Fly Me to the Moon

[Zola]

Had she been born and raised on Hapes, she might have reminded Darth Adekos that a barb like that lobbed by a man against a woman could possibly have that insubordinate man imprisoned. However, Jemmila was adopted and raised in Wildspace, so she did not share any of the ingrained sexism of most Hapan women. Instead, she let out an offended little huff at Adekos’ innuendo. She was hardly in a position to complain about it, especially since she had no shame about her libidinous nature, but her emotions were running high after Adekos’ threat of incineration. Black storm clouds began to gather behind her eyes.

With a frown, Jem flicked off the training saber and let her arms fall to her sides.

“Perhaps you should give me one to handle then.” she said angrily. “Or do you not have the right equipment handy, Master Adekos?”

Her retort was a pretty low blow, but she figured if he could dish it it, he could surely take it. When her Master asked her if she had heard of Darth Millennial, his Acolyte nodded her head in affirmation.

“He was an ancestor to Darth Bane from what I remember from my Holotexts. A proponent of the Rule of the Strong and very powerful in precognition, possibly from the third eye he possessed as a mutant? He also proclaimed himself a Prophet. He was a very interesting study, My Lord.”

[member="Darth Adekos"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Jemmila Kyrgen"]

"Very good." He commended, ignoring her first response. "The first line of defense for any Force Sensitive, Jedi or not, is their ability to sense danger and predict the movement of their opponents. Millennial could glimpse into the far future and make prophecies based on these visions, such was his power. But the future is an ever-changing thing, and anyone of sound mind rejects such notions of total predestination as laughable."

He gestured to the door that Jemmila had come through, causing it to open. For a refreshing change of pace, there was an actual man standing on the other side. Flesh and blood, dressed in the familiar garb of an Imperial naval crewman. Sharp grey dress uniform, black cap. His physical appearance wasn't so much important as was what he was carrying. Namely, what looked like a small holdout blaster and a clunky looking helmet with a completely solid visor. Crewman Jones crossed the room wordlessly, gave Adekos the holdout blaster, and thrust the helmet quickly into Jemmila's hands before exiting at a quick-yet-courteous pace. There were likely several reasons Darth Adekos had chosen to have Jones deliver the tools for today's lesson rather than just bring them to the room himself. They were probably good reasons, too, but Darth Adekos didn't care to discuss them.

Darth Adekos turned the blaster over in his hands. It felt clunky and brutish to him, but he was confident in his ability to aim it. Probably.

"Since you will inevitably come into conflict with the few individuals you don't permit to molest you, you must learn to defend yourself with the Force Sensitive's weapon of choice- the lightsaber. But before we can do that, you must learn to utilize the Force to sense the world around you absent of your eyes and ears."

 

[Zola]

She had to admit, a pang of fear rose up within her when Darth Adekos was given a blaster. His anger towards her after she had been ushered off the stolen shuttle was so ferocious, she began to fret that he had changed his mind about executing her. Her chest caved with relief, when she was given a huge helmet that seemed a few sizes too large for her head. It was all part of the next exercise.

Jemmila took the clunky helmet from the stone-faced Imperial soldier and turned it over in her hands. She had seen head-wear such as this on Holos she had studied, the footage showed both Jedi and Sith practicing lightsaber drills, although those drills were done with droids and light stun bullets, not a still-simmering Sith Lord with a holdout blaster. Holding the lightsaber hilt in her hands she placed the helmet over her head, her vision blackened.

The Hapan held the saber in both hands, straightening out her arms in front of her, elbows slightly bent. As Jemmila was not a trained solider, her battle-posture could use some tweaking, but it wasn't the worst form ever.

"I'm assuming I can now activate my weapon, Master Adekos?"

[member="Darth Adekos"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Jemmila Kyrgen"]

Darth Adekos sensed that pang of fear as it rose up in Jemmila. That was starting to become a rather familiar feeling from her. It meant the training was working. Partially, anyway. Frankly that pang should have kept her from running off in the first place, but he couldn't win every battle. Something Adekos was reminded of every time he engaged in a duel... Maintaining his focus, the Umbaran leveled the hold-out blaster and aimed it at the far wall, to Jemmila's right. He squeezed off a shot, a little blue sphere no larger than a pea. It made a pathetic buzzing sound before impacting the wall and dissipating harmlessly. A minor stun bolt.

"If I were going to shoot you dead, I would have had one of the droids do it." Adekos informed her with a roll of his eyes. "Unless you intend to deflect blaster bolts with the hilt, I suggest you activate it, yes."

Finished condescending and demonstrating the type of weapon in play here, Adekos turned away from Jemmila and stood opposite of her, a good thirty or so feet away.

"Immerse yourself in the Force. Feel the area around you. And brace yourself."

 

[Zola]

Although Jemmila could not see, she was certain that her Master’s eyes were rolling. Flicking the button on the hilt of the pommel, her training saber hummed to life again. She could instantly feel a connection to the weapon, the Force energy coursing through her forearms. Even though it was only a training saber, it was a thrilling feeling, holding the activated plasma blade in her grip. Almost as thrilling that thing Darth Carach did with his…

Bzzt!

Jemmila’s shoulders hunched as she heard the buzz of the stun bolt impacting the wall. Panic rose up in her chest. It was only a stun bolt, after all, but the blindness of the helmet made her feel helpless, and the Hapan had to fight the urge to fling it to the floor and bolt. Maybe to a place that didn’t have people-sized incinerators and droids running around with cattle prods? Jemmila stood statue-still and tilted her head, listening carefully to Darth Adekos’ footfalls moving away from her. She concentrated on calling the Dark Side of the Force into her, letting its sinewy power mingle with every cell in her body, connecting the material with the ethereal. She was as ready as she ever would be.

[member="Darth Adekos"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Jemmila Kyrgen"]

Sensing the fear and panic rise within her almost made Adekos want to throw his head back and cackle like a movie villain. While Adekos perhaps wasn't the most respectable of the Sith, having far more losses on his combat record than wins, he was still beneath some actions. Cackling like a lunatic at the littlest of things just happened to be one of them. "You're scared. Good. Use it." Then came that familiar feeling of someone drawing on the darker side of the Force, gathering it up in preparation. If it were something that could be seen, Darth Adekos always imagined it as swirling storm clouds, their interiors infrequently lit by a bolt of lightning.

It was all rather cliche.

He took aim but, given that he wasn't much of a marksman, it was a very tenuous aim. Adekos decided he would start things off with as low a risk as possible. After all, he didn't want to potentially incapacitate Jemmila before they got anywhere. That hardly would have been a fitting second lesson. He leveled the blaster at her knee, then he waited exactly one minute in complete silence. If he waited any longer it would have lost its ability to raise her apprehension. Keeping her blind and waiting was a good way to keep her nervous. When was it coming? What was he waiting for? Where would he shoot? Did he really incinerate my clothes?

"Soon," "nothing," "the knee," and "no" were all the respective answers. At least, "the knee" in theory. When Adekos finally fired the weapon, the small little stun bolt shot towards her left shin instead of her right knee. This wasn't exactly a regular pistol, but rather one that had been jury-rigged. It shouldn't have come as much surprise that the recoil and aiming on this thing were abysmal.

 

[Zola]

“You’re scared. Good. Use it.” His voice rang out like a shot in the darkness. The man had sensed fear like a damn jackal, and she was slightly embarrassed by her vulnerability. It was the same fear she had spent all her life fighting, the same lack of control. She had never considered what would happen if you gave in.

Now that the Force oscillated through her veins, Jemmila could feel vibrations where there were none before. She stood at the shore of her fear and then dove into its waters, letting it drag her into the undertow. There were a few painful seconds where absolutely nothing happened, increasing her anxiety tenfold. Then the blaster shot came towards her knee. Impossibly, she could feel the exact amount of velocity as it traveled through the air towards her, and she swung her training saber downwards, deflecting it. It wasn’t the most graceful of parries, but it did the job.

[member="Darth Adekos"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Jemmila Kyrgen"]

"Adequate." Adekos commented, silently annoyed that the same couldn't be said for his aim. Not like she could tell with the visor on anyway.

"The lightsaber is a staple of any true Force User. It is an extension of ourselves. No droid nor man can wield a lightsaber to the same degree of skill as a Force User. In time, the feel of the blade and hilt will become less foreign to you. Once you've constructed your own and forged your own synthetic crystal, your knowledge of the weapon's intricacies will deepen your ability to wield it."

Some people described this as having a bond between themselves and the weapon. Laughable. It was at least understandable that people could bond with droids, but an inanimate object like a lightsaber? Poppycock. A lightsaber was just a weapon, albeit a more elegant one from a more civilized age. There was no bonding with it any more than there was bonding to be done with a food processing machine or a stapler. If that were true, surely if Adekos shot at Jemmila enough times with this holdout blaster, he would eventually want to name it. But that would never be the case, because while he may have been a terrible shot, he wasn't a fool. The Umbaran took aim again, this time for Jemmila's right shoulder, and squeezed off another shot. This time it flew mostly where it was intended.

 

[Zola]

Jemmila was fairly certain she had parried the first bolt. At least there was no burning pain in her leg that told her otherwise. When Darth Adekos rewarded her with his usual beaming vote of confidence, that confirmed it. For a brief moment, Master Adekos waxed on about lightsabers and the connection some Force users had with their weapons. That was timely, since the topic was one that she had been studying in the Machinator’s library before she escaped. Some described their bond as an extension of their own corporeal form. Jemmila liked the idea quite a bit. Although she could feel the Force flowing between herself and the training saber, right now, it felt a bit...common.

The idea of making her own lightsaber was a thrilling prospect. Perhaps Adekos would take her planetside for an adventure. She hoped it would be a long sojourn to find the lightsaber crystal in one of those spider-filled caves in Wildspace. Jem craved a more personal connection with the weapon almost as badly as she craved time away from the battleship's dark and claustrophobic corridors. Did Acolytes and Padawans ever name their lightsabers? She took a few moments to ponder a good name for hers.

Suddenly, Jemmila realized much too late that a blaster shot was flying towards her shoulder. She was just as late in lifting her saber to parry it, and her shoulder was painfully zapped by the stunbolt.

“Ow! Feth!”

[member="Darth Adekos"]

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Jemmila Kyrgen"]

There was a muted hmph of amusement from Adekos as his apprentice took the brunt of a stun bolt to the shoulder. Her immediate response was to yell and curse, which only amused Adekos even more. There were more severe punishments that could have been levied against acolytes who fled from their master. Vornskr was probably familiar with all of them and then several more mere mortals were never meant to know. Really, Darth Adekos could not help but compare himself to his more bloodthirsty colleague these days. It helped remind him that he held himself to certain standards.

"Stay focused. Learn to block the pain." Adekos squeezed off two shots with only a brief pause between them. "Losing your concentration in battle is tantamount to suicide."

The two blue bolts hurtled towards Jemmila once again. One was aimed to her left shoulder now, while the other one went wide from its intended target and would pass over her right shoulder if she didn't move to deflect it first. There was time to deflect both, depending on how long Jemmila allowed herself to be caught up in her pain.