Well, they bundled me down the hallway pretty fast, and into a holding cell I went.

“You can stew here until we figure out how we’re gonna get rid of you,” said Trunc.

“Stew would be very nice,” I said. “My lunch keeps getting interrupted!”

“You’ll live,” said Trunc, “though maybe not for very long.” And then he laughed at his poor joke, and he left me alone without even a glass of water.

Despondent, I looked at the bag of blue puff cubes. They were pretty crumpled, after my unjust and very rough treatment by the Pakiphantos. What’s more, there was a hole in the wrapping where one of those pesky winged fur balls had torn it open with its little sharp teeth. At least half the contents of the package had been spilled.

This is just perfect, I thought. I am a prisoner. I have lost the Falcon. I am going to be put to death. And I never even got to have lunch.

I sat there for a while, wondering what I could do, while the Pakiphantos left to search and secure the Falcon. And then I had that feeling again, you know, of someone watching me.

I looked up, and there on the other side of my bars, it was that porg. The first one. The lunch thief. A fat little guy with orange plumage around his big eyes. He cocked his head to the side and looked at me—at least I thought it was a he—and then he kind of proo-proooed at me.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” I said. “Come to gloat at me in my misery?”

“Proo-prooo,” said the porg.

“Ah,” I said, looking where the big brown eyes were pointing. “You just want more puff cubes. You don’t care about old Hondo at all, you selfish creature. Well, you can go hungry.”

“Proo prooo proooo,” said the porg. And that time he looked all sad and mopey.

“Oh, stop it,” I said. “I can’t stand to see a porg cry. Even if I didn’t know what a porg was until this morning.”

So I tossed a puff cube through the bars. And he snapped it up so quick, he almost knocked it from the air.

I tossed another, and the little porg leapt to catch it, but in his enthusiasm he banged against the control panel to my cell.

That gave old Hondo an idea.

So I took a third puff cube, and I reached between the bars, and the porg shot into the air and snatched it out of my fingers.

“Not so fast, you greedy little puff ball!” I said. “That is not what I had in mind at all!”

So I was more careful with the next one. I kept my fist closed as I slipped my hand through the bars. And I tossed the puff cube just so.

The porg pounced after it. He bounced off the control panel. And I got a nice electric shock for my efforts.

“Wrong button!” I shouted. But I was happy. I knew the principle of my idea was sound.

So we tried again.

And again.

And again.

I got shocked a few more times. And I worried that maybe the little fellow was going to fill up on blue puff cubes. But I should not have worried. He was a bottomless pit for the stuff.

Finally, it happened.

I tossed a cube directly onto the correct touch button, and he lunged right at it.

And the bars to my cell slid open!

I was free!

Well, that changed my feelings about porgs considerably, I can tell you.

“Thank you, my little friend,” I called. And I gave him another blue puff cube. He puffed up at that and made another proo-prooo sound. “I’m going to call you Puffy,” I said. “Now let’s get out of here, Puffy. Quietly now.”

We tiptoed out into the corridor.

And there was a whole flock of porgs—all walking down the hallway with their fat little waddles. “Proo prooo prooooo,” they were cooing.

Well, they saw the bag of blue puff cubes and all leapt at me.

So then Hondo was running down the hallway in a cloud of flapping wings and the hungry squawks of plump little birdies.

“Hold it right there,” someone said. I pushed flying porgs aside, and I faced one of Trunc’s minions. She was raising her blaster.

I tossed a blue puff cube, not at the Pakiphantos but at a control panel. Puffy did his thing, and a blast door slammed into place with the Pakiphantos on the other side.

“Good Puffy!” I said. “Someone has earned another puff cube.”

Well, Hondo and his cloud of porgs made it to a weapons locker. And little Puffy, he just jumped at the panel without even being told.

Then I had a blaster.

After a moment’s reflection, I turned the setting to stun.

“I wouldn’t want you to see anything too upsetting,” I said to little Puffy.

And then we were creeping down the corridor toward the Falcon.

Or maybe I should say cheeping down the corridor, because the plump little brown-eyed birdies were making a huge amount of noise.

Two of Trunc’s gang heard us. But bdew-bdow I went. And down they fell.

Then the porgies ran them over, planting little porg feet on big Pakiphantos faces. And we were on our way.

As you might expect, I had to go bdew-bdow a few more times, and Puffy, he was crashing into every control panel he saw. If it was on the wall and it lit up, then he would smash into it with tremendous enthusiasm.

And all those other little porgies, they were doing the same thing. They had been watching my Puffy and learning. Soon they were flinging themselves into the control panels with wild abandon—and maybe not such good aim.

Blast doors were rising and lowering. Lights were blinking on and off. Alarms were sounding—whomp-whomp-whomp!

Obviously, this attracted some attention.

Two more of Trunc’s gang fired at us. And I had to run again.

Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn into the cockpit of their ship.

A Pakiphantos leapt up from the pilot’s chair.

I grabbed his trunk and yanked down on it, smashing his head into the dashboard of the ship.

“Sorry, my friend,” I said as he passed out. “But if you are going to walk around with such an obvious handle for a nose, someone is going to use it.”

But then the porgs washed over me. The cockpit dashboard—it was covered with so many shiny control panels to entice my hungry little friends! They were hopping and jumping all over the place, hurtling into everything that glowed or blinked.

Maneuvering thrusters began to fire up. I heard a hyperspace drive power up and power down. A shout deeper in the ship and a rush of air made me wonder if an airlock had been compromised.

Then someone screamed, “What have you done to my ship?”

I looked, and there was Trunc Adurmush. He was having to steady himself in the doorway of the cockpit, because the ship was rocking so badly.

I was standing in the middle of a swarm of porgs. A stunned Pakiphantos lay at my feet. And all the buttons in the cockpit of the rocking ship were going blinky-blink.

“I imagine this looks bad,” I said with a smile.

“What are you smiling for?” asked Trunc.

“Sometimes a smile is all you need to turn a frown upside down,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I’ll smile once I’ve peppered you with holes,” said Trunc. And then he pointed his blaster at me in a most unfriendly manner.

“Pepper?” I said. “That reminds me. You know, this never would have happened if you hadn’t interrupted my lunch.”

And then I held up the bag of blue puff cubes, and I tore it open in his face.

And all the little porgies leapt at him, prooing and proooing away.

“Get them off! Get them off!” screamed Trunc.

“Why, Trunc,” I said, “whatever is the matter?”

“Get them off!” he yelled again.

And then I realized.

“Are you afraid of birdies?” I asked.

“Yes!” he screamed amid a mass of wings. “Get. Them. Off!”

But I didn’t get them off. No, I shoved him aside, and I ran for the Falcon.

“Come on, my little friends,” I said. And the porgies all raced after me.

Again, we were running down the corridors. Bdew-bdow—the blaster bolts were flying behind us.

And we almost made it back to the Falcon. The ship was rocking so badly that I thought the little porgs must have messed with the high-mass electromagnetic gyroscopes. It also sounded like the ion engines and the retro-thrusters were firing in opposition to each other, trying to pull Adurmush’s ship apart.

Beside me flapped Puffy. But he was starting to look uncomfortable. In fact, the little guy was burping.

But right before I reached the Falcon, I slipped—on a stray puff cube, no less—and down I went.

And then Trunc appeared, standing over me—with his blaster pointed at my face.

“This is as far as you go, Hondo Ohnaka,” he said.

“If it is all the same to you,” I replied, “I would like to go just a little bit farther.”

“Nice try,” he said with a chuckle. “But I don’t think so. No, it’s time to put you out of my misery for good. Any last words?”

“Last words,” I said. “Let me think.”

If I was going to have last words, I needed to make them count. Then I looked up for inspiration, and I saw, perched all along the bulkheads, my little friends. Only they were all starting to look uncomfortable—gassy and maybe embarrassed.

“Only two,” I said.

“Two?” he asked, confused.

“Yes,” I said. “Two words.” And then I looked at the porgs over Trunc’s head, and I shouted my two words.

“Bombs away!”

“Bombs?” said Trunc, confused. “What are you talking about? You don’t have any bombs.”

“That is correct,” I said. “But they do. And I think I’ve been feeding them entirely too much today.”

Trunc turned to look where I indicated. And just at that moment, all those little porgies let loose at once, if you know what I mean.

It was like a fall of snow from the sky, if snow were very stinky and sticky and altogether unpleasant.

Splat, splat, splat, splat, splat!

And Trunc, he was screaming and yelling, bombarded by the remains of all those little porgies’ lunch. If he didn’t like the porgs before, he really didn’t like them then.

He set off running back toward his ship, and the ship was rocking terribly, and he was slipping in the ick.

And Hondo, oh, I was laughing so hard, but not so hard that I couldn’t release the docking clamps holding my ship.

And then, when they had finished their business, I raced with my feathered friends back to the Falcon.

Straight to the cockpit I went, and into hyperspace we jumped, leaving Trunc’s spaceship spinning out of control and, I am sure, in quite a messy state.

“Ha, ha,” I laughed with the porgs. “It looks like everything worked out in the end.”

Okay, that was a bad pun. I admit it. But I was free. The Falcon was mine. And I was heading to Batuu.

But I had a small pack of porgs following me everywhere I went.

“What to do with you, my little furry companions,” I said to them. “I must say, you are cute when someone gets to know you. Perhaps I could sell you as pets.”

Well, Puffy nipped my finger at that—just to let me know his opinion of my plan.

“Oh, you have sharp teeth for a birdy,” I said. “But I suppose that quashes the idea. Okay, Hondo promises no selling. I guess you’ve earned your place on the Falcon. Anyway, I think you’re going to love it on Batuu.”