Chapter 25
Away Team

Upon reaching the transporter room Chris and Sil were given Combadges of their own. Tuvok instructed them how to use them so they could stay in touch for the duration of the expedition. They were also given light beacons that fit on their wrist. Chris was testing his light beacon when Tom entered the transporter room.

"Hey Chris, I have a question for you. We don't usually have the chance to ask this to anyone from your time. But what about our time do you find the most fascinating?" Tom asked as he put on his own light beacon as it seemed Tom would likely be accompanying them.

Chris looked around the room and thought about what to say. He found so many things fascinating about the future, but he didn't know which thing he found the most fascinating. As he looked around the room he saw Tuvok, Seven, Sil, and the woman who had been there when Tobias had formed. He still didn't know her name yet. As he had noticed before, she was pregnant and had some ridges on her forehead which indicated she wasn't human. Truthfully everything in that room fascinated him, to choose just one would be difficult.

"I suppose, just about everything. But meeting other races is very interesting." He replied looking up and over to Sil, "Very interesting."

Tom noticed his gaze had fallen on Sil and chuckled, "You remind me of Harry. Be careful buddy, you never know what you may get into out here."

"Thanks, I'll try to remember that." Chris said smiling, never taking his gaze off of Sil who was now talking to Tuvok.

Tom walked away and kissed the pregnant woman on the cheek. This confirmed to Chris that she was clearly Tom's wife. Chris turned to look at Sil once more.

After a moment Sil turned and saw that he was looking at her. He looked away quickly and focused on his arm beacon. After a moment he heard her voice beside him.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

Looking up he smiled and said, "As ready as I'll ever be. I just hope we can find something to keep your world from harm and perhaps something to send me home."

She frowned, "So, you still want to go home? The future isn't that bad is it?"

She was right, he was beginning to grow accustomed to this new reality he was in. And then there was her. Without even thinking about it he knew she had become an important part of his life.

"I'm starting to find reasons-," he started to say as he slowly stood upright keeping his gaze fixed on her the whole time,"-to want to stay."

Janeway entered the transporter room with Chakotay beside her. She looked around the room and surveyed everyone, like she must have done hundred's of times before leaving the ship. Chris knew she was most likely hoping to herself that everyone would be alright on what Tuvok had called an 'away mission'.

"We're ready captain." Tuvok said stepping forward.

"Good luck." she said and nodded to them all.

Tuvok, Tom, Seven, Sil and himself stepped into place on the transporter padd and then faced Chakotay, The Captain, and Tom's wife.

"Energize." Janeway said and Tom's wife activated the transporter.

As quickly as it took for Chris to blink he was again standing in the cargo bay of the Causality. It was the very spot he had first awoke in this time.

Everyone else had activated their light beacons and had started to scan them around the room, so he did the same.

He immediately walked over to the stasis tube he had emerged from and looked inside. It was empty of course.

Behind him he heard Tuvok saying something to Seven. Chris turned, saw that Tom was scanning the room with a device called a tricorder, and Sil was looking at the tube beside the one he had come out of. He focused his attention on it as well. The controls in front of the two tubes were dark and no longer functional.

"I'm detecting bio-material inside the other stasis tube." Tom said stepping closer as his tricorder beeped.

"Could someone else be inside?" Sil said stepping forward. Chris's gut wrenched at that thought.

Tom scanned again with his tricorder, "I'm not detecting any life signs and there is no power in these systems, I don't think there is anything alive inside."

"Should we open it?" Chris said looking over at Tuvok who was walking towards them.

"Once we restore power we will make a more thorough examination, but for now we should proceed to the bridge."

Seven had already left the cargo bay and her light beacon could be seen down the corridor outside the cargo bay. The rest of the away team followed her out and down the passageway.

"The bridge is right there. The next door on the right." Sil said as they approached Seven who had stopped halfway down the corridor to wait for them. Tuvok opened a panel next to the door which Chris noticed did not open when he walked near it as it had for he and Sil last time they had been here.

"The power has failed completely. I will try to find the manual override for the door." Tuvok said looking into the access hatch.

Chris turned and looked back down the corridor where more doors lined the walls. He wondered what was behind them.

Sil turned to him and smiled, "We will look later, don't worry."

Seven had joined Tuvok near the access hatch and was giving him the assistance of her light beacon. Tom was still scanning the area with his tricorder. Chris felt slightly useless, as all he and Sil could do was wait and see if any of their questions were answered.

"Tom, find anything interesting?" he asked to break the awkward silence that had formed after a few more moments. Tom looked up from his readings and smiled and then held out his tricorder.

"Would you like to try it?"

Chris smiled and took the device and held it like Tom had been. The tricorders face was covered with lights and readouts, he couldn't make much sense out of any of it. "It doesn't make much sense to me, your technology is..." Chris began to say, but as he looked over one of the readouts he couldn't help but feel a sudden recognition of what was being displayed.

"What is it?" Tom said stepping closer and stood beside him looking at the tricorder.

Chris peered at the readout a moment more and the responded in a soft voice.

"This readout... is that the information you took on the bio-matter in the stasis tube?"

"Yes, I was looking for other traces of the same matter in the rest of the ship but I haven't found any." Tom looked up at him, "Why do you ask?"

"I recognize this, I'm not sure how but I... I know that I know what it is." Chris said looking up from the tricorder at Sil who was leaning against the wall across from the door Tuvok and Seven were trying to open. "I just don't know how to remember what it is. It's like the information is there I just can't get at it."

"More of Tobias's memories must be surfacing. It is best if you let them surface on their own and not try to force them. "Tuvok said as he straitened and turned to Chris. "We have bypassed the emergency systems on this door, we should be able to manually open it now."

Tom took two objects from the bag he had been carrying and placed one on each of the two doors where they adhered in place. Seven and Tuvok pulled them apart separating the doors.

Chris handed the tricorder back to Tom so he could enter the bridge first and begin scanning the room.

Everyone else followed him in and spread out to search the room as well. Chris made a mental note that this bridge was much smaller than the one on the Voyager.

"Only one seat? Wonder where the conn is." Tom said scanning the seat.

Tuvok had pulled out his own tricorder and was scanning the display screen in front of the single seat. "It appears the computer core is behind this view screen, I will attempt to access it" he said and began to feel around the edges of the screen.

Seven had moved to the rear of the room and was looking at the flat unimpressive wall that was there. Sil moved to stand beside her.

"This bridge does not seem very efficient." Seven said turning to the others. "Could this be an emergency command center rather than the main bridge?"

"This is the room the computer told me was the bridge, although I suppose it could have been malfunctioning after four thousand years." Sil said.

Perhaps we should find the engine room." Suggested Seven, "I am detecting an active power reading directly at the rear section of this deck."

Before they had left on the mission, they had looked over a readout of the scans Voyager had made of the Causality. The ship had four decks, and was almost a fifth the size of Voyager, but there was still a lot of ship to explore. Before they had arrived in the transporter room Tuvok had said they would have chosen to use the transporters to go directly to the engine room, but there was a strange energy flux coming from the engines that would have interfered with transport.

"Seven, you and Chris try and find a route to the engine room. The rest of us will continue our analysis of the bridge." Tuvok ordered.

Seven nodded. She took the bag Tom was carrying and handed it to Chris. He put it over his shoulder and began to follow Seven out the door but before he left he turned and smiled to Sil. She smiled back and then nodded to him.