Epic PWNFULNESS!!

ok found my old galaxy forge, so i can see the map again. next chapter coming up.

Great story. Keep it up.

Awesome

Chapter 7, part 1
Identity

The Trader Emergency Coalition

8 years ago, galactic position 344, 798, sun christened "Hiske"

    The man groaned. Pain lanced through his skull like a hammer striking rock. The man gasped for breath, the pain on his upper chest constricting his oxygen intake. Someone placed something over the man's mouth and fresh air flowed through his lungs. The man tried to open his eyes, but the energy required for even that small of a task had deserted him, and he soon slunk back into unconsciousness.
    When the man next woke up and opened his eyes, it was dark. That is to say, the overhead lights were dimmed almost to nothing, and the windows had been tinted to block out the nearby sun's brightness. All this went through the man's mind in a flash, yet he did not know what it meant, or where he had learned such information. All he knew was that he needed a drink. He stood up, swayed a bit, stumbled forward, and almost fell over a solid object lying along the floor. In the dim light the man half felt, half saw the form and the dark covered sheet across it. A body bag, filled with a corpse. Suddenly dizziness came again, and the man grabbed an edge of the body bag to steady himself, tearing off a sheet of fabric as he fell once more to the floor.
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    "You're saying you don't know who this man is?"
    "He has no identification on him, no references, and the online computers are offline, and they're gonna be like that for a while. Some of there hardware was damaged in the battle. For know, we can't identify him, and his skin has been so badly burned we can't find a match. He's no one."
    "But the medics matched up the rest of the bodies, correct? Who's not accounted for?"
    "...Here's where it gets complicated, sir. There were two men unaccounted for according to the computers. One was an officer, the other a crewman."
    "Well, who were they? What's the problem?"
    "Sir...the officer was the Jackal. The Commodore."
    "Holy sons of the stars....so you're telling me this burned-up husk of skin could be..."
    "Exactly, sir. But it still could be the crewman. A Crewman Kol, sir. There's one other unidentified body, one in a body bag. The name's been ripped off the bag, however, sir, and the body's too far gone for our medics to make a match."
    "So you're telling me our Commodore could be the comatose shell next to me, or the burned up body in the bag across from me?"
    "...Yes, sir."
    "Sons of the stars..."
    The man slowly opened one eye. Then the other. Pain shot across his brow, but he managed to keep one eye open long enough to read the scrap of cloth in his hand.

Crewman Alexander J. Kol, blood type O
Time of Death: 4:22 P.M.
Cause of Death: multiple first-degree burn wounds

    The man could no longer hold his eyes open. Darkness closed around him as the scrap of material fell from his hand. Later that night an Apprentice scooped it into his mechanized vacuum as he cleaned his assigned area of the Trader Defense Network's capital ship, Provians.
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    "You say he's coming around?"
    "Yes, sir. The medical scanners indicate he will be fully conscious for the first time since the battle around noon today."
    "Very good. Call up the rest of the officers. If this is the Jackal, we better have his staff ready to receive him!"
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    The man groaned. Pain spread through his body like wildfire, but it was much reduced and the man found he could open his eyes. So he opened them. At first everything was fuzzy and he almost fainted again, but then his vision began to sharpen and the man found a slew of men standing around his bed. Once they saw him open his eyes, they started calling out hurriedly for someone, and another man quickly stepped up beside his bedpost.
    "Lie still, you're still gravely injured. But tell us, if you can, what your name is. We could not identify you while you...slept."
    "My...name..." The man's voice sounded grated and raspy, even to himself. It hurt to talk, but the man sensed some urgency behind the other man's voice, and felt obliged to respond.
    "Yes...soldier." The other man hesitated here, as if unsure what to call him. "Can you tell us your name?"
    "My name...my name is..." The man racked his brain, striving for the one set of letters every man knew by heart. Hopelessly he looked up at the official-looking man standing over him.
    "I don't know..." He mumbled, tears coming to his eyes, "I don't know...my name...I don't know..."
    "Stars of heaven!" He heard one man exclaim.
    The man above him looked down with saddened eyes. "That's ok, soldier, that's perfectly ok. You're just tired, confused after your ordeal. You'll feel better after your rest. Don't worry, everything will be all right. Major, can you get this man some water? Don't worry, son, it'll be all right, you'll see. My names Judman, Major Judman, and if you ever need anything, tell anyone to call for me and I'll be here, all right?"
    The man nodded dumbly, tears still streaming down his face. "My name...my name..." He mumbled hoarsely. Major Judman patted him on his arm, then turned around, addressing the other men.
    "Gentleman, I'd like to have a word with you outside."
    Major Judman and the others filed out of the room, leaving one man behind. A young man, dressed in medical white, he introduced himself as Petty Officer Francis and told the man that if there was anything he desired, just name it out loud and he would go get it, within reason. The man hardly heard him. He just sat there, mumbling to himself, over and over again, "Name...my name...no name...my name..."
    Then out of the man's head came a series of letters, a name. The man sat up and shouted out. "Kol! Alexander Kol! Blood type O! Crewman Alexander J. Kol!"
    The petty officer jumped up and ran out of the room. In a few moments he returned with Judman hard on his heels.
    Judman crouched by the side of the bed and looked hard at the man. "Francis here told me you shouted out a name. Can you remember it? Is that your name?"
    The man nodded happily, streams of tears, for happiness this time, running down his face. "My name! Kol! Alexander J. Kol!"
    Judman stood up and clapped the man on his shoulder. "Well, Kol, welcome back. We're all so happy for you."
    He went on in a long speech of probably no importance, but the man wasn't listening anyway. The man's brain hurt. Who was he? The man feared that would be a question he would never be able to fully answer. Who he was, what he was...that would all have to be redone. Redefined by the next few weeks of the man's life. He would have to reestablish his hold on his own sanity. For some unknown reason, poised on the brink of death, the man had never felt more alive.

 Interesting. I had wondered how Kol had started his career. Pretty good. Keep up the good work

he's still not famous, he's only a lowly crewman (third lowest rank) that had the unfortunate luck to be in a fire accident. idn if i made it clear enough, let me no, but that man isnt kol. he's the jackal. he teared the body bag, which contained kol, and the slip of material had kol's name and rank on it. so wen the jackal tried to remember his name, what he had read came up. so the real kol is actually just a number, nothing special, but the jackal, who was already special, has now become kol, making kol a hero (soon). let me no if u didnt catch this, cause i wasnt sure i made it obvious enough. i will change it to make it more obvious if people missed that connection.

^^^missed it

ok i changed the end a bit, hopefully making it more obvious. i dont want to come right out and say it, you know, crank that dramatic irony, but you should be able to pick up on it. i hope.

EDIT: o right, i should probably tell you where i changed it. the paragraph at the end that starts with Judman going into a speech, thats where I started making changes.

 I had suspected something, but wasn't quite sure. And when I said I wondered how Kol had started his career, I looked at it as the begining of another person, because when you lose your memories, sometimes they don't come back and a whole new mentality is formed

could they not do DNA testing to prove who was who?

remember, there was a fire. the bodies been burned too bad for dna recognition. thankfully in this day and age of science, they can survive and eventually their skin will heal again. but their fingerprints and yadda hav been burned off by the fire

hav u read the change i made? can u catch it this time?

Yes

if your tissue is still alive, theres not enough damage for a dna test to come up inconclusive.  I'd buy that their dna testing equipment was damaged in the battle, but all you need is a blood sample for testing, which wouldnt be subject to burn damage.

also, i don't understand why the commodore of the fleet left his command of the battle to do damage control.  that doesnt make any sense.  i know he designed the ship or something, but the crew the ship came with would've been trained and capable of putting out the fires.