Vectors by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page A

toward Terok Nor.
    Her team was already working. Governo was bent over his research padd, reading about infectious diseases. Marrvig was studying Cardassian physiology,. Ogawa was supposed to be looking in the files to see if there was any previous history of cross-contamination between these two species, but she wasn't. She was staring at the walls, much as Pulaski was doing.
    Alyssa Ogawa was slender, with dark hair and dark eyes, as human as the rest of them. Pulaski hadn't planned on putting together a completely human team, but Starfleet Medical thought it for the best. The less the Cardassians had to object to-and they would probably object to every species that arrived on Terok Nor-the better.
    Pulaski was glad to have Ogawa for several reasons. The first and most important was that they had worked well together on the Enterprise. The second was that Ogawa was familiar with Bajoran physiology. The third was that she was the best nurse Pulaski had served with in her entire time in Starfleet.
    Ogawa was also fairly level emotionally, and Pulaski would need that. Kellec wasn't, and even though Pulaski usually was, one of the things that had caused their marriage to dissolve was that Kellec could pull her into his moods. Ogawa would help Pulaski keep her own sense of self. She wasn't sure about the other two; since she had never worked with them before, she didn't know if they would be calm or highly volatile. Nothing in their personnel histories suggested any problems along those lines, so the best Pulaski could do was hope.
    The group had managed the trip well so far. Captain Picard had strained the Enterprise's engines getting her to the border of Cardassian space within sixteen hours of Pulaski's appointment. He would continue to patrol the area, waiting for her signal, for the next two weeks. If she didn't come out by then, another starship would take its place. The area would be patrolled indefinitely-or so Pulaski had been told. She doubted that Starfleet would continue to expend such resources for four officers, albeit good and valuable ones, much longer than a month. She had mentioned that to Captain Picard and he had looked away from her ever so briefly, as he had done when he told her that Beverly Crusher was returning to the Enterprise.
    I am afraid I have been told the plan for the next two weeks. The other starship will wait at least as long, but you know as well as I do, Doctor, that things change within our universe in an instant. Should something happen and the Enterprise must leave ahead of schedule, I shall get a message to you, and we shall make certain you have a way off Terok Nor.
    She had thanked him, of course, but they both knew that she was taking a great personal risk. Starfleet could only support that risk so far, and then she was on her own.
    She sighed and stood up. She had forgotten how warm Cardassians liked their ships. She had forgotten a lot about them. How big they were, on average, and how disconcerting it was to see that gray skin-a color she associated with illness. Governo mentioned how reptilian he thought they were; she had forgotten that he had never seen a Cardassian before. That was why she gave him the assignment to study their physiology.
    The room they placed the group in was getting smaller by the minute. Pulaski hated waiting. The Cardassian pilot had told her the trip would only take a few hours. She took that to mean three. It had been four, and she felt that was too long. She did know the freighter was operating at its highest speed, trying to get her to Terok Nor.
    The Cardassians on board, the pilot and the handful of others, whom she could only think of as guards, had obviously been instructed not to talk to the group. The pilot had looked uncomfortable just telling Pulaski their arrival time. When she had asked for information on the plague, he had stared at her. When she pushed, he had said, "I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm a pilot, not a doctor."
    She had let the topic drop