Return and Report

Posted on 23 Jul 2014 @ 8:18am by Commander C. Kos & Commodore Harvey Geisler

1,080 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Pursuit
Location: USS Black Hawk, Ready Room

The lift doors opened and Mackenzie stepped out onto the Bridge. She glanced briefly around the room to see who was on duty before approaching the center chair.

"Captain," she said to get Geisler's attention.

Harvey looked up from the PADD he was reviewing to see that Kos had returned. Holding the PADD and rising to his feet, he ordered Lieutenant Sherman to take the watch and led Kos to the Ready Room.

"Report," he ordered, electing to stand just inside the doorway and not move to the desk.

She paused a second, not used to conducting meetings in a Ready Room with all participants standing. "Uh...well sir, Harvey, we've got a load of 'cargo' from the X'annon. Seeing as this 'cargo' is actually living people, I had them go through Sickbay, much to Quint's dismay, before assigning them quarters."

Harvey grunted, albeit briefly, at the terminology. People were not cargo, no matter what the situation demanded. "Do we know why?"

"Noxa is working on interviewing them all right now." A quick thought crossed her mind. "I told her not to interrogate them. As best we know, these people are completely innocent. It was difficult to get a complete picture of the conditions in the compartment they were kept in because of the disarray caused by the hull breach and decompression of that section. Hopefully Noxa will get some useful information out of them."

"That's reassuring." Out of all of the Assistant Chiefs he'd tried out aboard to fill the Senior Staff vacancies, Harvey was impressed only with Noxa. A short, petite Ferengi woman beat out the toughest looking person on the ship. His only comparison was a tough-as-nails goatee'd Bolian he knew from a few years back.

"I want these people... refugees... whatever you want to call them... I want them comfortable for however long they're on this ship."

Kos was momentarily dismayed. Had Harvey just doubted that she would see to the comfort of their guests? And why was she calling him Harvey in her head? They still barely knew each other. "Of course. I've already had guest quarters arranged for them. Luckily we have some free space at the moment." She paused, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face. "Any progress with the freighter captain?"

"I talked to D'rimo already," Harvey said, moving off to stand behind his desk. He wanted to sit, but didn't quite want to at the same time. "He wouldn't give us anything about the situation other than spitting rhetoric about how he had no choice in his actions. He sounds guilty, acts guilty, but justified at the same time. Something about this is just... damned curious."

"You actually got a name out of him. That's more than I got. I'm willing to take a run at him if you'd like. I'll be honest, he's not on my Christmas list since he tried to shoot me." She flashed a quick smile before realizing that that could come off as flirtatious. "As I said," she quickly said to move the focus back to the matter at hand, "I'll question him if you want. Though I wonder if it might be more productive to wait until Noxa finishes her inquiry with the passengers. Then we can confront D'rimo with some facts. That might force his hand."

"Agreed." Harvey had ignored the smile, his mind still focused on the events unfolding. "For now, let's secure the X'annon. Have Commander Sheldon keep patrols running. I don't want to be surprised by anyone approaching. Let's even see if we can find out where the X'annon was heading. Maybe if we don't learn what we need from those we brought aboard, we can learn more there."

"We should send a team back over. They can sift through the X'annon's computers."

Harvey nodded. "If you're still game for dinner tonight, we can compare our notes then."

"That sounds good sir. In the mess?" she asked, unsure if there was an intent beyond the stated.

"I was thinking my quarters," Harvey replied. The Officer's Mess didn't have a private room for the captain. Harvey had gotten used to eating in his quarters as he didn't feel comfortable eating with the crew. In fact, other than picking up a morning coffee, Harvey had yet to spend more than one minute a day in the mess hall. "I'm not sure if any ears should hear the particulars of what we're learning just yet."

"Sounds goods," Mackenzie replied, very used to sharing meals with her CO. Her time as Acting XO on the Iroquois had included many dinners with the Commanding Officer, who also happened to be her best friend. Though no romantic relationship had ever developed between her Commander Rossilli, there had remained an strong attraction between the two of them; something that neither of them had ever really acted on despite several close moments. The pull between them was not really physical, although they were both reasonably attractive people. For whatever reason, they had formed a powerful emotional bond very quickly after first meeting when they were assigned to the Susquehanna as Lieutenants prior to transfers to the Iroquois. With Mac being the Chief Engineer and Rossilli heading the Science Department, they worked together frequently, and had opted to spend a fair amount of off-duty time together as well.

Though she hadn't been on the Black Hawk for very long, she felt very at ease with her new CO. Geisler had, thus far, been very approachable, professional, and open to ideas. He had already earned her professional admiration. Mac had been impressed with the parts of the Commander's career she had studied prior to arriving, and had continued to be pleased with how he commanded the ship. The fact that Geisler had come to Command after a career in Medicine was of great interest Kos as she found herself in Command coming out of Engineering. She intended to bring the subject up over dinner.

"What time?" she inquired, unaware of the flirtatious nature of her body language.

"2000 hours," he replied. Harvey didn't notice how long he'd fixated on the locks of red hair resting on her shoulder, just the fact that he was indeed staring at them. Snapping back to reality, he added, "Hopefully we'll have more to talk about then."

"That would be nice, wouldn't it? Let's see if we can't rustle up some more information," she responded, before turning to exit Geisler's office for the Bridge.

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