Home at Last

Posted on 20 Jul 2025 @ 2:00am by Commodore Harvey Geisler & Emily Carter & Commander John Reynolds & Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale

3,383 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: Imposters Among Us
Timeline: July 7, 2390 || 1100 hours

It had been a long, hard flight in the Flotsam. It had taken every bit of evasion tactics that she had leaned in Starfleet, Search and Rescue schools, and the help of Ronin, Nick and Sunni. After three days and a bunch of short warp jumps later, they finally arrived at New Risa where the Black Hawk had limped for repairs.

It was a sight to behold and she wondered what had happened to it as she made her way onto the ship after an improvised beam over to the ship due to the flight deck being repaired. Still dressed like a civilian smuggler Captain and looking nothing like a Starfleet Chief of Security, Camila breathed in once as she materialized on the transporter,

The crew she had with her had already been debriefed since she had several days on the way back to make the reports. Now it was her turn to report to the Commodore. She looked over at her side and gave a nod Emily. "Are you ready?"

Emily stood silent for a moment as her eyes slowly scanned the Transporter Room. It had been at least two years since she saw the inside of any Federation starship, the Flotsam excluded of course, and she immediately came to the conclusion that not much had changed. And while Geisler was now in command of his third starship to bear the same name, she found the ship to be quite familiar, and at the same time quite different. It was as if history was repeating itself, having to turn to Starfleet to save her family once again.

Perhaps it was indeed the time to find a new profession...

"Ready as I'll ever be," she quietly confirmed.

As if her statement was a magical cue, the doors to the transporter room slid apart, and a figure familiar to both women entered the room. Emily paused on the transporter pad, somewhat taken aback by who was now before her eyes. There was not a doubt in her mind that Harvey Geisler would have remained unchanged, and yet here he was with... was that a smile on his face? The Geisler she knew had been a brooding, stoic man who would have never chosen to display emotion.

At least not since the time he had berated her during an interrogation once she had betrayed him. She remembered being amazed at he was even capable of showing emotion. And now, here he was, greeting Commander Di Pasquale as if he was seeing a long lost friend.

Then Harvey turned to face her. He blinked as a wave of confusion rippled across his face. It was as if he recognized her, but couldn't identify her. The Commodore (not a Captain as both Camila and the pip on his breast jointly reminded the former Petty Officer) turned to Camila and stated, "I didn't realize you were bringing passengers."

Passengers? A bell chimed in Camila's head, both at the smile on Harvey's face that turned to what seemed to be confusion and his reference to his former Yeoman as a passenger. "Commodore Geisler, may I present Emily Carter," she said as if the two had never met before and she hoped her formal tone would alert Emily. "She's here from Mellon to help assist with information about G90B, Sir."

Carter? Mellon? Harvey thought for a moment as he looked at Emily. Both of these were familiar, but it was a struggle to remember the full details in the swampy soup that clouded certain memories. After what seemed like a moment, the names clicked, and a wave of familiarity brushed over his face. "Right, yes. Emily Carter. It has been a while."

Harvey looked back to Camila and said, "I have to admit. I didn't think you would be back so soon."

"We wouldn't have been back so fast if it wasn't absolutely vital, Commodore," Camila said and raised the small carryon bag she had in her left hand. "Which Is the information I have right here, Sir. I need to brief you and Commander Reynolds immediately and get the word back to Task Force Command to Admiral O'Connell."

Harvey looked down at the bag, and wondered what could be in there. He then looked back up at her and considered his next action carefully. There was only so much he could express at this moment, and he was very deeply curious as to what she had brought back. "All right," he said. "Do you want to freshen up first, or get straight to it?"

"I think under the circumstances and the information that I have, now would be the best time, Commodore," Camila said, wondering what had came over him as they should have been on the way to his Ready Room by now.

The Commodore nodded and immediately settled into a course of action. He tapped his badge and said, "Geisler to Commander Reynolds. Meet me in the Ready Room."

"Understood, Sir. On my way." With that, John headed out the door.

Harvey gestured towards the door, welcoming both women officially aboard the ship. "Straight to it, it is."

"I know this is going to get the Task Force mobilized if nothing else does," Camila said as she headed for the door. "The faster we act on it, the better."

Emily followed the group into the corridor, still a bit unsure if she was supposed to be tagging along for this thing.

"Mobilized?" Harvey asked, leading them towards a turbolift. "You act as though you found the Holy Grail, Commander. We had an encounter with G90B of our own, and it didn't exactly go well. We lost the Valcour in the process, and even they were barely able to inflict a seething wound."

"I know where G90B is and where their refinery is and who is in charge, Commodore," Camila said as she marched beside of him. "If that isn't the holy fucking grail, I don't know what is. I'm sorry about the Valcour and her crew, but we need everyone and now."

Harvey froze dead in his tracks at Camila's teaser. Fortunately for him, where he stopped was right next to the turbolift. He tapped a button to summon the car, and it arrived almost immediately. As he stepped inside, he considered making another call to add Joey into this. With her assigned as the Chief of Intelligence, her presence would have been justified. The only thing that stopped him was that he remembered someone from Intelligence was on the mission, and was likely already briefing her. No, he had to let this play out.

"Bridge," he instructed the turbolift.

Camila stepped in with her, pleased to have finally gotten his attention and decided to wait until he asked her another question.

Emily stepped inside just as the doors closed. As the car moved, silence took hold while she slipped behind both Camila and Harvey. She did not have much to say at the moment, but she only found the entire situation awkward.

The doors opened a few moments later, allowing the group to exit onto the empty bridge. Emily looked around, seeing that the ship sported an entirely different module. Consoles weren't in the right place, and each of the screens were off. "What happened around here?" she asked, thinking that this was worth mentioning in the awkwardness.

"Command functions were temporarily relocated to Auxiliary Control," Harvey explained as he crossed the bridge to the door of the ready room. "G90B had a nasty habit of targeting bridge modules, so we took necessary precautions."

Just as Harvey stepped in front of the ready room doors, they slid aside, allowing the team to enter.

Camila entered behind him, allowing him to answer Emily and for a moment wondered why they weren't going to Auxiliary Control to begin with. As she was the Chief of Security, and the Executive Officer had been called already, she didn't see an immediate need to include anyone else in the briefing she was about to begin.

The lift doors swished open just as the ready room doors did. John exited and walked towards to group. He gave a quick nod to them and followed them in.

Harvey immediately walked over to his desk so that he would have the full range of holographic and override controls at his command. He had no idea what to expect. And, while he had considered taking a few moments at the replicator to offer everyone refreshments, he could tell that di Pasquale was already determined to deliver her news and that a delay would just further agitate her. "We're both here, Commander," Harvey said, glancing to Emily, still wondering who she was and why she was here. "What do you have?"

Camila moved to the table and pulled up the holographic display without asking for permission and pulled out a PADD to do a direct download to the ship's computer. She pulled up the map of the Gamma Quadrant on it and zoomed in on the Rakhari Colony. "This is where we started and had our first contact that led us to Mellon." She said she laid out the path that they had taken. "Which is where we met Emily," she indicated the young woman and wondered why Harvey hadn't said more considering the fact that she once betrayed him.

"That's where we met D'Rimo...and D'Rimo's head in a box that he dumped on the table at a celebration hosted by Emily's father, Jonathan Carter and established he was taking over," Camila said. "He's from the alternate universe we were accidentally blown to and now he's here and took over Mellon because of the Birythium ore. We managed to escape and hurt G90B, which is roughly here on the map." She pointed it out where the last known location and refinery was.

"Questions?"

Harvey glanced over to John, wondering what the newcomer to the Black Hawk thought about this. But what troubled Harvey the most was not what Camila had uncovered, or she managed to accomplish after, but that he lacked enough memory to grasp everything she had referred to. Clearly there were some gaps here, especially since the Black Hawk's last encounter with the Confederation was not in his counterpart's copied short-term memory.

The Commodore leaned forward and scrutinized the image before him. By focusing more on the matter at hand, perhaps he would more easily hide in plain sight. "So they're trying to refine birythium, a mineral rare on this side of the Dominion border. Any idea what for?"

Camila looked at him like he'd hit his head. "For the material in their ships, Commodore," she said. It was one of the few leads that they had to go after G90B. "D'Rimo has made his way here, SIr."

Harvey knew it was the material needed for their ships. In fact, his memories were very clear that the Black Hawk's sensors had detected a wealth of birythium in the alloys of the large G90B vessel. But it could be used for a variety of purposes such as repairs or ship building.

Before he could refute, however, Emily stepped in. "Captain–" The blonde woman paused, closed her eyes, and corrected herself. "Commodore. What Ca–Commander Di Pasquale means to say is that there is a different D'rimo. Not the one you and I are familiar with. This one showed up in my father's house with our D'rimo's head in a box and then killed my father."

This time, Harvey's eyes widened. When he assumed the persona of this Harvey Geisler, there were memories of sending Di Pasquale into the field to gain information. The real Geisler didn't think she would have been back so soon, not to mention with so much critical information. This Di Pasquale... she knew everything not a single person on this side of the Federation was supposed to know. In that instant, all his plans to move his flag to Gavara went out the window. A Plan B would be needed, and urgently so.

He had to act quickly here, and that was going to involve slowing down Di Pasquale. Something had to be done. He frowned and looked at Emily for a moment, then to Di Pasquale, and then to the unsuspecting Reynolds. "The Confederation," he admitted, drawing the name from his programming rather than Harvey's own memories about the time in the other universe. For whatever reason, those were sparse, likely devoted to long-term memory storage and not the short term.

Looking back to Camila, Harvey decided to ask a very pointed question. "During our last encounter with G90B, we damaged one of their ships and got a good scan of their hull structure. So, we already know how they use birythium. But my question still stands. Any idea what the birythium is being used for? Are they amassing an army? Repairing the ship they damaged? Do we even know their full strength?"

"The same D'rimo that had a price on your alternate's head in the other universe. Remember Razmena?" Camila asked. "Or maybe how we had to escape? They came looking for us and discovered this ore and now they're mining it and the ship is being repaired. For what? I didn't bother to stick around to ask after we hurt G90B and went to warp."

Harvey didn't remember Razmena or any of those other details, but he could tell enough from Camila's tone that it was likely by the skin of his teeth. "How do you know they discovered it?" Harvey countered. "Maybe it was always part of their hull structure and they need more of it for that they're doing. And how bad did you hurt G90B?"

"I don't, but now we know where they are, have an idea of what they're doing and now it's time to act. Get Admiral O'Connell on subspace and tell him. We need the task force," Camila said, wondering why he wasn't reacting to Emily's presence in a way that would indicate he knew her as the Yeoman who betrayed him once.

Harvey glanced over to Emily, detecting what was a wave of conflict over her face. As he didn't recognize her, Harvey had no way of knowing why she was hesitant or conflicted. This prompted him to look over at Reynolds once more and then back at Camila. "Commander Di Pasquale," he began, "I do agree with you. Fast action is required here. While you were gone, we had our own encounter with G90B, or The Confederation, or whoever they are. Our weapons couldn't make a dent, and it was only a warp core breach from the Valcour at close range that caused the slightest bit of damage."

His right index finger tapped the desk as Harvey continued. "Our next steps need to be calculated very carefully as each engagement has demonstrated that we will continue to face significant loss of life and material until we find some other way to make it past their defenses."

"They're hurt now and we know where they're at now and we can get them now," Camila said before she looked at the Executive Officer. "Sir, please help me out here!"

"I think caution is warranted. To a degree," he said. "We need to do something or the entire quadrant is sitting ducks. Maybe all we need to make it past are their shields. Drop them long enough to beam torpedos behind them and detonate. Hurry in, hurry out, loss of life minimal."

Harvey looked at the Executive Officer for a few moments. It was clear the faux Commodore was outnumbered, and there was no way to avoid handling the information that was in front of him. Even as he sat here, the Commodore knew the real Harvey would have jumped on this information. If he stalled any more, then he wouldn't put it past Di Pasquale or even Reynolds to try and jump above him in the chain of command. No, the best course of action now would be to keep moving forward, and to look for alternatives along the way.

"Caution is indeed warranted," Harvey echoed. "We have to be smart, and we can't afford any more setbacks. All we have here at New Risa is the Endurance and the squadron. If we're going to do this, we're going to need help. Let me see who I can pull off the line and if I can get reinforcements from Command. Commander Di Pasquale, you've been there, so get an attack plan together and prepare for a briefing this evening."

"Sir?" asked Emily, taking two steps forward. "What about Mellon? As much as I appreciate Francisca's... I mean Camila's help so far, my people are still in danger."

Harvey shook his head. "We'll get to Mellon as soon as we can. Undoubtedly, the Confederation will be fortifying the planet, and they won't hesitate to kill anyone if we were to show up. We'll have to work out a plan to minimize the loss of life in order to save your people."

Camila was still confused at Harvey's lack of recognition of Emily but kept her mouth shut. "The sooner the entire Task Force is on alert and on the way, the better," she said. "G90B is damaged now and we hurt them worse. I'll begin preparing a plan for the briefing, Commodore."

"You've got three hours," confirmed the Commodore. "I'll let you know who what all I can wrangle together so you can adjust accordingly. And, Commander... it's not enough to just get to the system. We'll have to strike a significant blow, which is something we haven't been able to do outside a warp core breach."

"Yes, Sir," Camila said, her mind spinning ideas but also tried to work out what was wrong with Harvey. She had spent years arguing with him before he gave in, now he was stalling and acting weird again.

"So that plan of yours better have a way to hit them," Harvey repeated. "We don't want to destroy unless absolutely necessary. We'll need information, especially since we only know of two locations that they occupy. God knows if there's more and how many more ships they have."

The Commodore then looked over to Reynolds. "Tell Engineering they have three hours to finish repairs. And get the ship ready."

Looking back at the group, Harvey added, "Anything else worth covering at this point? If not, the briefing will be at 1500. I'll want to see your attack plan before then."

"Understood," Camila said and resolved to post a guard on Emily at all times as well as keep her as far away from the Commodore as she could in the meantime. She also had a date with Medical and a Raktajino, but the second would have to wait.

Emily took a moment to look around the room. The tension was obvious, but it was surprising how the Captain hadn't recognized her at all. She had thought to remain behind when this was done, but with talk of war plans, it would be best to get out of the way. After all, if a large enough strike force could be assembled and would be successful, then there was hope for her people.

Harvey took another moment to look at Camila, Emily, and then John. As nothing more needed to be said, he leaned back in his chair and ordered, "Well, the clock is ticking. Let's get to it."

"I'll get right on it., Commodore,." Camila said before she looked at Emily. "Come with me and I'll get you a cabin assigned.' With that, she turned and left, feeling like she had a bigger target than she thought on her back.

Soon enough, Harvey was alone in the Ready Room. His eyes remained fixed on the door for several seconds, reflecting on every little bit that just went down. In a matter of minutes, every plan he had had disintegrated before his very eyes. Now, it was time to figure out a new plan before everything else got shot to hell.

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