The initial celebrations soon gave way to something more measured. While almost all the children had been rescued many of them were now orphans, their parents having been killed by the Acolytes. And while Drake had rescued most of the children he hadn’t managed to save them all. A few had died at the hands of the Acolytes and a handful more had died as a result of the knockout effect Drake had triggered.
Drake and his crew had had no details of which adults the Acolytes had killed or who had survived and the children had been far from calm enough to quiz on board the Dagger, so it was only now most of the children were learning whether or not their families lived.
Most, not all. Some of the children had seen their parents killed in front of them. They had no family to return to. To
