The Taming of the Blurrg
By Kudzu
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog"
Mark Twain
"You have got to be kidding me."
The nav-computer was looking decidedly bad; the number of calculations and micro-jumps required to get into the planetary space of the gas giant Endor was absolutely obscene. And yet, orders were orders.
Clone trooper CT-100/203 fastened his crash webbing. "Well, let's just hope that this old crate can make it," he said. "There have got to be easier ways to get mounts to clone for the Grand Army."
CT-100/204 shrugged and pulled the lever. The stars stretched into starlines and then they were in a swirling maelstrom of blue. "The Kaminoans wanted blurrgs, and the Republic scouts already on the Forest Moon got stoned to death by some native furry bears with mustachios," he said. "Strange story."
"Aye," 203 agreed with a perfunctory nod.
"Apparently these blurrg creatures are very suitable to genetic modification," his companion went on. "Their genes are easy to manipulate, and because they already grow to maturity very quickly, the growth acceleration methods will be even more effective on them than on most other animals of their size."
"And we've got to tame some of them."
"At least three," 204 nodded. "The Kaminoans want them alive and conscious, but tamed and docile so that they can also experiment with their brain patterns and try to squash those experiences into the modified genes."
"Sounds complicated," 203 muttered.
204 chuckled. "Aye."
The CR20-model Republic transport settled softly onto the forest floor of the Endor moon. The Endorian sun was just rising in the sky, and as CT-100/203 and CT-100/204 departed their carrier, they were shocked to see the beauty of it.
203 found his voice first. "It's certainly no Kamino, all right."
"Nor Geonosis," 204 agreed.
"That's probably a good thing," 203 said. Then something caught his eye, a quick flash across the ground like something white running through the undergrowth. "What's that?" he asked quickly, instinctively, raising his DC-15.
"What's what?"
203 looked around uneasily. I've got a bad feeling about this, he thought. "Just some animal or something," he said aloud. "Probably nothing to worry about."
204 nodded and pressed a button on his wrist bracer. A hologram of the topographical Endor map shimmered into vision, revolving slowly. 203 craned down to study it.
"Looks like we have a desert between us and the blurrg herds," 204 observed. "I wonder why our landing position was marked for here rather than over there."
203 didn't say anything for a few moments. "Well," he said at last, "we'd better get a move on, then."
204 didn't move; he was staring down at his blaster pistol holster. "It's gone," he said, sounding confused.
That flash of white went by again through the bushes, but this time, 203 was ready for it. One bright blue bolt sizzled through the air, and a cry went up that was almost immediately truncated. 203 stepped through the bushes and reached down to retrieve the shiny black blaster pistol from the grasp of a tiny lagomorphic critter, quite dead: a burn hole from the DC-15's blaster bolt went almost all the way through its furry body. He handed the blaster back to 204, who holstered it.
"Now we can go," the clone trooper said.
And so they walked, with heavy packs slung across their backs and on a world uninhabited by anything intelligent. They crossed the Riparian zone between desert and forest and soon they were just trekking, always in silence, across golden sand dunes.
And that was when CT-100/203 heard a noise.
"Erm…what was that?" he asked, looking around nervously with his rifle raised. Technically, clones were supposed to be utterly fearless, but that was only in theory.
204 raised a hand to his visor to shield it from the rays of the sun and peered into the horizon. "…Hmm," he said.
"Hmm what?" 203 snapped, wheeling.
204 absently tilted his rifle to check the charge indicator on its power pack as he replied impassively, "Well, there appears to be a massively tall humanoid approaching us at a dead run. Upon using the built-in magnification system to examine it in greater detail, it appears to be armed with some sort of giant spear and seems to have sharp and pointed teeth."
203 swore violently and grabbed his partner's arm. "We're here to tame the stupid blurrgs, not fight some giant primitive with a spear," he hissed. "Let's move!"
204 did not object, and matched 203's speed perfectly (unsurprising, as they were clones of the same man, and had trained together since childhood) as they ran for their lives from the thirty-meter-tall Gorax that was now pursuing them, roaring as it came.
"This is really, really great," 203 muttered, looking briefly over his shoulder. The giant Gorax was gaining on them. "Any bright ideas before we become that thing's lunch?"
"Morning snack. But here's one." 204 unclipped two of the thermal detonators from his belt and set them to activate on a timer, then simply tossed them behind the two of them.
"Nice idea," 203 said as they skidded into the forest's edge and looked back as the explosion blasted through the desert, obscuring the hungry Gorax from view. "Quite bright, too, if you pardon the pun."
"Pardoned," 204 grunted. "It's still alive, but it got toasted. Looks like it's going home now."
"Thank the Force," 203 sighed, turning back around to come face to face with -
A stuffed bear.
"Uh, Four?" he asked, bewildered.
"Yes?" 204 asked, still studying the desert landscape and evidently watching the retreating Gorax.
203 cocked his head and stared at the furry creature. "What the hell?"
"What the hell what?" 204 turned and immediately brought his rifle up to firing position. "Whoa!"
"Yub yub," the creature said. It made a chuffing noise, then rested its free paw on its crude wood-and-stone spear.
203 and 204 exchanged glances. "No mustachios," 203 pointed out.
"Point," conceded his brother.
"Still, though."
"What?"
"Family resemblance…?"
"We're ones to talk."
The Ewok regarded them curiously for another moment, then turned and began to trundle away. When it had gone about fifteen Human-sized paces (about fifty of his own), he turned back and beckoned animatedly with one of his paws, leaning on his spear. "Yub yub!" it said again.
"Endorian native animal life…" 204 muttered, ignoring the little thing and looking at a datapad. "Ewoks. Furry bear-like creatures, apparently at least semi-sentient, with a primitive and barely-developed culture on the Forest Moon. Evidently peaceable and trusting by nature, and generally non-hostile."
"I see," said 203, his eyes still fixed on the now impatiently stamping Ewok.
"Yub yub!" the Ewok cried stubbornly.
204 put the datapad back in his pocket beneath his thigh armor and turned to face the fuzzball again. "Think we ought to follow him?" he queried.
"Might as well," 203 said reluctantly.
They walked towards the Ewok, careful not to make any sudden moves. The Ewok chuffed again in a satisfied sort of way and began waddling through the forest again, clone troopers in tow.
They had been walking for some hours now, moving slowly as so to remain behind their Ewok guide. And they had seen no sign of blurrgs.
A few quick consultations of 204's holographic map evidenced that they seemed to be heading east, and as such they and the sun had simply passed each other right up. It was now late in the day and long, dark shadows stretched from the trees.
"Don't backpack much, do we?" 203 joked, breaking the long silence.
"Guess not."
Then, abruptly, the Ewok stopped. 203 froze, perplexed.
That was when he noticed the semicircle of gray humanoids, similar in appearance to the Ewok, but with…
Mustachios.
"Endorian native animal life," 204 breathed, raising his blaster rifle and glancing down at his ubiquitous datapad. "Duloks. Distant cousins to the Ewoks, apparently at least semi-sentient, with a primitive society comparable to the Ewoks technology-wise. Appear to be more warlike than the more passive Ewoks, and sometimes attempt to waylay passersby."
"Not good."
"You think?" 204 squeezed off a shot as the Duloks continued to advance, teeth bared and weapons brandished. It struck one of the furry menaces, dropping him immediately. The Duloks halted in their tracks, apparently petrified.
The clone troopers and Duloks stared into each others' visages for several long seconds. Then the Duloks charged.
The terrified little Ewok squealed and growled, lashing out at the Duloks with his primitive spear. The weapon worked surprisingly well, skewering one and slashing another's face nearly in two. The Duloks ran at the taller clone troopers, but 203 and 204 just kept firing round after round, letting none near.
One of the grey furballs picked up a rock from the ground and hurled it. It struck 204 squarely in the helmet, and he grunted and toppled backwards, stunned by the hit. 203 was amazed at the weakness of the armor against such a crude kinetic attack. Then he blasted the little fiend.
The Duloks were shot down one by one. And that's for my brothers who scouted here, 203 fired the vicious thought along with his last blaster bolt that sent the final Dulok survivor tumbling backwards with smoke pouring from his midsection. It felt so good to be the avenger.
204 clambered back to his feet. "That'll raise a lump," he remarked, patting his helmet carefully.
"Grr…woobli chuk! Yub yub!" the Ewok chirruped. The two clone troopers glanced back over at him.
"Yes?" 203 asked sweetly over the external helmet comm.
"Yub yub," the Ewok insisted, turning and beginning to walk away, clearly expecting them to follow.
And with a pair of sighs, they did.
Light danced in the treetops as two clone troopers and a diminutive Ewok approached. Night had fallen, but the Ewok village still bustled with activity, mothers putting their Woklings to bed and old hunters swapping stories of their exploits, still sitting around the cooking fire.
But of course, nobody from the Republic had ever really explored a treetop Ewok village before.
203 and 204 stood by, silent but tense as their guide chattered and gesticulated at two other Ewoks, iron-furred warriors with short-hafted heavy spears. The little creatures were so inhuman that to decipher the way that the conversation was going was practically impossible.
And it wasn't really even worth speculating about. 203 wanted nothing better than to simply get a long night's sleep and hope that nothing would wander by and decide to eat him.
At last, the little brown Ewok returned and motioned wildly, leading them over to a hollowed-out tree below the village. "Arr chok!" he told them. Then he trundled off, up the ramp into the tree village.
"Guess we're bunking here tonight, eh?" 203 commented.
204 grunted. "Guess so."
"I hate sleeping in this armor."
"Wouldn't be smart to go without," 204 countered.
203 sighed. "Good night, Four."
"'Night, Three."
203 curled up inside the tree and was asleep before he even realized that it wasn't a very comfortable position to be sleeping in.
When he woke up, he had cramps. He had more cramps than he could have possibly imagined, and they hurt.
"Hell," he groaned as his partner rose easily and stepped out of the hollow tree. "Feels like I'm so swollen that I can barely move."
"Toughen up, soldier," 204 advised him. "We have work to do today."
Yes. Work. Like finding, catching, and taming three blurrgs. Whoo-hoo. But 203 just said, "Aye, and I guess that we best get to it."
204 craned his head to look over at the village ramp as he slid his helmet on. "Great," he remarked dryly. "Here comes our Ewok friend."
And indeed, it was. "Yub yub!" the furry little pestilence exclaimed as it waddled towards them.
"What now?" 204 muttered.
The Ewok growled in a friendly sort of way, then did his enthusiastic beckoning thing again and began to head into the northwest.
"I hate following someone a third of my size," 204 said.
"I'll make sure to tell General Yoda that you said that." 203 studied his own holographic map. "This area up here is uncharted."
"That bodes excellently."
"Doesn't it, though?"
The little Ewok led them straight to a large hut in the middle of the dawn-lit forest, then let out another little chuff as if satisfied with itself. As the two clone troopers watched, a tiny old Ewok mystic emerged from the hut, swaying to and fro as he walked towards them, chanting something in Ewokese.
"What is going on here?" 203 wondered aloud. He grimaced and tried to massage his calves through his plasteel armor. It didn't work very well.
The Ewok shaman stopped right in front of their feet and stared up at them. 203 was struck at just how bizarrely scary the hollow-eyed creature looked.
"OK," 204 said. "That thing is officially freaking me out."
"You're a clone trooper," 203 shot back, amused. "You're not made to be freaked out, you're made to -"
"- serve the Galactic Republic in peace and in war; to defend its citizens from harm; to uphold its principles against defilement; to obey its leaders and his commanders; to lead the armies of the Galactic Republic into battle. That is my function," 204 finished.
By the time he had finished reciting his creed, the Ewok mystic had begun to sway back and forth and sing in a banshee-like wail once again.
"I hate this," 204 remarked unhappily.
But something else had drawn 203's attention. Behind the hut, he could see…
"Blurrgs," he said quietly.
204 looked sharply over at him. "Where?" he asked in an urgent voice.
"There." 203 pointed; the little old Ewok didn't even seem to notice the gesture.
"I see 'em," 204 affirmed. "Wait a minute." He paused, moving his head forward curiously. "They're…tethered."
Triumph surged through 203. "Blast this bantha fodder," he said happily, stepping past the Ewok towards them. The furry medicine man began to jabber angrily at him, but he ignored it.
204 stepped up to his side. "Ripe for the taking, then," he said with a shrug.
203 eyed the offended Ewok. "I don't suppose Muscles here could stop us too easily, so yes."
"For all intents and purposes," 204 agreed. "Shall we?"
The two clone brothers broke out into a dead run around the back of the hut. Four blurrgs were tethered there, passively chewing up the grass growing out of the brown soil. "Oh, good," 203 quipped. "He gets to keep one."
The blurrgs' tethers were freed from the hut in seconds, but just as 204 grabbed one of their makeshift leashes and 203, the other two, the irate Ewok shaman appeared around the side of the hut, hurling Ewokese epithets at them.
"I'd run," said 203.
"Good idea."
They ran.
Trakkit the Ewok gesticulated excitedly as he explained what had happened. Chief Aknow listened intently.
The shiny-white men! They came out of desert! Gorax fled in terror! Powerful warriors! They followed! Used blue-fire crossbows to kill Duloks! Trakkit brave warrior! Kill many Duloks! Shiny-white men and Trakkit came back to village! Shiny-white men slept in tree! Fun and wild night for Trakkit! Shiny-white men woke up when sun rise! Trakkit led to Wise One! They show disrespect to Wise One! Steal his animals! Shiny-white men cattle thieves!
War!
"Run!" 204 yelled, dragging his poor blurrg along behind him as he sprinted towards the desert. A whole army of enraged Ewoks was scurrying towards them, and 203's bad cramps were slowing them up; now the stout little beasts were beginning to catch up.
"Working on it," 203 panted, struggling to keep moving in his armor that now felt too small for him. His muscles ached and burned, crying out for oxygen.
"I suppose this is bad P.R. for the Republic," 204 gasped, trying desperately to coax his blurrg to match his haste; in contrast, 203 was being practically dragged along by his two.
"All the makings of a major diplomatic incident," 203 agreed.
"Wonder if that will ever come back to haunt us."
204's blurrg roared, and suddenly 203 had a quite excellent idea.
"We're going to be using these things as mounts, aren't we?" he asked.
"Yes, I suppose - hey…" 204 said slowly, catching on. He let out a piercing whistle, apparently more for show than for function, and stopped. He went up alongside the blurrg and stroked its flank gently.
"I'd hurry if I were you," 203 urged, watching the approaching horde anxiously.
"I'd get the hell on one of those blurrgs if I were you," 204 retorted, straddling his lizard mount.
203 sighed and uncomfortably got a leg up on one of the blurrg creatures, groaning from the pain in his leg muscles. He pulled himself up into a sitting position and bunched up the tether line to use as reigns. The other blurrg leash he kept a hold of. Not one of my better ideas, he thought ruefully.
"You ready yet?" 204 asked.
"As ever."
"Hiya!" 204 yelled over the external helmet comm, digging his heel into the blurrg's side. It took off at a surprisingly fast gallop. 203 let out a shout of his own and spurred his own blurrg. It grunted in an ornery way and didn't budge.
"Three…"
"Working on it!"
He could hear the cries of the Ewoks behind him now as he desperately tried to get his blurrg to move. Finally, he grabbed an enormous slug off of a nearby tree and tossed it out in front of the blurrg. It bolted for it, grabbed it in its mouth and gulped it down in midair, and kept right on going.
"Wait up, Four!"
They rode into the desert, two cavalrymen and a leashed mount, leaving the Ewok army literally behind in the dust.
"No wonder they had us land here," CT-100/203 remarked as they prodded the last of the trio of blurrgs into the cargo hold of the CR20 carrier transport.
"No kidding," his brother said. "Beware of locals." He snorted.
"Ah well." 203 looked around. "It's not like any civilized being will ever be coming back to this place again. We got what we needed."
"Aye."
"Still, though," 204 said, looking over his white-armored shoulder at the other clone as they ascended the ramp into the cockpit of the ship. "It's certainly something to tell the brothers about."
"It would make quite a story, wouldn't it," 203 agreed with a smile as they settled into their seats and prepped for takeoff. "The Taming of the Blurrg."
"Aye," 204 grinned. "The Taming of the Blurrg."