Mission on Mimban Four

[klcthebookworm]

Previous Installments

Introduction, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Outline for Mission on Mimban

What Happens in the Chapter

Halla can't get Luke and Leia to stop wrestling, so she sneaks away and meets Threepio and Artoo. The miners pull Leia off of Luke, and are turned on by her state of disarray. Luke steps between Leia and the miner with a barrel-chest who is calling rape "apprehension." These men are not interested in leaving the pair alone and Luke hits the miner that actually manages to grab hold of Leia. Good news, she's no longer the focus of attention. Bad news, the miner has double-bladed stilettos hidden up his sleeves and double blades hidden in his boot soles.

Luke keeps trying to talk them into leaving them alone, but ends up activating his lightsaber "straight through the right thigh of the man who was holding him." This does not make the miners retreat, and now the other three pull out weapons too. Leia jumps on the one closest to her and claws his face. One of the three left lunges at Luke with a charged prod, so Luke cuts off his hand at the wrist. All of this has attracted the attention on stormtroopers, but Halla and the droids are the only ones to see them approach, so they're the only ones who get to escape.

The stormtroopers confiscate the weapons and march them to "a massive, forbidding ziggurat of ancient Mimbanian architecture." Along with a lecture on the local history and problems chronic brawlers create with weapons, the helpful sergeant tells the group they get to plead their side to Captain-Supervisor Grammel. The miners deflate the closer they get to the man in charge. Of course Leia and Luke attract Grammel's attention; he doesn't recognize them and Leia's pretty. And Leia's snappy comebacks draw attention that her way of speaking doesn't match her station in life. Luke makes a valiant attempt to pass off their lack of identification on losing it in the fight. Grammel doesn't buy it but a cloaked informant tells him how the fight started, so he fines the miners a half time-period's pay.

One of the miners appeals the judgment. Grammel goes along with the request with denials along the way until the miner asks for the judgment to be reviewed differently. Grammel drives a recording device into the miner's eye socket and then has them jailed for the rest of the night. After they have been dragged out of the office, Grammel points out that he's pretty sure Luke and Leia never had any identification to lose. Leia smarts off again and Grammel kicks her until Luke comes up with a new cover story: they are escaped criminals from Circarpous who crashed on Mimban.

Grammel doesn't believe this cover story either, but concedes that is plausible. Luke adds some groveling to not be sent back to Circarpous for execution. Grammel is willing to believe them if they're honest about a small gemstone in their possession.

What I Liked

The miners fight with Luke shows that he has gotten some unarmed combat training as he evades the blades, trying not to pull out the lightsaber until left with no choice. Then we see how much he has practiced with it as he takes down two fighters without killing them.

Grammel is described as a direct opposite of Grand Moff Tarkin. Unfortunately, it does put him in the "fat is evil" trope, but I'll give Foster credit for "a modest paunch curving gently from beneath his sternum like a frozen waterfall of suet, to crash and tumble somewhere below the waistline in a jumble of uniform" because that is a pretty good visual metaphor. I don't know why he put it in Luke's head because how much experience does Luke have with waterfalls?

The awful bar for Grammel is set early and adds to the dread building in the second half of the chapter.

"Certainly," Grammel agreed. He walked over to the wall behind his desk. Taking a long thin bar of plastic from its place there, he pressed the switch at one end as he came back around the desk. "The conversation has been recorded," he informed them all.

He depressed another switch and the bar showed a moving line of words across its waxy surface. When the record had finished, he raised and abruptly thrust one end of the unyielding plastic into the argumentative miner's left eye.

Blood and pulp squirted in all direction as the man collapsed, screaming, to the floor.

Halla had good reason to warn Luke and Leia away from this Imperial. But this is the Pinch Point, where the reader sees the antagonist against the protagonist.

Luke's groveling: Grammel is basically a Hutt in human form who likes to get hands-on with his torture. And Luke knows how to deal with Hutts after growing up on Tatooine. This whole part is Luke adding to his new cover story to convince Grammel it's true and trolling the Imperial. Luke is more devious than the fandom gives him credit for and this is a good example.

Putting the chapter break right after Grammel brings up the shard is a nice cliffhanger.

What I Found Problematic

The sergeant in charge of the stormtroopers group gives an "as you know" lecture to Luke and the readers. Foster doesn't even try to disguise this. "I'm always trying to improve myself. As you know," he began, "there are several intelligent races on this world, besides the greenies." I'm pretty sure this was an exposition sin in the 70's too, but it sure it one now.

More context making me think that they just replaced "slave" with "servant:"

She nodded briefly toward Luke. "I'm his... servant."

"That's right," Luke said quickly. "She's only my--"

"I can hear, boy," Grammel murmured. He stared back at her, ran a finger down one cheek. "Pretty woman..." She twitched out of his grip. "Spirited, too." He looked at Luke. "I congratulate you on your taste, boy."

Though in Luke's defense, I think Grammel would be just as touchy odious no matter what the cover story was.

Sassy Leia finally decides to live up to that name while in audience with the big bad of this planet.

"Your manners are probably matched only by your incompetence," the Princess told him.

Grammel merely nodded with satisfaction. "Manners," he repeated. "Incompetence. Odd way for a servant to speak." He barked at the sergeant, standing stiffly at attention nearby: "What identification did you find on these two?"

All it accomplishes is blowing up their weak cover story that much faster. She lasted much longer undercover in Jabba's Palace, maybe she got pointers from some real spies between now and then?

Leia's beating went far too long before Luke intervened.

He drew back his left foot and kicked her in the left thigh with the point of his boot. Moaning in pain, the Princess grabbed her side below the hip and sank forward to her knees. Her right hand stopped her fall while the other continued holding the bruised place. Luke raged inside but resolutely stared straight ahead. This was not the place or time to die.

"However, I am straightforward," Grammel continued, gazing down at her. Using his leg again, he kicked her right arm out from under her. She fell forward, then rolled over and sat up, still holding her left leg. The Captain-Supervisor kicked out sharply, catching the base of the spine but not hard enough to paralyze her. She wailed as both hands went to the small of her back and she fell over on her side, where she lay moaning.

Grammel drew back his leg again. Unable to stand by any longer, Luke stepped between them, said rapidly, "If I told you the truth, Captain-Supervisor, you wouldn't believe me."

It falls under the same 70's misogynistic attitude that's it's only right and proper to have a woman beaten. Thank goodness this was never filmed, though I like to think that Carrie Fisher would have never allowed it.

Luke's lightsaber doesn't draw any attention. Yes, the timeline changed after this story was written, but it still feels like a missed opportunity.

What Changes in My Fic

The miner who loses an eye is unidentified, but I'm willing to say it was the double-bladed stilettos everywhere miner.

Grammel's interrogation technique is to beat up the weaker of the pair. Just how well would this work against Mara Jade? I mean, she'll take a beating to sell her cover story or get her where she needs to go, but really does she have to take it from Grammel? Or can she lash back?

Luke's lightsaber does draw Grammel's notice, which gives Mara the observation that he needs to find a better hiding place for it, and leads to Artoo's flare launcher getting modified.

Plot event time. Helping Writers Become Authors further explains this breakdown.

• Hook 1% mark = Crashing onto Mimban
• Set-up 1% - 12%
• Inciting Event 12% mark = Finding the Imperial mining outpost
• Build-up 12% - 25%
• 1st Plot Point 25% mark = Luke and Leia agree to find the Kaiburr crystal with Halla

The 1st Plot Point is the doorway between the end of the First Act and the beginning of the Second Act, so now we're looking for the plot events of the second act.

• Reaction to 1st Plot Point 25% - 37%
• 1st Pinch Point 37% mark = Meeting with Grammel
• Realization 37% - 50%
• Midpoint or 2nd Plot Point 50% mark
• Action 50% - 62%
• 2nd Pinch Point 62% mark
• Renewed Push 62% - 75%