Figuring It Out

Posted on 04 Nov 2025 @ 11:56pm by Lieutenant Commander Camila Di Pasquale & Commodore Harvey Geisler & Lieutenant Commander Joey Geisler

4,234 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: Imposters Among Us
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: July 8, 2390 || 1400 hours

The shimmer of the transporter beam faded, and Joey Geisler materialized on the biobed in Black Hawk’s sickbay, her body still and fragile despite the medical miracles that had just been performed aboard the Endurance. The burns that once marred her skin were gone, replaced by smooth, pale flesh. The bruises, contusions, and deep lacerations had been healed, leaving no trace of the agony she’d endured—at least not on the surface. But her eyes told a different story. Hollow and rimmed with dark circles, they stared ahead with a distant, haunted glaze, the kind that came from too many sleepless nights and too much pain for one soul to carry.

Her hair, once a tangled mess of blood, sweat, and grime, now hung straight and clean around her shoulders, though it lacked its usual luster. It was dull, lifeless—like the woman herself, who had been scrubbed clean but not truly restored.

Joey was finally out of the disgusting clothing she'd been forced to wear, and was now in a fresh medical gown. While her body no longer trembled from shock, she was still exhausted and attempting to grasp the fact that she was officially home.

The quiet stillness of her arrival spoke volumes. Yes, she was officially home, but she didn't know what what kind of welcome she would receive. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t speak. She simply lay there, present but distant.

Joey wanted her children, and it was taking everything in her not to seek them out.

A Security guard from the Endurance had beamed over with her and once the handoff was done with the Black Hawk Security personnel, was beamed back to his ship.

Some distance from Joey in another room, the twins had been lightly sedated and were sleeping on biobeds.


***

Holmes looked at Harvey after his wife was beamed out of Medical. "I'm afraid that you've been requested to be beamed straight to your own brig, Commodore. I'm sure you understand."

Harvey nodded, standing with his arms crossed behind the science station. With Reynolds now firmly in command of the Black Hawk, and the situation beginning to get under control, Harvey had a moment to do something he hadn't done in a week, and that was think like a captain. Joey was safe, and he was certain his kids would be as well. But now he had to concern himself with validating his identity, and then stopping D'rimo before the situation got a whole lot worse.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Harvey admitted to Captain Holmes before turning to face him. "And I assume you'll send over a security detachment of your own to observe the situation until it's resolved?"

"Yes," Holmes said. "For all I know, your ship could be infested with clones. If it is your ship. Commodore."

Harvey smirked, recognizing the pain in the ass Graham always was. "Glad to see we're back on good terms, Captain. Don't forget the order from the Admiral. As soon as the Black Hawk is spaceworthy again, she and Endurance are to head for the wormhole."

"I'm well aware of what the orders are," Graham said, looking at Geisler like he was nothing more than a parrot to repeat O'Connell's orders. The thought made him smile and he considered offering the man a cracker. Almost.

Of course Harvey knew that Holmes' knew what the orders were. While Harvey could trust Holmes to do the right thing by the uniform, Geisler was well aware of the man's reputation for being a hard-ass. Harvey had no choice but to trust the man, despite his doubts. "All right," he said with a sigh. "Let's get this over with."


***

Clone Joey’s eyes snapped open, her breath catching in her throat as sterile lighting flooded her senses. Cold metal beneath her. Silence around her. Panic surged instantly—her heart pounding, limbs flailing as she scrambled upright. The walls were unfamiliar, but the hum of the forcefield was unmistakable. She was in the brig.

She pressed herself against the edge of the cell, trying to recall what happened. Camila told her she was under arrest for sabotage. Things still felt a bit hazy in her mind. She remembered Harvey drawing a phaser on the unfamiliar woman, then charging him and declaring he was the one responsible for everything.

Slowly, she rose to her feet, her hands hovering just short of the shimmering barrier. Her eyes darted across the corridor beyond, searching for movement, for a face, for anything. Where were the twins? Were they safe? The last time she saw them, they were basically inconsolable, and that bothered her in many ways. "Hello?"

"Hello," came a male voice, dripping with frustration and resignation. Its owner came from the cell across from the female clone. Sitting on the unforgiving excuse for a mattress was the cloned Commodore. "This is a fine mess you've gotten us into."

"No shit, Sherlock," another voice, this one female, interjected.

Clone Harvey could not see its owner as it was coming from the cell beside his. But while he was able to recognize it as belonging to Emily Carter, only one questioned remained, "What the hell is a Sherlock?"

Emily shook her head, unable to believe that she had lived the events of the last couple of days aboard this ship. And now, she was aghast that the man she once knew had no idea what the name was of his favorite fictional character. "Sherlock Holmes? Arthur Conan Doyle? The books that you hold so dear on your shelf in the Ready Room?"

Joey's eyes scanned the cell across from hers, narrowing as she spotted the clone of Harvey slouched on his mattress. Her jaw clenched. “You,” she said, voice low and sharp. “You’re the reason we’re in this mess. Had you not turned your weapon on whoever she is, none of this would have ever happened.”

Her gaze shifted to the cell next to his where the other woman was being held. "And you... who the hell are you anyway?" Clone Joey asked. "You're part of the reason we're here." She rose her voice to the point a security officer would hear her. "And where the hell are my children?"

The blonde woman scoffed at the dark haired woman in the cell across from her. "Who the hell am I?" she fired back at the woman who was supposed to be not just Harvey's wife but also the ship's Chief of Intelligence. "I used to be your husband's yeoman. Back before you were ever on board this ship."

Joey leaned against the edge of her cell, arms crossed, a slow smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. Her voice dripped with sarcasm as she replied, “Well, if you used to be his yeoman, I guess you weren’t very good at the job. Must have been the reason you left.”

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing with mock sympathy. “Don’t worry, though. Your successor’s been doing just fine. Organized, efficient, doesn’t end up in the brig.” She said as she gave a pointed glance toward Emily's cell. “Guess some upgrades really do make a difference.”

Emily tried to recognize the words for what they were, a simple deflection from the woman to inflate her ego. "I'll have you know that I was very good at the job. Starfleet and I just weren't cut out for each other.

Before anyone could respond, the forcefield beside Clone Joey's cell sprang to life. An additional blue glow appeared inside the cell, only to evaporate a moment later and leave a figure behind. The new arrival was not restrained, and while the uniform was clean, it was apparent that the individual had seen better days. It didn't take long for the fourth prisoner to take stock of his surroundings, after all, a brig was a brig was a brig.

But the new arrival's eyes met a familiar gaze in one of the cells across from him. It was a surreal experience, thought the real Harvey Geisler, seeing one's own face across from one's self and it not be a mirrored image. It took every effort to stay calm, and Harvey almost smirked seeing the cloned version of himself take a step back. The real Harvey Geisler loosed a single question, directed at the facsimile, "What the hell did you do to my ship?"

And it was then that he noticed a familiar face directly across from him. The blonde woman was clearly confused, wondering what to make of two Harvey Geislers in the same room. Harvey found himself uttering additional questions. "Emily? What the hell are you doing here and not on Mellon?"

Clone Joey’s smirk bloomed the moment she heard the unmistakable voice of the real Harvey Geisler. She didn’t even need to turn—she could feel the shift in the room, the tension that came with authenticity. Her eyes flicked toward the wall of the cell next to her. “Well, well,” she purred, moving to the wall that separated them. “Look who it is. Been a while, handsome.”

She tilted her head, eyes dancing with mischief as she glanced between the two Harveys cells. “I don’t suppose we could arrange a little cell swap, could we? You know, for old time’s sake. Maybe stir up a bit of exhibitionism to keep things interesting.” Her voice was playful, but the edge beneath it was unmistakable—deflection wrapped in flirtation, ego cloaked in bravado.

Then she turned her gaze to Emily, lips curling into a half-smile. “You weren’t cut out for Starfleet? That's funny, and certainly lends some truth to my prior statement.”

Not only had Harvey Geisler appeared, but also Captain Graham Holmes and his Caitan Chief of Security, but neither of them were on the wrong side of the force field.

Camila came into the room when she heard the back and forth, then stopped in her tracks when she saw not one, but two Harvey's, both in uniform and having the boxed pips of a Commodore, but one looked a little worse for wear. "What in the hell is going on here?" She demanded.

Captain Holmes stepped forward to address the Black Hawk Chief of Security and filled her in with what had happened since he had rescued the self-proclaimed and genetic identical to the real Harvey and Joey Geisler from an alien escape pod and his conversation with them.

"Where is Commander Geisler?" Camila asked as she looked at the other cells and noted that only one Joey was there and that was the one she had stunned.

"She's in Sickbay," Holmes told Camila. "She was in bad shape. Gone for three weeks and tortured."

"Three weeks?!" Camila exclaimed and looked at the other Joey. "How did you do it?"

Clone Joey met Camila’s incredulous stare with a slow, almost playful smile. She tilted her head slightly, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear as if they were chatting over drinks instead of through a forcefield. “Oh, Camila,” she said, voice smooth and laced with amusement. “If I told you that, I’d be giving away far too many secrets.”

She gave a small shrug, as if the question were about something as trivial as a recipe or a card trick, not the impersonation of a Starfleet officer and the manipulation of an entire crew. “And where’s the fun in that?”

"Commander Di Pasquale?" Harvey -- the real Harvey -- asked from behind his forcefield. He'd only been gone for eight days and it felt like he had missed eight months. There was the matter of his wife's honor to uphold, not to mention settling matters of command and saving the quadrant, but he would be remiss if he didn't start with the most important question of all. "Jameson and Alison. Are they okay? Are they safe?"

Camila looked at the worse for wear Harvey. "Until we figure out who is who, it's best if they are kept separate from anyone that might wish them harm. They're safe." That was all she was willing to say.

Harvey closed his eyes and exhaled. Joey was safe in sickbay. The twins were safe aboard the ship. Good, he thought. With two problems now safely out of the way, he could devote all of his attention to the next hurdle, which was proving his identity. When he opened his eyes, he was officially a Commodore again, at least in his own eyes. It wouldn't be long before he was recognized as such by the others.

The Security Chief looked at Captain Holmes next. "Thank you, Captain. Do you wish to stay for the questioning?"

Graham nodded. "I would." He really wanted to want Harvey get grilled. Both of them.

Camila nodded and turned her attention back to Joey. "Do you know you have no rights? None. Not even to the air you're breathing."

"That leaves you with one solution," the clone version of Joey stated.

"No bargaining or negotiating, even for the lives of the children you were trying to kidnap?" Camila asked as she stepped up close to the forcefield that Joey was on the other side of. "What's the matter, can't have your own? "

Clone Joey gave Camila a slow, deliberate smile, the kind that didn’t quite reach her eyes but oozed confidence nonetheless. She stepped up to the forcefield directly in front of Camila, arms crossed, posture relaxed like she was lounging in a café instead of a brig. Had it not been for the invisible barrier, they'd be standing nose to nose. "Why bother when the hard parts have already been done?" She asked. "And, is it technically kidnapping since they see me as their mother?"

Camila turned away from the woman pretending to be Joey and went to the man pretending to be Harvey. "How about you? I've heard the higher you go up in Command, the weaker your spine is."

"Spine?" repeated the clone, shaking his head. Knowing he had little choice but to double down on his facade, he answered, "That's far from the truth, Commander. The higher you go, the more you have to bear. And the more flexibility one has with the chain of command."

"Oh, bullshit," Camila said to him. "If that were the case, I wouldn't have had to fight you every time I wanted to put a new Security protocol in place. Why did you promote me? Can anyone answer me that?" Her voice raised with every word until she was almost yelling.

“I promoted you for the very same reason I shanghaied you back on Deep Space 15,” the real Harvey answered from behind her. By now, both his hands were resting beside him, and he made no move to approach the force field. “Your passion, and your ability to see the facts when I am clouded by an overabundance of compassion.”

He took a moment for that to set in before adding, “No, I haven’t approved every suggestion you put before me because of that compassion. The drones, the sweeps, and even that fateful tricobalt two years ago that started all this, are suggestions that I did accept without regret.”

Then, with a smirk, he added, “Besides, I’m a sucker for the violin and gelato.”

Camila spun around to face the man who Holmes rescued. "Compassion? Was it compassionate to watch people die in mission after mission because you felt that I was doing my job too well? Was that your plan the entire time? That makes you sound like you wanted me to fail."

She paused, then looked at him again and went over his words about violins and gelato. "You know a lot about me. What I don't know is anything about you. The woman posing as your wife knew a lot, too and fooled me. So, let's try this. Where were you for the past eight days? Where was your wife for the past three weeks? Who are these. beings and where did they come from? What do they want?"

"I never wanted you to fail," the man she was looking at him explained. "Your measures were expertly designed to protect this ship and its crew, which is your job. My job is to present the best of the Federation in both the brightest and darkest of times, especially to a quadrant that has intimately known the Dominion. So that required balance and sometimes not approving a recommendation."

Harvey took a moment to sigh and debated continuing defending his decisions. Ultimately, he knew that debate would be won with facts, weapons that Camila could use to test and prove. So he continued, "Regarding the last eight days, the moment I entered the alien craft we recovered inside Nebula G71-2B where we chased G90B inside, I was shot by the woman I thought was my wife and replaced with that... well, that clone over there." Harvey gestured to the facsimile that looked like he was about ready to rage out and escape from his cell.

"I was brought aboard a ship commanded by D'rimo, the Karemma we encountered two years ago when we detonated a tricobalt inside the Hadyn Nebula chasing the Cochrane and the Chimera during the Consortium Crisis." Harvey shook his head, almost tripped up by the alliteration. "There I was tortured for information on how we opened that hole. Why? Because it turns out D'rimo and other ships from his Confederation found that our hole wasn't actually closed, at least not until he brought his little group over from the other universe. The attacks are both malicious and covers for theft. He's gathering tricobalts so he can open a new hole. I watched him try once, and it failed because he lacked a quantum singularity and tharalon radiation."

He did take a couple of steps forward to stand just millimeters away from the electrifying field. One small brush would certainly leave a mark. "And now he's bound for the wormhole where he's going to try again. Either he succeeds, and he brings in an army to wipe out what's left of Starfleet in this quadrant, including ourselves, and the Dominion because he no love for changelings, or he's going to destroy the wormhole. Either way, he has to be stopped. And we're running out of time to do it."

Clone Joey’s jaw clenched tighter with every word Harvey spoke. Her fists curled at her sides, nails digging into her palms as the heat of fury surged through her. She didn’t move at first—she couldn’t. Not without risking a brush against the forcefield.

When he mentioned her being a clone, she let out a sharp, frustrated sound—half growl, half scoff—and stormed across her cell to the wall dividing her from his. The metal was cool beneath her palm, but it didn’t stop her from slapping it hard enough to echo through the brig. “Loose lips sink ships, Commodore,” she snapped, voice laced with venom.

Things were officially screwed up, and D'rimo was now on his own. There was no way that she, or Clone Harvey, would be able to warn him about what was coming.

"Yep," confirmed Harvey to the clone of his wife. "They'll sink D'rimo's ship, not mine. If he didn't want that to happen, he should have killed us when he had the chance."

Joey clenched her fists at her sides, the urge to scream clawing at her throat. But she knew it wouldn’t help. Not here. Not now. So instead, she took a breath—slow, deliberate—and placed her hand gently against the bulkhead that separated her from Harvey.

Her voice shifted, low and velvety, the kind that of voice that only he knew. “You’re the commanding officer of this ship, Harvey,” she said, her tone wrapping around his name like silk. “That means you have all the power. The authority. The influence.”

She leaned her forehead against the wall, letting the words linger. “We can still build something. A life. With the twins. We can move forward. You remember the Captain’s mess? We were happy. We could go back there. Laugh again. Be us again.”

The offer was far from tempting, but the reminder of the acts that he had performed with the woman posing as his wife made his stomach churn. He hadn't thought about sharing those details with Joey, but he knew he should at the first opportunity.

"There is no future for us," Harvey told Joey through the wall, his tone firm and unyielding. "I'm not the only one who escaped D'rimo. The real Joey is currently in sickbay, where she is recovering from injuries sustained after three weeks of torture."

Camila made a retching sound and looked at the clone of Joey. "Just shut up, you come bubble," she said before she looked at the clone of Harvey. "You. What was I playing in the holodeck the day you promoted me?"

"You are vile," Clone Joey said as she shook her head. "But, that's what one should expect from a drunk."

The clone of the Commodore stood for a moment in his cell, his eyes narrowed as he gave the matter some thought. Of course this damned mess would come all the way down to a memory test, one that he was doomed to fail because he was not blessed with an abundance of those. Camila didn't strike him as a traditionalist, so there went most classical pieces. Then again, he didn't know much of those either. "I don't quite remember," he admitted. "But it would have been something classical."

The real Harvey didn't remember the piece either. "It was classical," he said from behind Camila. "Lindsey something-or-other. And you were dressed like a pirate. I offered you gelato."

Across from Harvey, Emily blinked. The Harvey she remembered was callous, but compassionate. It was so strange hearing him remembering details like these.

"What did you think pity is?" Camila asked when both of them failed to remember the exact name. This time, she directed the question at the clone of Harvey.

"Blah. Blah. Blah," the incarcerated version of Joey said with an exaggerated talking hand gesture. "You people can't be too concerned with what may, or may not be, happening at the wormhole given the time you're wasting here. But, I'm all for wiping out Starfleet and the Dominion, so by all means, keep up with the pointless back and forth."

Clone Harvey paused yet again, thinking that this had to be another philosophical question. Across from him came a single word, dripping from the edges with disdain.

"Treason." The real Harvey shivered at uttering the final piece of the catch phrase, remembering being shot in his Ready Room by Commander del Rosario, and also when Camila was possessed by the Dolmoqour, a parasitic lifeform that had transformed much of the Black Hawk-A's crew into puppets.

"I think I've heard enough," Camila said as she turned to the real Harvey. "You're the real man that I know and willingly serve under, Commodore," she added as she went to the controls and lowered Harvey's forcefield.

She looked at Emily next. "And you? I don't know you other than our unfortunate meeting on Mellon. Can Harvey vouch for you?"

Harvey stepped out from inside the cell and into the main portion of the brig. He offered a simple smile to Camila, and then a thankful nod to Captain Graham and his Security Chief whom had been observing. Then he turned his attention to Emily. "Meeting on Mellon?" he asked aloud, the question directed in no one in particular. "That's a story that I'd like to hear when this is all done, Miss Carter. And to hear more about how the Golden Stars and your family is faring these days."

"And it's one that I'm willing to tell, Commodore," Emily replied, somewhat relieved that this version of Harvey at least recognized her. "Provided that you are willing to remove the Confederation goons that are holding my people in slavery."

Harvey winced at the mention. Clearly much more happened while he was away than he realized. "Absolutely," he confirmed. "Just as soon as D'rimo is stopped." Looking back to Camila, Harvey stated, "Yes, Commander. I vouch for Miss Carter. Under observation, of course."

"I'll brief you on the way to see Commander Geisler," Camila said. "And that's standing orders for Miss Carter since she's been aboard, Sir."

Holmes looked at Geisler and Di Pasquale, trying to figure out the dynamic between them and looked at his own Chief of Security. "Do I do that?"

The Caitian looked back at his Captain and curled the corner of his lip in a partial sneer. "You are Grahamhole, Sir," he rumbled. "But you shoot from the hip."

"Damn straight," Graham said as he looked back at Geisler. "You have a good crew, Commodore," he grunted. "Now let's find this alien bastard and blow him back to the universe he came from."

Harvey grinned, the first expression of pure joy he was able to bear in days. "With pleasure."

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