The Gunbear Chronicles: Garbage Day
“Why am I here?!” Plox pounded his meaty fists on the interrogation room table. A lone lamp swung overhead and dust particles floated down from the ceiling.
BN6 hovered opposite the Gamorrean across the table. The island of light in the center of the room cast an eerie glow on the administration droid’s sandblasted silver body. “Once again you and your men have been dumping District 24’s garbage into the Sarlaac Pit when you should dispose of it in the environmentally-friendly manner set forth by Mayor Gunbear.”
“That’s preposterous!” Plox said banging on the table again. BN6 noted that every time the Gamorrean spoke, it sounded as if he was shaking his head with a mouthful of meat. The droid turned toward the nearest wall and projected an image. A skiff hovered over the Great Pit of Carkoon and several clearly discernible figures launched bin after bin of refuse into the pit while the Sarlaac’s tentacles swayed in the light of Tatooine’s three moons.
“That could be anyone!” Plox protested. This time when he slammed his fist one of the bulbs in the overhead lamp flickered and threatened to cast the room in complete darkness.
“Mayor Gunbear takes sanitation very seriously,” BN6 responded cooly.
“Gunbear! Hah!” Plox leaned forward across the table and jabbed a finger in the droid’s direction. “Who does he think he is to drag the Chief of Sanitation down here like this? The only time he cares about trash going into the Sarlaac Pit is during re-election. I’m not scared of him. You float on back to his office and tell Mayor Gunbear I think he’s shooting blanks and he belongs in a zoo.”
BN6 drifted back toward the door. “You just told him.”
“HRMPH!” A low, stately grunt rolled from the darkness in the back of the room. Plox’s eyes grew to the size of a Krayt Dragon’s. He felt hot breath on the back of his neck. Scent of the Dune Sea, the Mayor’s signature cologne filled his nostrils.
Mayor Gunbear circled around Plox. The Gamorrean expected rage. He expected the Mayor’s fangs to tear him to pieces. Instead, Gunbear studied him with his dark, glassy eyes.
“I…I…”
“Mrphsh,” Mayor Gunbear snorted and Plox shut his mouth. The Mayor turned to BN6. “Graughaggargahhh?”
“Yes sir. Your speeder is ready,” the droid responded. BN6 rounded the table towards Plox. “I’m afraid I need to bind your wrists now.” The Gamorrean looked at Gunbear. This was not what he expected at all.
Plox ate a mouthful of sand when Mayor Gunbear threw him out of the speeder. He struggled to get to his knees with his hands bound behind him. His eyes watered and tried to adjust to the hot suns. The sand burned beneath him. BN6 zipped over to Plox as Gunbear climbed out of the speeder. A small bladed arm protruded from the droid’s body and he sliced the rope binding the Gamorrean’s wrists. Plox tasted moisture in the sand. It congealed in his mouth. He licked his sleeve to get the iron taste off his tongue and checked his surroundings. To his horror, six of his men lay dead around him! Their blood seeped into the sand everywhere. Each had several blaster burns. Plox choked and spat. Suddenly he heard a thud behind him. The Gamorrean turned and saw a blaster laying at his feet.
“Mayor Gunbear offers you the heavy blaster,” BN6 stated. “He wants you to have a chance.”
“Mrahhmf,” Mayor Gunbear said.
“I…I don’t want to pick it up,” Plox stammered, shuffling a step back from the blaster. “My apologies. Please!”
“Mrahhmmmmf,” Mayor Gunbear repeated in a quieter but somehow more deadly tone. On his large, furry head sat a wide-brimmed black hat in the style made famous by the bounty hunger, Cad Bane. They were all the rage at Tosche Station this season. His paw hovered a mere inch from the grip of his heavy blaster. The handle was made from the sacred Wroshyr Tree of Kashyyyk.
Plox panicked. He dove for the weapon but before he got half way to it, Mayor Gunbear’s blaster was in hand. He fired several times into the Gamorrean’s fat body and a seventh corpse collapsed on the dune.
“MRAGRHRMF!” Gunbear roared. He took off his hat and threw it in the back of the speeder.
“Yes sir, it is hot,” BN6 replied.
Mayor Gunbear crawled into the driver’s seat. He had a meeting with a representative of the banking clan after lunch, a city council meeting to attend and on top of all that now he had to find a new sanitation crew for district 24. He shook his head.
“Sir, what shall I do with the bodies?” BN6 called out.
“Grapmvh grarahhgar!” Mayor Gunbear said and hit the accelerator.
“Dump them in the Sarlaac Pit? An excellent idea!”
The Gunbear Chronicles: The 7 Percent
In a small building, down a hall, in a poorly-lit room, five sat.
Not so quietly waiting.
“‘I Ate My Mate!'” shrieked a B’omarr monk from the center of the room, with it’s shrill, mechanically synthesize voice.
“That’s rubbish! ‘The Sequential Passage of Chronological Intervals’ is much better,” argued a thin Rodian who represented the 4th Ward.
“That song is a nightmare,” a translator droid gently spoke. By the motions and chittering of her tiny Jawa owner, it was not in the intended tone.
There was a loud fumbling at the door and everyone fell silent. The B’omarr skittered to the lectern as the door clumsily opened and a large bear toppled into the room on all fours. “Please rise as the honorable Mayor Gunbear enters the room.”
All rose from their seats. A Rodian, a Jawa, a Human, and a duel-headed Troig (each head representing different Wards remarkably distant from one another).
“Rrrgrrgghhhh rrhhghrrrrrr,” muttered the Mayor as he pulled himself onto his hind legs and walked to the lectern, gesturing for the B’omarr to take its seat across the room. Everyone took their seats.
“Grruumff rrgaaargarh rrrgggrraafffg rrrgg.” The room lay silent.
“mmmgrrrgh rrrrruuhrfrgh. Rrgraaargh ergggrrrmrrg rrrgrh grrruuumffgrr,” said the Mayor, motioning around the room with his powerful paw.
Loxcian, raised his hand. The Mayor acknowledged the almost Hutt-sized human who tried to rise as he spoke but opted for a more reasonable sitting posture.
“Mayor, I appreciate your wanting to get right to business. We all have responsibilities to attend to.” He shifted to a slightly more comfortable, declined position. “If we don’t do something about the Tatooine Tree in Anchorhead soon we are going to see more and more incidents like the slaughter last week.”
“Cut it down,” interjected the Rodian. “We can’t keep paying the Conservationist Guard to gun down everyone who comes within sight of it.”
The B’omarr monk perked erect. “That’s ludicrous! That Tatooine Tree is one of the last in the Galaxy. The last outside of any Arboretum. Cutting it down would be against the historical interests of Tatooine.”
“Gggraaargmf ugrrrhumgrrg,” agreed the Mayor.
“But what are we supposed to do then? We can’t afford to protect it. It’s a pointless relic of a time that no longer exists,” Loxcian poked. “The B’omarr have no clue what is important any longer. We don’t need it. We don’t want it.”
“HOW DARE YOU!” screeched the Monk.
“The Conservationist Guard are bleeding this city dry. Why don’t we just pay them less?” suggested the translator droid on behalf of the Jawa.
“I agree,” said one head of the Triog. “If we merely lowered the credit agreement by 7% we could funnel that money down more important avenues,” added the second.
“Grrrarg Gruuugh mmmummrggh?” asked the Mayor, pointedly.
“Well..us,” answered the first head. “All of us,” finished the second.
The room sat quiet. Then murmurs of agreement began to rise.
“My constituency do like the tree but…”
“The Guard isn’t doing anything anyway.”
“It’s not THAT great of a landmark, really.”
“How much can rechargeable blasters cost anyway?”
“Honestly I’ve always thought it was ugly.”
Mayor Gunbear looked across the room, eyeing each politician. Sizing them.
“How about you Mayor? What are your thoughts?”
The Mayor stared silently for a moment longer then reached into his thick fur and pulled out a blaster.
“Now Mayor,” objected the fat Human. But he quickly went silent when the Mayor grazed his arm with a bolt.
The large bear leaped over the lectern and everyone who could scatter, scattered.
Mayor Gunbear swiftly caught the first head of the Triog and sank his sharp teeth into it’s fleshy neck, pulling it’s whole body to the ground, second head in tow. The Triog flipped over the bristled body of the Mayor. He snapped it’s neck in a single motion and the life fell from the eyes of the first head.
The room dropped to a tense quiet as Gunbear drew himself up on all fours and began lapping at the growing pool of blood on the floor. The Troig’s second head looked on in silent horror.
Moments passed.
“Sir?” the surviving head finally whispered. “Does this mean I have to cover both wards?”
The Mayor raised a single eye to the living half of his prey.
“Yes. Of course. I am honored.”……..”And his wages? Will I-”
“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg,” the bear growled intimidatingly.
“Of course. Of course. The Conservationist Guard will be well funded now. Very well funded.”
Paul Chat (3 of 5) – The B-Movie Marathon & Sketch Comedy
It’s Paul Chat #3, yall!
Paul Chat (2 of 5) – Shotgun!
J discusses the tools Paul Brooks provided for a sweet, sweet shotgun-riding experience.
