When he was barely ten though, his parents were doing a routine run to a world, Alterra III, in the area ceded from the Federation to the Cardassians. All of a sudden, just as they landed, Cardassian troops boarded their ship and arrested his parents. Vortas managed to hide from the Cardassians since he had been warned of the things Cardassians did to their prisoners regardless of age. The adolescent Lethean was left marooned on the backwater planet. The young Vortas struggled to survive on the streets of the main spaceport city, resorting to petty theft in order to get by.

One day, much like every other, Vortas approached a weak looking man planning to rob him. It turned out the man was a Betazoid named Aren Tairn, and further an operative for Starfleet Intelligence investigating Maquis activity (though Vortas didn't find this out until much later). Rather then turn him in to the local authorities, Aren took pity on him and took him in for the remainder of his assignment and eventually back to Betazed where for the first time Vortas was put in school. He was somewhat intimidating to the other students which was fine to the self-sufficient Vortas. When he was old enough his adoptive father wrangled him an appointment to Starfleet Academy. Vortas wasn't a "model" cadet, struggling in most of his classes and occasionally getting in trouble, but he managed to make it through, training in Intelligence