The Joys of Mobile Waste Bins

[Cailst]

"Doesn't look too old, heck, it's not even opened yet," Bubba mumbled to himself as he picked up a bag of chips out of the dumpster. "And why did anyone throw that couch away? It looks good enough, still has some stuffing in it. I ought to drag that back to the box, it should fit. Maybe I could even use it as a door when winter comes. Last winter was miserable, snow, sleet, and sludge. Not a whole lot of fun. But at least a few thrown out pets managed to freeze. Those tasted pretty good, much better than the cats back with my parents." Bubba continued mumbling in a stream of consciousness till a gleam caught his eye. "Ooh, ooh, ooh, somebody threw away their ring! Woohoo! Now I has gots me my precious. And Darth Cletus might finally pay me a pretty penny for it. Then, I might be able to get some spice for once! This will be a fun couple of weeks, getting to lay back and HEY!! You little simian rascal better give me back that ring!! That's my ring, mine!! I'll send you right back to that colony of yours down Hini Street!! Then I'll make bushmeat out of you, then I'll eat it!!!! That's what you get for stealing stuff!!!!"

Bubba tried wrestling the monkey into place but getting the ring off of him proved impossible as the monkey squirmed around. Finally, the monkey got out of his reach and bounded out of the dumpster, Bubba gave one last shot at hitting him but merely hit the wall of the dumpster pretty hard.

"Oww, oww, oww, darn monkey, now I'll have to get some spice some other way." Bubba said trying to shake the pain out of his fist.

Getting up, he looked outside the dumpster, the monkey continued bounding out of the way down the alley and then into the street beyond. Turning his head, he saw some familiar faces.

"You guys survived?!" He said waving his hand at them.

 

[Prancing Yawn]

Walking the streets on Coronet, Artix was up to his usual business - snacking on a candy bar, watching out for Imperial Stormtroopers, and snacking on a candy bar. He and his men had just made a good raid on an Imperial fuel station, and they were celebrating at the Golden Bantha, in Coronet. Artix wanted to get some fresh air, compared to the musty and smoky atmosphere of the Bantha.

The Lieutenant thought about his mutiny 9 years ago every day, and he didn't regret it one bit. The captain of the destroyer, with the Sith takeover of the Empire, had insisted that the Lieutenant lead the 1000th Rifles on a subduing mission on Dantooine - subdue all protestors against the Sith with lethal force. Artix made a gallant decision to defy the captain of the destroyer, and he, the Rifles, and some others aboard the destroyer escaped to Corellia. Little did he know that he was about to meet somebody from the destroyer today, rummaging through a trash bin.

Walking past an alleyway, the Lieutenant heard a familiar voice - gruff, but familiar.

"Fair winds, friend!"
Smiling at the engineer, Artix walked down the alleyway to meet his old comrade.
"What are you doing, rummaging through this wastebin?"

 

[Cailst]

"Gettin somethin to eat," Bubba said tossing Artix a frozen wrapped sausage.
"Full seal'd and expiration date is three months from now."

Time had flown by, when the mutiny happened, Bubba was a kid of sixteen who had been quickly adapting as he was going through training. Now, he was a young adult who was fairly skilled at surviving on his own through the trash filled streets of inner city Coronet. Presumably, Artix and his gang had also found ways to survive in the Alliance, likely a bit more comfortably.

Still, Bubba just had to know how Artix managed to survive. After all, it isn't everyday that a capital ship just shows up in Alliance space with a full blown battle occurring inside the ship.

"So how'd you survive?" He asked.

 

[Prancing Yawn]

Artix caught the huge steak, raising an eyebrow at it.
"Uh, no thank you, friend.. I already had a stimulating meal."

"You heard the shooting, didn't you? We stowed ourselves on some shuttles in the hangar bay, and blasted out of that wretched place. You should've came up to the hangar and joined us. Perhaps.. we all ended up in the same location, though,"
Artix grimaced as he saw the once young, fledgling Imperial trooper there rummaging through trash bins. If he had any extra money himself, he'd buy the man a decent dinner..

"Well, it looks like you got off that ship too.. but how? They must have ramped up hangar security after we escaped."

Artix brushed an ice chip off of his jacket from the frozen steak.
"Come, now, friend. There must be something else you can do for food in this city. And I'd like to know how you got here, aswell."
Artix reached in his pockets for something edible for his friend, and found a bar of chocolate, offering it to Bubba.

 

[Cailst]

"Thanks," Bubba said as he took the candy bar and began unwrapping it.

For a moment, he did what he could to recall exactly how he escaped. It had been a somewhat traumatic memory despite the fact that he had succeeded. Then again, life for the last nine years hadn't been fun either, just less exciting.

"I was the one who brought us from Dantooine space to Corellian space while you guys were fighting. Then, I closed the door so none of y'ins guys could get in. Then I got in me escape pod and landed in the water. Do ya know what the Alliance did to the destroyer?"

Bubba continued walking along with Artix down the alley. The street lay out there which had quite a few venues including various restaurants, local and franchise, pawn shops including Darth Cletus's shop, barber shops, bars, and etc.

 

[Prancing Yawn]

"Ah, friend, I have no knowledge of any hyperspace travel from Dantooine to Corellia. We exited the hangar with the three transports and blasted into hyperspace at once, to Tatooine! I wondered why the tyrant captain himself didn't send out a brigade of TIE fighters to blast down our convoy.. perhaps it was your act of sending the ship into hyperspace that saved our lives. If so, I eternally thank you."

Walking along the streets with the former Imperial engineer, Artix realized just how close he almost came to death during that mutiny.

"So, man, I heard you mumbling something about Darth Cletus.. what kind of business do you deal with those sorcerors? I hope it isn't anything to benefit them in a large sum."

 

[Cailst]

"He's no sorcrer, he's just runs the pawn shop, I did get a good bit of money off of him and I bought me some spice, lovely lovely spice," Bubba said.

They were walking by the pawn shop, a smelly little place on the street, dust piled up everywhere and it smelled a lot like animal dander. Junk was all throughout the store, not entirely surprising given that his customers were poor too. However, one defining feature about the junk is that a lot of it were little figurines of famous sith like Revan, Sidious, and Krayt. Some even had little recordings in them that played one liner recorded messages. Apparently, they were from some of the fast food joints which included toys with their meals for children.

As for the man himself, he had some scary looking tattoos and had spiked black and red hair. He also tended to wear black clothes and had piercings all over him. Very strange fellow.

"That's the store," Bubba said pointing to it.

 

[Prancing Yawn]

The Sith man inside of the shop looked at Artix menacingly. He looked like he'd jump at him any second, bursting through the glass with a double bladed lightsaber intent on decapitating the young Lieutenant.
"Are you sure he's good company to be keeping.. especially around me?
.. after all, the Rifles are wanted by the Empire.."

Kreiger tried to keep a normal face as the Sith looked at him, but it was pretty hard to do. Even the walls that separated him between his -enemy- did not assure him any more. What if Artix was recognized? It wouldn't be good for either of them. And they would surely be interrogated - Artix was sure he could keep himself, but he didn't know about Bubba..
It was certainly a nervous situation for the rebellious Lieutenant.

Maybe it wouldn't be that bad, though. Bubba seemed to be on decent terms with the Sith lord, and might have a small level of influence with him. And it was unlikely that the Darth would recognize him - Artix had not even seen a man -like- him before, or heard of a Darth Cletus! He was most likely safe.

But all those reassurances to himself didn't help one bit.

 

[Cailst]

"Yeah, he shouldn't be a problem. He does play loud music about eating kittens, cutting in line, and cheating at solitaire. Says that he's being "ironic". But otherwise, he seems like a decent guy, except for that one time he pulled the "do not remove tag" off of my mattress. I threatened to report him to the police for it and then he threatened to report me to the police for jaywalking. So then we called it even." Bubba said

That had been an interesting night for Bubba, Darth Cletus had been behind in mortgage payments and was worried that the bank would claim his property during the night. So he had to go visit Bubba for a few nights as he didn't want them kicking him out during the night. After some heated disputes including the mattress tags and some other issues, they fixed it by finding a couple diamond rings in the dumpsters that got him enough money to pay off his bills.