A dying Federation commissioner who is stranded on Gamma Canaris N with Zefram Cochrane and becomes host to the Companion.
Commissioner Nancy Hedford is a Federation official sent to settle a dispute on Epsilon Canaris III. In Metamorphosis she has fallen ill with Sakuro's disease and is being rushed to the Enterprise aboard the shuttlecraft Galileo when an energy cloud seizes the shuttle and brings it to the planetoid Gamma Canaris N.
There the party finds Zefram Cochrane, kept alive for over a century by the cloud being he calls the Companion. As Hedford nears death, the Companion merges with her body, gaining the human form it needs to love Cochrane as an equal. The joined being chooses to stay with him on the planetoid. Hedford was played by Elinor Donahue.