Most Starfleet officers considered their ship to be ‘home.’ Counsellors routinely urged against this, encouraging them to have a more well-rounded balance between work and life, a more healthy relationship with a lifestyle that could uproot them at any moment. The Blackbird was such a small ship it could not be considered the formal, permanent residence of its officers, the vessel expected to regularly berth at starbases or work closely alongside larger ships. This meant his formal residence, at least – aside from the quarters aboard Gateway Station he’d never given up – was still, technically, the Rosewood family home in the suburbs of Alpha Centauri City.

He’d never lived there as an adult. At the age of eighteen, he’d left the family home to attend Starfleet Academy. The rest of his life had been spent moving from assignment to assignment, ship and station to ship and station. His legal home was a place for whenever shore leave overlapped with birthdays, festivities, or for when he simply couldn’t shake his mother’s quiet expectation to visit. The last had been more powerful, lately.

Nallera had said something about seeing out 2401 with a bender on Qualor II, insisting she knew enough clubs serving enough substances they could not possibly see straight come midnight local time. Once, he might have jumped at a hedonistic escape from engaging with anything sincere, particularly after a difficult mission. Instead, a mere week after the post-Lliew Rift debriefing, he sat on a commercial passenger transport, gazing out the window at the rising spires of his hometown.

The city was thus a masterpiece of symmetry and grace, its skyline gleaming in the soft amber light of the twin suns of Alpha Centauri. It was all clean lines and open spaces, with towers of translucent, white-tinted glass rising alongside lush green terraces, the blend of organic and technological perfectly harmonised. Expansive parks and tree-lined avenues wove through districts like veins of life to shine bright against industrial fabrication, connecting bustling residential and commercial plazas. Some might call it sterile or uninspired, but to Rosewood, Alpha Centauri City was a triumph. It was where humanity had first dared to dream beyond war, poverty, and inequality, and finally build something enduring. He spent half his life pulling away from the place, but it was where his ancestors had carved out a future, free to express the full potential of what humanity could become.

Legacy, his father had called it. Nowhere in the galaxy could be like Earth. Earth was an unattainable dream. Alpha Centauri, on the other hand, was a paradise made real.

The paradise became a cold reality quite quickly – at baggage collection, in fact, where Rosewood waited at the unmoving conveyor belt in the spaceport, hands shoved in his pockets, staring at a screen promising his luggage would be out soon. Even in paradise, he knew such promises were lies.

‘Hello, John.’

Adrenaline spiked before he swallowed the bitter taste. There were fewer places safer in the galaxy than this, and while that didn’t make him immune to danger, no threat would announce themselves. Besides, after a second of his heart near ripping itself out of his chest, he recognised the voice, and turned with a wry smile.

‘Lizzie. You shouldn’t be back here.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. This is a great place to talk. Sort of open and public, but nobody can wander in off the street.’ Commander Elizabeth Lockhart, Fourth Fleet Intelligence, pulled her winter coat closer with a self-satisfied smile.

‘You wandered in off the street.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just flew in from SBB. Good trip?’

‘Long – did you come all the way here just to meet with me in baggage claim?’ Rosewood gaped.

Lockhart scoffed. ‘I live here, too, John, remember? It’s the festive season.’ She tilted her head this way and that. ‘Okay, so I did pick a flight with an arrival to coincide with yours. I can mix business and pleasure.’

They’d known each other forever, their families intertwined by service to Starfleet and long histories among the elite of Alpha Centauri. The tension in Rosewood’s shoulders eased, though he couldn’t shake the hint of apprehension. ‘You could have just walked up and said hi.’

‘That’s exactly what I did.’

‘Please. You were practicing. You miss fieldwork.’

‘I really, really don’t,’ Lockhart scoffed. ‘I’m actually going to enjoy a break. Which is why I wanted to get this out of the way, instead of needing to whisk you away at the Christmas Eve drinks for us to talk shop in a corner over eggnog. Your mother’s still hosting, right?’

‘Of course,’ Rosewood sighed. ‘I told her she doesn’t have to.’

‘We’re Centaurians. We’ll keep up appearances even in an apocalypse.’ Her gaze softened. Around them, travellers grabbed their bags, headed for the gate, hugged loved ones and came together. They lingered here in this liminal space, no longer travelling but not having yet arrived, concluding their work here before crossing the threshold into life. ‘I read your report. Sounds like a tough mission.’

‘You didn’t stop by to express concerns.’

Her expression shifted; guarded, irritated. ‘I stopped by because you dropped hints about highly classified operations in the middle of your bridge. Even on the Blackbird, there are people who weren’t cleared to know about it.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t make me elaborate.’

Rosewood sighed. ‘That’s what this is about? Yeah. I did. I mentioned knowing the conditions of that specific enemy, maybe some details the others didn’t know. Nothing on how it came about.’ Nothing about how we did that to the Changelings. How we made them hate us more.

‘Alright.’ Lockhart nodded, but didn’t look relaxed. ‘Have any of them asked about it? Or about you knowing that?’

‘No. This team isn’t like that, Lizzie. I bet there’s loads Cassidy knows I don’t, and I know Aryn has information from his R&D days I don’t. We all have secrets. We don’t pry.’ He sighed. ‘If you know I said this, you know exactly what I said. What’s this about?’

‘We’re in a different era, John. A lot changed this year. A lot of skeletons in the closet, and there are people who want to clean house of anyone and everyone who had anything to do with these less… tasteful parts of our division. The report rattled some people. I wanted to make that go away.’

Rosewood gave a gentle scoff, relaxing another iota. ‘A clean bill of health from Beckett’s office helps that.’

‘Exactly. How’re you doing otherwise? It reads like a tough mission.’

He shrugged, eyes going back to the luggage screen. His bags were still not unloaded from the transport, somehow. ‘I didn’t know Tiran very well.’

‘We still wouldn’t have sent you on an op like this without more preparation.’

‘The Rooks are used to -’

‘I mean you, John. We wouldn’t make you deal with this situation without more prep.’

‘You mean psych screening to make sure I don’t break.’

‘However you want to frame it. But you didn’t snap. You, in fact, gave up on an opportunity to gather potentially critical intelligence by recovering the target.

‘The mission took priority.’ Rosewood rolled his shoulders.

‘That must have been hard.’ Her eyes were locked on him, piercing, unwavering. ‘That’s why I’m here, John. I don’t know who else in the universe gets what you gave up out there: a chance for more information. A chance for the truth.’

‘If this is meant to be a personal checking in,’ he grumbled, shifting his feet, ‘then why’d you do it in the middle of the city spaceport?’

‘Because you’d be no more forthcoming in a back room drinking eggnog.’

The display changed. The conveyor belt began to move. Something eased in Rosewood’s chest – or, perhaps, sank deeper beneath the surface, out of sight. He turned to Lockhart and gave her a tight, performative smile. ‘It is what it is. I’m no worse off than I was in April. I’ll see you Christmas Eve.’

It was late afternoon by the time he was out of the spaceport, catching the tram across the city. The Rosewoods had lived on Alpha Centauri since its founding, generations living in and around the capital. He’d grown up in a large, red-brick house in the suburbs, where his mother still lived, the matriarch ruling over the family who hadn’t moved very far. Festivities and birthdays and other big gatherings were hosted in this heart of the clan, and by the time he was walking the street lined with trees, the crisp winter air carrying the scent of pine and woodsmoke, it was like he was fourteen again. Like he’d been out playing football, coming in just after dark with his kit, ready to settle down for a big meal and a gentle nag to do his homework. Not like he’d been roaming the galaxy’s darkest corners. Not like he’d let an opportunity to discover his father’s fate slip through his fingers.

Each house he passed was aglow with activity, windows revealing families gathered in cosy rooms, the comforting hum of laughter and conversation seeping into the street and reaching him in the stillness. Then, his family’s house came into view, that large, stately home with its peaked roof and wide, inviting porch. Light spilled out from every window, illuminating the path that crunched under his feet as he walked to the front door. He could hear the muffled voices inside, the tell-tale sounds of a full house; his mother, his siblings, their children, and more.

Rosewood paused for a moment, hand hovering over the familiar brass handle of the door. He tried a smile. Held it for a moment, feeling out the expression; if it rang true. If he could hold it.

No, that one wouldn’t do. A different one. Wearier, perhaps. Suggesting a hint of sincerity, like he was acknowledging there were burdens on his shoulders, but that he was so glad to be back they were growing distant. This was a family used to Starfleet service. They knew it wasn’t all easy.

He had to tell the right lies so they didn’t know how hard it was.

Mask in place, Rosewood opened the door, and stepped into the light.