Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Hunter smiles softly as the girl is led in by a relative. The two-year-old looks at her with solemn blue-gray eyes. She crouches down next to her. She can see the tearstains on the cheeks, as she reaches up and touches the girl’s bald head, then a chubby cheek.

There’s a brief giggle at the touch, but her face returns to its solemnity. Hunter inhales quietly, careful not to show fear at what she takes on.

A Deltan child put up for adoption because of some unknown family dispute. A particular challenge to an active Starfleet officer, a member of the Border Patrol and a partnership family, who was told that she couldn’t have children. The family representative who’d contacted her, had shown great reluctance to give the child up, but some dynastic decree had forced his hand.

She had agreed as a condition of the adoption not to inquire what had caused the need for this drastic of a step.

Hunter had wanted this child so badly.

“Hello Chandrelle,” Hunter says. “I’m Hunter. We’re going to look after one another, along with the rest of my family.

“We’ll both sink or swim, I guess.”

Hunter feels her stomach lurch.