Eight: Getting to know the neighbours

It was grey and drizzling as the Command Shuttle swooped in and landed half a klick from the ruins of the Resistance Base. The pilot shut down the engines and everyone waited for Hux. For a moment, he stared at the black and white porg sitting in the seat next to his and met the sad eyes.

"Well, this part is down to you, Ren," the General grumbled and facepalmed. "I cannot believe I just said that," he muttered as he lifted the little porg and carried it to the entrance. The stormtroopers noticeably cringed and Kylo tilted his head, inspecting the shapes. Then it hit him.

Those are the men who...met me outside my quarters, he realised. The ones who tried to kill me and singed my...fluffbutt. He blinked. I cannot believe I called any part of my anatomy that! He stiffened and dealt them a hard look. Okay, I am doing this and then I am coming back and killing them.

The ramp lowered and Hux gently placed him on the metal surface.

"We will monitor you via the external cameras," he murmured. "Try not to be too long. I will expect intelligence when you return-and that shouldn't just be the gossip around the porg colony-or whatever they're called."

How would I know? Kylo grumbled. I was never into ornithology even before I became part of it. But he waddled down the ramp and hit the muddy ground, his senses all straining. And then he accelerated forward, not to the ruins but towards the rocks and the sounds of porgs...

...except they were voices, speaking in an unusual syntax that was familiar from the encounter with the Scavenger.

Hello newcomer.

He realised that the person speaking to him was a small brown porg, fluttering its big eyes at him.

Greetings, he replied neutrally.

From far-nest? The tone was curious. He frowned and then realised she was asking him if he came from some way away. He nodded, his mind sliding back to the Finalizer and realising there was no way he could explain it to these creatures.

My nest is very far away, he explained. She shuffled closer.

Hungry? she asked and he nodded, his stomach rumbling again. Good fishing here. I show.

I am very certain that Hux won't be interested in that intelligence, he thought but shuffled after her as she bounced to the cliff edge and plunged into the water. Plunging after her, he found the female accelerating away and pride forced him to follow and catch her, before she looked over at him and dived into a huge shoal of silvery fish. Rolling and spinning, he gulped down mouthfuls of the treats until he realised that she was heading up and he broke the surface, gasping air and then ducking down again. This time, the female was sticking to his side as he fished and then she split away, heading back for the shore. There was a dark shadow in the waters, his Force senses alerting him to the danger. Focus honing to a laser point, he stilled, sensing a shark-like creature curving round and coming straight at him. He could sense fury and hunger and a complete lack of empathy as it came at him.

Force, be with me now, he thought and grabbed all his anger and fear at what was happening to him to bolster his connection.

Nothing happened.

He had a fraction of a second to react, twisting his body away and bouncing off the shark's head and sculling along the length of its body as it missed him. But it came round again as Kylo frantically sped towards the shore, somehow finding the Force and using it to impel him faster through the cold water. Wings flapping furiously through the saline, he could sense it closing, mouth open and teeth ready to rend him apart...

He flapped once more and blasted through the surface of the waves, soaring through the spray and clearing the cliff to land on the muddy ground, bouncing three times before finally coming to a halt. Blinking, he picked himself up, astonished that he had soared so far-and that he had found the Force, but only in extremis.

He was running out of time.

But as he turned to the cliffs, he saw a forest of heads poke up. All were brown with white faces and fronts. And all seemed to be wholly focussed on him.

That was amazing!

Pretty much every porg there echoed the same words, the squawking echoing over the cliffs.

New porg very fit.

Several of the smaller brown porgs were advancing, eyeing him like the last sardine on the buffet.

New porg very handsome.

Kylo stared at the smaller porgs, the words of the entry on porgs running round his head.

Porgs are sexually dimorphic with smaller females and larger males. Males may master a harem of sexually receptive and sometimes desperate females...

New porg very handsome...

Desperate. Definitely desperate. He wasn't considered handsome. 'Monster' was the most charitable he had got and that was from the Scavenger.

New porg handsome and fit. Mine!

You gotta be kidding me! he thought, watching another ten female porgs advance. If he didn't know better, he would think they were fluttering their eyes at him and waving their wings in an attempt to attract his attention. He backed up a step. Of course, he was aware of the 'mechanics' but his training and focus on Snoke's wishes had left precisely no time for any practical experience, even had the Supreme Leader not expressly forbidden any such liaisons. He certainly didn't want his first experience to be as a fat, slightly smelly and ridiculously cute bird...

Mine!

Mine!

Mine!

He stared. There were about fifteen females now all advancing on him...and suddenly they were charging him. Instinct took over and he turned and ran.

FOLLOW HANDSOME MALE!

Force, this is NOT how I anticipated this going, he thought as he accelerated over the muddy ground, past the Command Shuttle and away from the cliffs, the growing stampede of porgs racing after him. There were squawks and trills and definitely a few 'ows' as the desperate females pinballed off one another in their pursuit of Kylo but what he could tell was that they were closing. Fast. After all, they had been porgs longer than he had been and had the waddling thing sorted out far better than he seemed to have. Zig-zagging around the uneven boulders, his eyes lighted onto the ruins of the base he had destroyed a couple of days earlier. Bouncing over a chunk of rubble, he suddenly found himself facing a large brown porg with lighter orange circles of feathers around its big eyes. The creature was snarling and he stilled, trying not to crash into the other porg.

MY TERRITORY! the other porg growled.

Technically, I conquered this Base so it's mine! Kylo growled, as a tsunami of female porgs landed on him.

Mine!

Mine!

Mine!

Struggling under a pile of soft fluffy porgs, all of whom seemed to be trying to cuddle with him, Kylo felt as if he had truly landed in a parallel galaxy. He was probably going to get crushed...though the female porgs were rather lighter than they looked...but he had just outswam a shark and was not going down without fighting. There was no way he, Master of the Knights of Ren and apprentice to the Supreme Leader, was going to be smothered by a mountain of amorous female porgs! Flapping his wings urgently, he managed to squirm his way to get a mouthful of air and his eyes lighted on the solid shape blocking his way. The snarling male facing him was completely at odds with the entries on porgs in the database.

Male porgs, recognisable by the orange ring of feathers around the eyes, are not territorial and happily maintain nests directly adjacent to a rival. Mating displays for dominance include feather puffing and singing contests. Since porgs inhabit densely-populated colonies in precarious environments, they are not aggressive.

Desperately scrambling out from under a huge pile of extremely randy female porgs, Kylo found himself face to face with the snarling male once more. He could understand the confusion and difficulty with transferring from one species to another and a suspicion gripped him as he faced the aggressive porg.

You come far nest? he asked, inspecting the creature.

MY TERRITORY! the male porg snarled, backing up. Kylo glanced at the Base and then at the scrambling fluffy pile of female porgs, who were scuffling amid themselves to get at him. They nested on cliffs, not caves...and porgs preferred the open air. But a porg may prefer the ruined Base if it had been his home previously... There was only one way to test it.

No, MINE! he squawked and launched himself at the other porg.

-o0o-

"What's he doing?" Phasma murmured as she watched the black and white porg race past, pursued by a crowd of smaller brown and white porgs. Hux tried not to smirk.

"I believe he is being pursued by a crowd of female porgs," he said, watching Ren the porg vanish under a pile of scrabbling wannabe mates. Phasma stared at him.

"You mean...that Ren is irresistible to the female of the porg species?" she checked. Hux nodded, unable to speak.

"Yes," he managed, his voice an octave higher than usual. A very dishevelled black and white porg slowly emerged from under the pile of writhing females.

"You're recording this vid aren't you?" the Captain guessed.

"Yes," Hux managed in a strangled voice. "For future reference. And viewing. Excuse me, I must use the Fresher..." He swiftly rose and vanished into the cubicle, but even with the door closed, the Captain could hear the howls of laughter. The stormtroopers shared a look as the General emerged, his face straight once more. Phasma cast him a look that was smothered by her mask and then turned back to the screen. There appeared to be a fight going on.

"Of course, Ren would manage to get into a fight with the natives," Hux commented as the comm buzzed. "Hux," the General snapped.

"This is Grantz," a female voice acknowledged. "You asked me to report as soon as I had my report on your pet."

"Go ahead," Hux said, sitting down.

"Your porg carries a very dangerous pathogen," she reported without preamble. Hux started.

"WHAT?" he demanded, eyes narrowing. Everyone fell silent and stared at the General.

"Ostensibly, your pet appears to be a healthy male porg-for all his plumage colour is unusual and does not express the dimorphic orange eye rings normally seen in a male of the species," the scientist explained in her crisp, emotionless voice.

"You mean he looks like a female porg?" Hux checked. There were sniggers from the stormtroopers.

"Yes." Grantz sounded irritated and then resumed a lecturing tone. "However, biochemical, genetic and pathogenic analysis indicate he is anything but normal."

"You can say that again," Hux muttered under his breath.

"His biology is intermediate between porg documented norms and mammalian," Grantz continued. "His testosterone level is approximate for a human male."

"I'm sure Ren will be delighted to hear that," Hux murmured.

"But his bloodstream is infested with a virulent pathogen that has no corresponding entry in any known database. It appears to be a hyper-virulent retrovirus that once introduced into the bloodstream, causes a cascade reaction that changes every cell in the body and reconfigures the subject to...a porg."

"This pathogen causes a person to change into a porg?" Hux asked in shocked, staring at his hands. "How does it transfer?"

"It needs injection into the bloodstream," Grantz reported. "A bite would do it, provided it breaks the skin."

"Holding him wouldn't..." Hux checked.

"No-but I recommend that the beast is placed in quarantine and then euthanised and vaporised," Grantz told him.

"Is there a cure?" Hux demanded.

"Theoretically it would be possible to synthesise a therapeutic retrovirus that could reverse the process before it is complete," the scientist reported. "But there is a time frame. After approximate seventy two standard hours, the change becomes permanent and irreversible as there isn't enough native genetic code remaining to use as a template for reconstitution. And the cure would be more effective at an earlier stage where there are fewer cells transformed."

"Synthesise the cure immediately," Hux said coldly. "Commandeer whatever resources you require. I require an update in an hour."

"Acknowledged, sir," the scientist said and broke the connection. Hux glanced at the screen and the shape of Ren, which was rolling in the mud, growling and biting the other porg. Phasma leaned close.

"How long was it since he changed?" she murmured.

"It's forty-eight hours since he was attacked," the General said. "The window is closing. So we have to get him back to the shuttle under control and find a way to administer the care...without being bitten ourselves..." Phasma snorted.

"I believe he has a penchant for biting people," she commented.

"Then your job, Captain, is to find out who he has bitten and have them all quarantined before we have an epidemic of porgs on our hands!"