Slicing off the hand

A week ago, I reminded you that as we hit the home stretch for Tales of the Vuduri, I won't have time to truly flesh out all the Big Ideas I had for the novel The Milk Run. Instead, I am presenting some capsule summaries of the motivation behind a subset of those ideas. Today I wanted to cover my repeated use of people getting a hand sliced off. I don't know why this is important to me but maybe it goes back to Star Wars, when Luke was fighting off Darth Vader.



I've used this technique a bunch of times in the various books for different purposes. At the end of The Ark Lords, Nick Greer gets his hand sliced off by MINIMCOM before he can shoot and kill Rome. In Rome's Evolution, Dan Steele, the would-be assassin, sticks his hand through Rei's protective PPT tunnel/vest and Rei turns and accidentally slices off Steele's hand.

In that same book, MINIMCOM restores Greer's hand earlier and it is through that repair that Greer finds the path to redemption. The idea is that maybe some day Steele would find that as an incentive to reform as well. In The Milk Run, Aason Bierak gets his hand sliced off by, of all people, his friend Sh'ev but it is to save Aason's life:

     Aason looked over at OMCOM who nodded. A motion behind the livetar caught Aason’s eye. The entire rear end of the crystal capsule was starting to peel off.
     “Hey,” Aason shouted. He ran over and pushed on the end to stop it from sliding further. OMCOM turned to see what he was doing.
     “Our glue must not have fully set yet,” the livetar said, grabbing the handle. He was able to reset the end. “I will hold it until it does not move. Junior, I will need you to fashion some brackets as a further precaution. We will secure it in place mechanically as well until it is completely set.”
     “That’s a good idea,” Aason replied, backing up. His right hand was stinging where he had pressed it against the edge of the capsule. He turned his hand over to look at his palm. To his horror, he saw a large section in the center change from pink meat to clear crystal. The area of “infection” was growing rapidly. It spread toward his thumb and fingers and the base of his palm. It hurt like hell. Aason’s eyes grew wide. He had no idea what to do. He looked up at Sh’ev helplessly.
     Without hesitation, Sh’ev activated the miniature PPT thrower and neatly sliced off Aason’s affected hand midway up the wrist. Blood spurted everywhere. Aason sank to his knees confused. Instinctually, he pushed the stump of his arm under his other arm to clamp down. Everything became fuzzy to him. There was a rushing sound in his ears but in the background, he could hear Aroline screaming. He barely felt OMCOM pull his arm out and twist a tourniquet around his arm, near the end. The livetar’s actions had no meaning to Aason. All he could do was stare at the clear crystal sculpture on the floor of the cargo compartment that had once been his hand.

That paints a pretty cool picture, doesn't it? A crystal sculpture of what was once Aason's hand? Don't worry, Dr. MINIMCOM will be able to repair just like he did with Nick Greer which is why I introduced the concept in the first place.