Charlie woke, his body tensing, his blood trickling down his open wounds. There are eight planets, eight planets, the eighth they wiped away, the eighth they don’t want anybody knowing about. He wiped the sweat away from his gaunt face. What else, What else is there? Why can’t I remember anything when they’re around? Why can’t I think when the AF come close to me? Why am I scared to speak?
Then he remembered. The ruptured membranes, the broken bones, the nasal-sinus drowning technique they mastered to a deadly perfection. His hands shook at the memory, his legs collapsed.
I can’t remember who I was. They told me I was a castaway, a common villager in the East Island village of Salaar, but my clothes, they are not of a poor farmer’s.
Through dirt and grime he gripped at his uniform, a distant tug at a past he couldn’t remember.
Senator Diervah.
Diervah. Nothing clicked. Nothing remembered. Senator? Senator? What good does that do him now?
Footsteps. Close, approaching

He crumpled to a corner and lay still.