Lena could’ve gone home ages ago. She could’ve been at home, sipping a cup of tea and letting Beethoven and Mozart and Tchaikovsky soothe her to sleep. Instead, she decided that she’d find the time better spent getting even a little more research done. If she’d decided otherwise, then somebody else would’ve become the first Earth-born doctor to take on a patient from another world.

She and Louis stood, watching the humanoid reptile with hanging jaws as if it were a zoo exhibit, and struggling to find the self-control to close them. It sat at the edge of the operating bed, looking down its naked scarlet-scaled body at the traces left by Lena’s handiwork.

Its left arm, broken in two places, hung across its chest in a sling. A tight belt of bandages hugged its lower torso, keeping its two cracked ribs in their proper places. More bandages and metal splints on its digitigrade foot corrected the direction of a broken ankle. Lena expected worse than all this from a car crash survivor; she’d checked again and again for the slightest cut from a flying glass shard or a severe burn from the flame-engulfed ship the creature had arrived in, but she found nothing. The creature seemed irritated at the sight of the bandages, as if it would’ve preferred to wait however long it took for its body to heal itself. Somehow, Lena knew it was all down to more than a reptile’s natural armor - so much more.

“How do you feel?” Lena asked.

“Fine,” the creature said. Its voice was a serpentine growl, but something in its pitch confirmed Lena’s suspicion that it was female.

“I need a ship.” She stood up, moving past Lena and Louis towards the stark white operating theater’s double doors. She marched as urgently with a bandaged ankle as any uninjured officer Lena had ever seen.

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“We haven’t any ships here,” Lena called after her.

The creature stopped, her damaged foot forward. Lena saw her teeth emerge from the corner of her mouth and knew that it wasn’t from the pain in her ankle.

“How can you not have any ships?” The creature growled.

“You see…” Lena tried to choose her words as carefully as possible, dreading the moment when the creature turned around to face her again.

“We’re still a developing colony, focused on the ground level. All we have are the rockets that transport supplies here from our original homeworld. We haven’t yet the reason or resources for interstellar—”

It wasn’t enough to keep the creature from bolting out of the operating theater; Lena would’ve preferred if she’d turned and revealed her poison-green eyes again.

Louis sprinted after her. Lena followed behind at a slower pace; at fifty-five, she’d only honed the speed for chasing dying patients, not fleeing ones. Her journey was agonizing, filled with ricocheting thoughts of what would happen next. Already, she had witnessed the first extraterrestrial arrival to Roddenberry and become the first human doctor to heal an alien being. What would the next first be - first alien to immigrate to, be imprisoned on, die in Roddenberry?

She threw open the double-doors leading outside, finding Louis with his back to her and his hand on the creature’s shoulder. The creature looked up at the stars, barely even breathing. Suddenly, Lena could hear the voice in the creature’s head, telling her the same thing that Lena and each of her colleagues and neighbors realized when they applied for Roddenberry citizenship three years ago.

‘Your old home is gone. From now on, this place is your home.’

Lena remembered them sounding comforting before.

“It’s okay,” she heard Louis stay. “You can stay with me… If you like.” It was a soft, almost pathetic request.

The creature turned to look at Louis and Lena, who saw gears spinning behind those piercing green eyes. They mixed a serpent’s cunning with a child’s agonized desperation.

“What other choice do I have?” The creature said.

Lena let out a sigh at this small victory. “Wonderful,” she said. “We’ll begin arrangements immediately. In the meantime, I believe introductions are in order. What do we call you?"