THE ADVENTURES OF PIETT AND AL
Written and submitted by Rachael Cole

Shortly before the events in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

INT. EXECUTOR--PIETT’S QUARTERS

View of door from across neatly made bed, coverlet embroidered with TIE fighters. To the left a small table can be seen on which is placed an issue of Imperial Officer’s Weekly and a small com. Door opens and Piett stumbles through, rubbing his eyes. Through a logical event process, door closes. Piett, looking quite haggard, makes his way across the floor and collapses onto bed. He sighs, rubs his eyes, and turns over, curling up into a ball. Angle changes to a chair opposite the door, draped in shadow. The drape of shadow detaches itself from the chair and leans forward to reveal a young woman, with black hair pulled away from her face, dark-brown almond-shaped eyes, and glasses, wearing an Imperial Officer’s uniform with no rank insignia. Woman looks at Piett.
WOMAN: You don’t have to put up with all that flak from Ozzie, you know.
Piett jerks around, getting his boot caught in his sheet, and falls to the floor. He looks up, bleary-eyed and confused.
PIETT: What the bloody hell?
Piett attempts to get up but merely tangles himself more in his sheets, and ends up half sitting, half sprawling, his back propped against the now unmade bed. He sees the woman.
PIETT: Who are you? And what in the Emperor’s name are you doing in my quarters?
Woman smiles.
WOMAN: Hallo. I’m Alacrity, but you can call me Al. And I’ve come to tell you about a great offer I have for you.
PIETT: But how did you get in here?
Al hops off her chair and starts unwinding the sheets from Piett’s legs.
AL: Oh, I let myself in. Through a rip in space-time. Well, not really, but close enough.
Al steps back, Piett being disentangled from his sheets. Piett stands up.
PIETT: I don’t know what you think you’re doing here miss, but I’m calling Security.
Piett stands, reaching for his com. Al pulls a pencil from her pocket and points it at the com.
AL: I wouldn’t do that.
Com disappears with a tiny puff of eraser dust. Piett’s eyes bug out from his head, and he gasps.
PIETT: Sweet burning stars!
Al motions towards the bed.
AL: Why don’t you sit down. You look like you could use a little explanation.
Piett sits, or rather collapses, staring at Al. She resumes her seat opposite him in the chair.
AL: I am here to tell you about how you can hire me as your very own cooperative script/manuscript writer, for a very reasonable fee.
Piett looks at her blankly.
PIETT: What’s a cooperative scriptwriter?
AL: Well, you know, it’s what all great heroes have. It’s someone who manipulates space-time and reality itself so that the heroes (or heroines, yes, but for simplicity let’s just stick with the former) always come out on top.
Piett frowns.
PIETT: So you make things happen?
AL: Some things, yes. Some things just happen on their own. We scriptwriters just edit events so that they turn out good for our clients.
Piett doesn’t look very enlightened.
AL: But I can see this isn’t making much sense.
Al thinks for a moment, chin in hand.
AL: Take for example, Luke Skywalker -- I’m sure you’ve heard of him by now. He grew up on this little backwater, or rather, backdesert planet, with nothing to aspire to except a lot of sand and some moisture vaporators, give or take a few Tuskens. Then, he gets himself a cooperative scriptwriter, a guy by the name of Lucas, and now he’s this big rebellion hero. And he got that way by shooting a projectile down an itty-bitty hole. But if Lucas hadn’t been there, Skywalker might not have even gotten off Tattooine, and he would have never made that shot. You see, Skywalker couldn’t hit the ground if he was laying on it, much less get a proton torpedo to go through that tiny exhaust port. It’s like that with a lot of heroes -- they’re just losers until they get themselves a cooperative scriptwriter.
PIETT: (Incredulous) So you mean to tell me that Skywalker hired himself someone to change reality?
AL: Well--not exactly. That is, Lucas picked Skywalker, not the other way around. Skywalker doesn’t even know about Lucas, and never will. Actually, heroes traditionally never find out they even have a cooperative scriptwriter. They just go through life feeling lucky.
PIETT: Why are you telling me this, then? Why didn’t you just pick me and start, or whatever it is you do?
AL: (Slightly uncomfortably) I would have -- but I can’t, really.
PIETT: Why ever not? Lucas did, didn’t he?
AL: Well...it’s because of Lucas that I can’t...you see, there’s this thing called a copyright that a scriptwriter slaps on his hero and people the hero interacts with. And it becomes forbidden to deal with any of the people unless you have express permission from the guy who made the copyright, Lucas in this case. And Lucas is pretty clear about what happens to his people, and he’s not letting anyone he doesn’t want get a cooperative scriptwriter.
PIETT: What does any of this have to do with me?
AL: I’m sick and tired of all of this copyright crap. Just because Lucas got here first, he thinks he’s got control of everyone in this galaxy, and I won’t stand for it! It’s publication without representation, I’m telling you! Because he’s decided to side with the Rebels, the Imps are getting screwed. It’s just not fair! He’s making a hero out of cowards and scummy parasites like Wedge and Dash, and letting great folks like you slip by. So I decided enough was enough, and now I’ve broken all of the rules in the book and come to you. Because if I can get you to hire me as your cooperative scriptwriter, we can sneak past the copyright and make you a hero.
PIETT: Why me?
AL: Why not? You’ve got that really great, sexy accent, you’re so good looking and charming it’s a wonder you don’t have to beat the girls off, you’ve got poise, confidence, skill, and great potential. With your qualities and my scriptwriting, we can go places!
PIETT: (Blushing modestly) What I meant was: why not someone higher up on the Imperial scale? Couldn’t you do a lot more against this Lucas fellow if you were writing for, say, the Emperor?
AL: Frankly, I need someone who won’t attract too much attention. I mean, if the Empire started winning every battle, and the Emperor suddenly becomes immortal and omnipotent, Lucas is gonna get suspicious. Besides, I already tried Freddie, and he wouldn’t hear of it. He always was too proud for his own good.
PIETT: Freddie?
AL: The Emperor. His name’s Fredrick Palpatine, but his friends call him Freddie. Or did, before he had them all killed. But that’s beside the point. Will you join me or not?
Piett crosses his arms and looks at Al suspiciously.
PIETT: I still don’t get how all of this scriptwriting works, anyway. How can you alter reality?
Al sighs and rolls her eyes.
AL: Look, it’s a complicated process, and I really don’t think we have time to--
PIETT: (Interrupting) I’m not going anywhere. Tell me.
AL: Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. First off, you get yourself a protagonist, almost always your hero. Then you edit reality so that things go in his/her favor. You can either take your hero and put them in a non-copyrighted place, or you can go and do what Lucas did and make an entire galaxy, or dimension, or planet, or whatever, off-limits. Then you just alter reality around them. There are several ways to do this, but I don’t know how to explain them--well, have you heard the term "the fabric of reality"?
Piett nods.
AL: That’s not exactly true. The consistency of reality is more like porridge.
PIETT: Porridge?!
AL: Yep, porridge. Well, old porridge, actually. Porridge that’s been left out all day because no one wanted to eat it, and so it gets all gummy and clay-like. You can take that porridge and mold it into whatever you want, at least until your mother comes and takes it from you and washes you hands. But the porridge of reality is kind of spread out, like in a pan, and you can push it around. Tiny holes can be made, so things can pop through, like me getting into your room, but since it’s porridge, you just push the edges back together when you’re done. All scriptwriting deals with messing the porridge of reality up in various ways. There’s the parallel method, which is when you kind of force this reality to branch off into a parallel one, and since the original reality remains unchanged, you can do virtually all you want in the sub-reality. Then, of course there’s always the selection option. Since any event is possible, they’re sine qua events. They exist in event phase space. Any event exists in potentia, that is, any event can be happening at any time. So any particular event collapses the waveform, and you just select the most likely one from the projected matrix. If you want to get into really advanced stuff, you can just use the defined --
Piett, who has been looking more and more confused throughout all of this, by now is rather befuddled. He is trying to keep up with the explanation, but it’s getting to be too much for him, and he’s had a long day. He yawns.
AL: But I guess none of that’s really important right now. You get the main idea, right? So will you go with me or not?
PIETT: I don’t know...
AL: (Getting desperate) Look, I’ll even throw in the ageless option, that is, if I ever get out of scripts and into manuscripts, on your book covers you’ll look as young or younger than you do now. Grey hair and slowing down may be mentioned, but you’ll never actually be seen looking older, okay?
Piett yawns again.
PIETT: Excuse me.
He frowns, trying to work all of this out.
PIETT: Well, all right, I guess you've sold me on this.
Al grins.
AL: Great, glad to hear it! Now, there’s the slight matter of payment--merely a formality, I assure you. If you give me, let’s say, ten credits a month, I’ll give you scriptwriting for three years. At the end of three years, we can re-negotiate.
Piett is looking more tired than ever, but he nods.
PIETT: That sounds fine.
Al hands Piett a pen, procures a paper, and points to a line.
AL: Sign there, please. Full name, excluding your military title.
Piett hastily scrawls his signature, hoping Al won’t check it. She does.
AL: Binky?! Your first name is Binky?
PIETT: (Defensively) Yes...yes it just so happens it is Binky. And what’s wrong with that?
Al tries not to laugh, and ends up putting on a face that looks like she’s just swallowed a rather vigorous hedgehog.
AL: Oh, nothing, I suppose. It’s, uh, a rather, er, that is, it’s not a name you see, um, very often. How did your parents come by it?
PIETT: It’s a traditional name in my family. I’m actually Binky Piett the 322^nd, or B322, as my father called me.
He yawns again.
AL: Ah, yes. Well I can see that you need your sleep. I’ll get back to you in the morning, and we can discuss the finer details. So, until then, Adieu.
Al disappears with a ‘glop!’ like porridge being dropped. Piett shakes his head at the odd events of the past hour, not quite sure what he's gotten himself into or why he agreed to it, and lies down again. Almost instantly he begins snoring lightly.