The Truth by Lt. Commander Dan Dare

It had been a hard night for everyone. The assault on the secret Geni-Tec complex had gone badly wrong. The complex was all but destroyed by fire, nothing remained but ashes. The majority of those who worked in the complex had either been killed during the fire or escaped on a shuttle.

The USS Rook, the vessel Dan Dare had been assigned, along with the assault team was now in orbit above Kritarus. They had rescued four from the complex, but three of those were merely children, Zack who was just over one and two girls, twins named Rahel and Karissa who were barely six months old. The only useful person was Amanda Scott, one of the scientists and the sister-in-law of the head researcher.

Normally Dan would have handed Amanda over to SI for debriefing without a second thought. The kids would have been placed into an orphanage and then most likely have been adopted. But Dan knew the value of these three kids, how much time and effort had been put into developing them. Drakara was not going to let them live freely.

So Dan had a plan and the first part of that plan was to falsify his report and persuade the others to back him up. The official report would state that only two people survived the assault and were rescued. One was Amanda Scott, who would be handed over to SI and the second was a child, who was placed into a local orphanage on Kritarus. The identity of the child and where they were placed would be Dan’s secret alone.

Dan had already set-up that part of the plan and all three children would be placed in the same orphanage on Kritarus. He hoped that Kritarus would be the last place anyone would look for a missing child.

The second part of the plan was to get Amanda out of the situation she was now in and the only way she could do that was to co-operate. That was going to be hard, because Dan knew that she believed in what they were attempting to do. His only hope was that her love for him would be enough to persuade her to co-operate.

Six months later

Amanda and Dan arrived on Kritarus aboard the shuttle Dan had hired. Immediately they headed for the adoption offices and picked up Zack.

A lot had happened to Amanda in the past six months, but nothing had prepared her for Zack not even recognising her. She had been with Starfleet Intelligence for four months, going over everything she knew. During all that time, Dan had kept in touch with her and kept an eye on Zack and the twins. He’d also headed up the team sent back into the labs to see if anything could be recovered, but all they managed to find were the identities of the seventeen corpses left behind to burn, including the remains of Alice Drakara the sister of Amanda.

Finally, Amanda had been released by SI and Dan had proposed to her the very next day. They were married a month later and Dan had secretly arranged for Zack to be adopted by them.

As for the twins, they too had progressed and had their first birthday. Dan had been doing research on several suitable candidates for adopting the twins. However he had realised that to keep the secret, they must be separated.

The most likely parents for Karissa were a doctor and a school teacher, both half-Bajorian and half-human. Doctor Bentara and his wife had been trying for years to conceive a child of their own and had turned to adoption as a last resort. Dan had arranged for them to visit the orphanage where the twins were and when they had seen Karissa they had fallen for her.

Rahel had proved more difficult to find suitable parents for. She had proved to be much ‘wilder’ than her sister, full of energy. But finally a couple, the wife a medical doctor and the husband an archaeologist came to Dan’s attention.

Both were of Human/Betazoid/Tanzaran ancestry and they had a seven year old son already. The Kahfre’s were something of a pioneering family, spending most of their time moving from site to site. It was the son who had peaked Dan’s attention, from the records he had obtained, Ashraf when he was Rahel’s age appeared to be very much like Rahel was now, a bundle of energy, ready to go off. Dan hoped that the life of pioneering explorers would suit the energetic Rahel.

Of course none of the adoptive parents knew of how Rahel and Karissa had come to be in the orphanage, nor would they learn of the children’s genetic make-up for some years to come.

With time, both forgot about the other, their only memories of Kritarus those of the orphanage and the one recurring nightmare of being trapped in a fire, frightened and alone.