by some as Section 31. Reed joined Section 31's ranks willingly, believing that serving the bureau would lead to life of adventure and excitement. He soon grew uncomfortable with Section 31's methods, and tendered his resignation to an agent named Harris. In later years, during his time on the Enterprise, Reed would learn that Harris would not let him leave the bureau's ranks so easily.

Enterprise
Reed was assigned as armory officer aboard the Enterprise (NX-01) in April of 2151, under Captain Jonathan Archer.

In the second year of the Enterprise's historic exploratory mission, Reed was forced to kill Ensign Alana Hart, with whom he had a brief romantic relationship, when an alien took over her mind and body and attempted to sabotage Enterprise.

During Enterprise's mission in the Delphic Expanse to find the Xindi, in 2153, Reed was disturbed by the methods that Captain Archer used (torture and threat of death) to get information out of prisoners who might have crucial information about the Xindi. Remembering the lesson he learned in his youth, he felt that they couldn't save humanity from the Xindi by sinking to their level.

By late 2156, Reed had been promoted to lieutenant commander.

Reed served on the Enterprise throughout the war with the Romulan Star Empire, until the vessel's decommissioning in the year 2160, shortly before the formation of the United Federation of Planets.

Pioneer
In 2162, Reed served as Captain T'Pol's first officer aboard the USS Endeavour (NCC-06), when he received a promotion to captain and was given command of the USS Pioneer (NCC-63). Before leaving the Endeavour, Doctor Phlox gave Reed an intense physical, which revealed that the transporter had caused severe damage to Reed's reproductive organs.

In 2163, Reed oversaw efforts by Doctor Tobin Dax's team to integrate various Federation technologies aboard the ship. This effort saw the Pioneer create an unstable wormhole with its warp drive and become trapped in the atmosphere of a super-Jovian planet with a radiation belt. In response, Reed ordered his crew onto the ship's catwalk for protection, while engineers tried to repair the ship's propulsion systems. When it seemed the engineers would not be able to fix the ship before it was destroyed, Reed held a very earnest talk with his crew and informed them that he was proud of every one of them. Eventually, Reed approved a plan to contact the cloud whales and ask them for help. The cloud whales did help and the Pioneer was able to escape intact. After that incident, Reed was able to have dinner with T'Pol and Admiral Archer in the Pioneer's captain's mess.

Mirror universe

 * For Reed's mirror universe counterpart, see Malcolm Reed (mirror).

In the mirror universe, Major Malcolm Reed was the Terran commander of the MACO detachment on the ISS Enterprise, as well as armory officer.