It was, Tauhira Iqbal thought as she sat in the shuttle, a very good thing that she would be going with the Rider.
Her eldest son, Mohammad, had recently been assigned to the Searcher, and she hadn't thought it would be a good idea to serve with him. So she'd volunteered for this, even knowing it was a three-year mission - she and her husband had been apart this long before, and anyway the ship wasn't going very far into the Beta Quadrant, so she'd be able to go home on leave every few months in auto-pilot shuttles like this one.
This shuttle wasn't moving just now. She was stalled in space while the Rider's computer told the captain she was there and the captain okayed her entry. The ship looked majestic from this vantage point, a single white spot against a vast field of black. The majesty couldn't quell - in fact magnified - her anticipation.
She already knew half a dozen people in the crew - which was also arriving like this, and would mostly be here by tomorrow - and some were friends. The captain, Tara Reed, was an old friend and neighbor; the kid genius of a linguist and code-breaker, Linnes Thompson, was a good friend if a new one; Shareen Abdel-Mohammed was a sweetheart of woman and they'd been trading meals for years; and she and Ayelet Grossman knew each other from med school, before Ayelet decided to retrain as an engineer. She wouldn't be lonely even if she made no effort to expand her social circle.
She thought she would make an effort, though. This was a very special ship, and the two hundred women who had likewise volunteered to be on it were a very special crew.
The Rider wasn't the first ship of all women, nor even the second - it was the third currently in the Fleet. But it was the only one to be sent on a major exploratory mission. If they hadn't chosen Tara Reed to be their suggested captain, the politicians who'd proposed this would have been laughed out of the President's offices. As it was, no one was quite sure how seriously to take this whole endeavor, and the women who'd signed on were all risking their careers by doing so.
Except for Linnes.
That was because, strictly speaking, Linnes didn't have a career. She'd hacked into the Federation databases at the age of sixteen. She hadn't looked at anything, hadn't been stupid enough to, but had merely created an URGENT! TOP SECRET! memo to all the admirals saying, "Hiya!" and signed with her name. She'd been arrested within an hour, imprisoned within two, and enlisted before the day was out. She had become a very valuable asset to Starfleet, especially after she'd become one of the most Klingon-fluent humans in the Federation. She was determined to stay useful.
She and Tauhira had met while both in transit from Earth to the Federation embassy orbiting Qo'noS, where Linnes and the Captain had designed and built the ship together and Tauhira had learned the basics of Klingon physiology while the Klingon doctor to be serving aboard their counterpart ship learned about humans. The trip had been about four days, since they were only traveling at Warp 5. The pockets they went through to achieve the super-Warp made Linnes's stomach uneasy, so she had come to Tauhira to get treated. They had got to talking and discovered they were headed the same direction, so they'd spent most of the rest of the trip trading stories. Tauhira felt she knew Linnes well enough to call her a friend, and especially after two months spent with her on Qo'noS.
She adjusted her hijab nervously and waited for the Rider to tell her she could land.
Her console beeped after a few minutes. "You are entering Shuttle Bay 4," the computer intoned, and the shuttle started moving again.
Tauhira punched in the code that would connect her to the Captain. "Dr. Tauhira Iqbal, reporting for duty," she said.
"Good to have you on board, Doctor. Proceed directly to Sickbay."
"Yes, Captain." As she closed the link and the shuttle pulled into the docking bay, Tauhira smiled. She had a sudden feeling this was a bad idea, and that always meant she was in for an adventure.