Rolly-Polly Deathmatch #9: Thunda in the Tundra

[The Widowed]

Ensign Boof--or Lieutenant Boof, whatever--was finally getting over the horrible brain-scalding castigation he had gotten from Lord Vader for what was then to be known as the Handyman Incident. After Ernest P. Worrell had demolished half of the Death Star--and the Rebellion had demolished the other half while Ernest puttered off in his jury-rigged astrotruck--Ensign-Lieutenant Boof had been demoted to Commander of an Imperial Light Freighter, transporting all manners of exotic animals captured on the widely varied planets around the galaxy to the finest zoos of Coruscant.

"So let's see...that's eight tauntauns, one wampa...and that's it," Boof sighed, reading the cargo manifest as his freighter crossed into the Galactic Rim. "Pretty slim pickings. That's the last time I ever make a pick-up on Planet Hoth. This route's just a huge waste of fuel."

"But Sir," Sergeant Priss countered, "you're providing a great service to the Empire. The kids love tauntauns."

"I know that. But we could make this route with a blasted tug and make better profits with our shares from the animal sales. It's not like there's a vast plethora of wildlife on Hoth anyway...just tauntauns and wampas."

As if on cue, Private Pringle thrust his head up through the floor hatch to the cargo hold sublevel. "Sir! Bad news! The wampa is loose! He's trying to batter his way into the tauntaun pens!"

"Great Emperor's nose!" Ensign Boof shouted. "That wampa could kill all of our tauntaun stock! Quickly, try to lure the wampa into one of the escape pods! Then we can seal the pod, flood the pod with sedative gas and carry our big angry friend peacefully back to a fresh cage."

*thirty minutes later*

"Good, good," Ensign Boof approved with raspy breath, cradling a bloody gash in his arm. "The wampa's trapped in the pod now. A pity what happened to Private Pringle, but he always wanted to die in the company of wild animals. Sergeant Priss, notify Pringle's next of kin. I'll sedate our wampa."

THWOOM! A violent tremor shook the entire freighter. A chorus of alarms screamed from the console in response.

"Sergeant Buttkiss! Damage report!"

"Uhh...uhh, an asteroid appears to have struck our inferior starboard stern," Buttkiss stammered. "Life support is stable...engines are reduced to 60% maximum power but recovering...navigation is reacquiring our bearing and coordinates...uh oh."

"Uh oh?" Boof snorted.

"We...seem to have lost one of our escape pods, Sir. Its propulsion automatically fired on separation from the freighter, and its suspended animation sequence was evidently triggered during the impact. We can't catch up with it before it leaves Imperial space...."

"Calculate the escape pod's trajectory. Where is it headed?"

Buttkiss mashed a series of keys on the navigation terminal. "The escape pod is headed towards the Milky Way galaxy, in the general direction of the Sol system...by my orbital and chronological calculations, there is an 82% probability that the pod will impact one of the polar regions of Sol III. Estimated time until impact: a long, long time ahead...."

"...in a galaxy far away. Well, what worse news could happen now?"

Buttkiss swallowed hard. "It was the escape pod with the wampa in it, Sir."

Ensign Boof wondered which position he would be demoted to this time.

Combatant One:



A Wampa
Native Climate: Arctic
Diet: Tauntauns, aspiring Jedi Knights, other wampas (in a pinch), maybe a robot or two
Most Notable Physical Asset: Bloody huge claws


Combatant Two:



An Angry, Territorial Polar Bear (with Cubs)
Native Climate: Arctic
Diet: Seals, Eskimos (or Inuits, if you're all Greenpeacey), fish, small whaling vessels
Most Notable Physical Asset: Thick, protective, resilient layers of fat, skin and muscle


GRARRRRRRRHHH!!! Fight!