Full Barrier Defense

[Jessica Med-Beq]

With the forces mobilized for the invasion of Tartarus being reallocated elsewhere in Silver Jedi space, and the threat of the Sith Empire putting forces on alert as far from Dromund Kaas or Lola Sayu as the Erediss system, Jessica realized that there was a need for her to perfect her defensive skillset. Especially since she knew that the Sith Empire did not wage ground warfare the way the Galactic Empire, the First Order or even the Contingency did. For all of their incompetence in the Machine's outer perimeter, they fought better in the later stages when the SJ was at the gates of the Machine itself, that is, Tartarus' capital). Away from the prying eyes of the GE, away from the frontlines, she prepared to meet with [member="Jairdain"] again. After rumors pertaining to her captivity at the hands of the SE and, later, captured on Ossus, she is back into the SJ fold. She turned to Jairdain across the frozen landscape of Eredenn Prime, where she went after spending a while on Jaminere:

"Jairdain! It has been so long! What happened to you? I will explain why I wanted to meet with you later"

 

[Jairdain]

It had been a short time since Jairdain had returned to the arms of the Silver Jedi. Even if she didn't follow the Jedi Code and instead fell back to the one of her people, they still welcomed her. There was a change in the young woman since the last time she had seen Jessica. When she asked for Jairdain to meet with her on Eredenn Prime, she knew she needed to go.

For once, she had certain skills Jessica didn't know and wanted to learn from her. In a way it was an opportunity to pay the Master back for the lesson she had been given when she was a padawan. Both had changed since that day, grown older and wiser maybe. Jairdain certainly had grown up some and carried herself with a great deal more confidence than she had then.

Jessica turned at her approach and greeted her rather enthusiastically. Giving Jessica a warm smile, she would actually attempt to hug the woman if she allowed it.

"It has been a very long time, Master Jessica. Since before you became a Jedi Master actually."

In asking what had happened to her, Jairdain raised one of her eyebrows, let out a sigh and then started speaking. She shared with Jessica all that happened to her since their last meeting. They had met briefly within the Dominion and Jessica might remember that. That was after her first capture. Speaking of her time with them and then her return to the Silver Jedi and subsequent series of events that lead to her capture and corruption by Krest, her experiences with the Sith. The skills she learned with them and how that Jedi Jessica had known fought back the entire time until beating and breaking her mind yet again.

At this point she fell silent for a moment before finishing her story, "it was then, in a confused and lost state on Ossus that I rejoined the Silver Jedi."

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"For the past year or so, most of my life was centered around the battlefield: the Rift campaign, Dromund Kaas, Ord Radama, Bimmisaari, Ossus, and finally Tartarus. I'll tell you this much: a theater-level command is something that is not trivial to hold, even less when the qualified command-level personnel is in short supply"

In nearly all of these instances, she was in command for an entire theater (contemporary literature usually considers a planetary campaign to have two theaters, one ground and one space, and a sector campaign multiplies the number of theaters by the number of planets in said campaign), about half the time on the ground and half the time in space. As much as qualified command-level personnel was in short supply among the Silver Jedi, it was even more of a problem among the Sith Empire, from what intelligence reports she had on the topic. Then again, for all the lean-ness of the command structure, or the bureaucracy, perhaps the Circle of Lords' toxicity or apathy towards the armed forces is one of the big reasons. Oh, Jessica would be ecstatic to feel [member="Jairdain"] once again, after all that happened to her then-apprentice before she was anointed as a Jedi Master (and that was prior to the Rift campaign). Yes, Jairdain has grown more powerful, wiser and also with more knowledge in tow. So, at the outskirts of Shard, one of the two settlements on Eredenn Prime, she got around to hugging Jera after hearing all the details of exactly what happened to her after they last met. She feels obliged to return the favor, and in many ways more than just one. Once the hugging was over, she began to explain the rationale between the request, hoping that Jera would understand the tactical and strategic doctrines of the various enemies the Silver Jedi faced, past and present:

"The main reason why I asked you to teach me Force-barrier and tutaminis is because my current Force-skillset just doesn't cut it if I am to deploy against the Sith Empire on the ground. It's not that I can't otherwise lead an army or a fleet to victory against them, my Force-skillset is just fine against the Galactic Empire or even the First Order, whose ground doctrines usually do not include forcing enemy commanders to duel. It's just that the Sith ground doctrine usually involves rushing in to engage enemy commanders, which makes me a high-priority target on a ground battlefield. That, even though they make use of vehicles, heavy weapons infantry or aircraft sparingly at best"

 

[Jairdain]

"It's too bad there will always be war, Master Jessica. Each of us have a role to play though and I hope I'll still be able to be more of a supporter than an actual fighter. Though the need to know how to fight is something that should be general knowledge."

Jairdain knew the basics and that was about it and then Form I that had been taught to her by Karl. That was before her capture and she wondered what had happened to him. So many people she didn't know of their fates while she was gone. In time she hoped to learn what had happened to these people. Marking Jessica off of the mental list she had, Jairdain turned her attention back to the Jedi Master.

"I never expected to share what I consider to be very important skills with somebody that wasn't my padawan. Thank you for giving me this chance to show you."

The sith did prefer to fight on the ground and Jessica had never been to engage in such activites. She had told Jairdain as much when they had their first training sesson. After the hug ended, Jairdain thought about best how to explain how to create a Force Barrier.

"Ok the way Force Barrier was taught to me was basically use the Force to create a shield around me. Now they are only generally able to withstand only a few shots before collapsing. It can also be used around other people...like this."

If Jessica would allow ​it, she would place a barrier around her body. It may provide the other woman an understanding of how to make it.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Now [member="Jairdain"] was making a Force-barrier around the two of them, for a short amount of time, with some of it touching their respective backs. She was reminded of how deflector shields worked: they projected energy around objects. Most of the time I will project both the ray and particle parts of shields, at least at the onset, but if I realize that a situation calls for just ray, or just particle shielding, I could potentially switch all the power of the Force-shield to one or the other, she thought, while she starts using more computational power to do what she is describing in thought. What she did now is to use the Force to project a shield in an area between the two, after Jair's Force-barrier faded. Might be able to protect against blasters, but only pistols at the beginning. Might be able to protect against shrapnel. But she does not expect the makeshift Force-barrier to last very long in combat. Once she is confident that she can actually put the Force-barrier to the test, she gave word to Jair that she could attempt to punch her in the face.

"Try to punch me in the face, just to make sure my Force-barrier works"

 

[Jairdain]

The knight observed through the Force how Jessica constructed her own barrier. Not too unlike her own, she didn't know if there was any visible sign of her own when she had it up. Depending on the user, they could appear in various manners or not even seen at all. She was now curious to know if one could see hers or not.

"Master Jessica, when I have my barrier up, can you see it? If you can, what does it look like?"

After a few tries, Jessica felt confident in her ability to block an attack and requested Jairdain to try and punch her in her face. Under normal circumstances she wouldn't have thought of doing this and looked at her in surprise.

"I don't think it quite works like that, Master Jessica. It might though. The barrier is meant to block more energy related attacks, like blasters shots or lightsabers. The worst that will happen is you may have a sore jaw for a few days."

She didn't mean to imply the barrier would not work, but Jairdain did not feel it was meant to block this form of attack. Raising a fisted hand up though, she would attempt to punch through the barrier erected by Jessica and aim her punch at the lower jaw of the master.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"It's just that I imagined two possible varieties of Force-barriers, one that protected against energy attacks and one that protected against physical objects. You're probably familiar with ray shields and particle shields; you're describing the ray shield variety as the more common Force-barrier variety"

And Jessica could feel that a punch is comparable to shrapnel, in terms of momentum and energy, but two objects with the same momenta could well have pretty different effects, depending on their mass vs. speed. [member="Jairdain"] would feel that her fist is hitting a particle shield just a few millimeters away from the lower jaw, but that the particle shield is being drained the longer the knight's fist was on it. Perhaps it is time to find our whether I can actually shunt between ray and particle Force-barriers in my head, she thought, while realizing that such an ability will be of use if she was to fight against the Sith Empire. Sure, reports from Lola Sayu indicated that their grunts were using blasters, but there's nothing preventing blaster bolts from creating shrapnel, which is where particle shielding would be useful. So she shifted gears and started by thinking of what made a ray shield, well, a ray shield, covering a rectangular, invisible rectangle in front of her, and visualized said ray shield being raised.

"Now that I know that the particle shield part of the Force-barrier works, if there is a method of ensuring that it will actually protect against energy-based attacks that you know of, I'm ready"

 

[Jairdain]

She was slightly surprised when her fist connected with the barrier, but was pleased to know it worked. Hearing what Jessica said next only made a little sense to her. Knowing the master did many space battles over that on the ground, Jairdain assumed she was speaking of ship shields and nodded.

"Just remember that barrier would only last a few hits. There might be different skills that would provide a stronger shield than what I know, but this is the only one I have knowledge of."

Jairdain knew it was a neutral skill, but she had learned it while with the Sith.

"How many Jedi know this skill, Master Jessica?"

If it wasn't something normally taught, perhaps she should take it upon herself to teach the padawans this skill, maybe even knights that didn't already know it.

Nodding as Jessica continued, she said she was prepared to test the barrier to see if she was able to block the more energy related attacks. She took her lightsaber off her belt and ignited her blade. A little nervous she was going to actually harm Jessica with her blade if the barrier didn't work, she flinched a little as she made a simple and slow slash at the right hip area of the other woman.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Not a whole lot, but I know a few that do" Jessica offered as an answer to how many Jedi knew Force-barrier.

These days, Jessica didn't keep track of the Jedi's skillsets too closely; while she might be near the top of the chain of command, most of the actual Jedi laid outside the chain of command. Presumably because of how uncommon command-level skill was among their ranks: success as even a mid-level officer, let alone flag-level, requires a different skillset from that of a duelist. That being said, Force-barrier being able to withstand only a handful of hits is probably enough for me: the gain in morale of leading from the front is not enough to justify such a risk to the Silver Jedi's C2, she thought, while interrupted by [member="Jairdain"] performing a slow slash at her right hip, which found itself hitting the Force-barrier and causing her body to heat up the longer the lightsaber was touching the Force-shield. Her skin was starting to show some Force-steam as the energy from the contact of the lightsaber with the Force-shield is being dissipated. Perhaps a Force-barrier is acting more like a combustion shield: while it might shrug off lesser threats, it does so at a cost of waste heat. Something just isn't right, she thought, while she starts to be running fevers.

"I don't think I can learn tutaminis without getting my body temperature back at a normal level first. I might want to wait a little bit to let my body cool off"

 

[Jairdain]

The answer that only a few Jedi knew how to use the barrier was a little of a surprise to Jairdain.

"Maybe I should try to teach a class on this at the temple. I did it for meditation at one point before Krest set out to capture me."

She had some success that day and some failure, but in the end each person had come out with a little bit more knowledge and could all at least communicate through telepathy. Another one of those fundamental skills all Force users should know, in her opinion.

After the barrier blocked her blade, Jairdain turned her saber off and listened to what Jessica had to say. With a small nod in understanding, she wondered why when she used the barrier like that it didn't effect her the same way.

"Master Jessica, why not try drawing in the energy next time and filling up your Force reserves?"

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Let's try this way around"

So Jairdain was advanced enough in Force-barrier to move past the combustion shielding stage, and into molecular shielding? she thought, while she heard [member="Jairdain"] describe molecular shielding. In a sense Eredenn Prime was a pretty good location for her to learn Force-barrier; fevers would dissipate faster because of Newton's cooldown law. But yet that was definitely a tie-in to tutaminis as she knew it: the whole point of tutaminis was to absorb energy. Now that she started shifting gears so that she could absorb the blade's energy still close to the right hip. The process isn't perfect, sure, but she could recharge her Force-shields that way. Her Force-batteries are being recharged so long as the blade was on the Force-shield. It's working... it's working! Now I feel that I'm ready to learn tutaminis, now I understand why I needed to get Force-barrier to that point! she thought, while becoming more ecstatic for each second she could keep the Force-barrier up.

"Is that different from a Force-barrier? Is that tutaminis? I'm a little confused. I understand there are similarities, however"

 

[Jairdain]

"Force Barrier is a skill that can used on more than just yourself. Tutaminis you can only apply to your body. Even that application is usually limited to your hands or arms. Also with Tutaminis you can't use it as a fuel for your Force like you can with the barrier. However, you can still draw the energy in, but you need to diffuse it or channel it away. Though I have heard you can use it fuel other active skills such as healing yourself, it isn't something I have tried."

There were multiple uses for the barrier and could be places on other people as well as providing the option to use the energy to fill in the Force reserves, it was a wonderful skill to know. She had used both in her career though and considered both as need to know skills.

"Tutaminis is only good against energy attacks like that of a saber or blaster. As you showed earlier, the barrier should be good against any form of attack. You can also place the barrier around an enemy and then cut off their air or find another way to halt their attack."

As she spoke, Jessica was cooling down and might be ready to try Tutaminis.

"With Tutaminis, you have several options of how to react with it. You can absorb the attack and redirect the channel into something else, like healing. Another option is doing a full reflect and sending the attack back to the person sending it at you or away from both parties if you so choose. Start with something on a small scale though and have a blaster fired at you."

It was just a suggestion, but if Jessica was unable to perform this skill, it would be easier to heal a blaster shot than a lightsaber strike.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"I expect to be facing either blaster-firing enemies but also enemies using Force-lightning. However, if I can use tutaminis on a blaster shot, I can also do it on somebody using Force-lightning"

Now that [member="Jairdain"] cleared up the confusion, perhaps Jessica was just overthinking about the common ground between Force-barrier and tutaminis a little too hard. Then again, she knew that what few Sith were in the chain of command tended to use Force-lightning when within point-blank range of a Jedi in combat. She also knew Jair could use Electric Judgment, and she wondered why didn't Jairdain offer to use Electric Judgment as a training tool instead. But she was confident that, if she could use tutaminis on a blaster whose yield was equivalent to a 10mm ripper, she could also do it on Force-lightning as projected by those Sith in the enemy chain of command or those other Sith whose roles were to engage Jedi in their own chain of command. She focused on her hand being some sort of energy racquet, ready to repel a blaster bolt coming her way. She never engaged in such dangerous training before, but she had to do it, for her own good, and ultimately for the good of the Order.

"Time for you to draw the blaster"

 

[Jairdain]

Almost as if Jairdain could read Jessica's thoughts, she did pull out the blaster she had brought with her for this purpose of training. As she walked a fair distance between them, she spoke what was on her mind.

"I chose not to use lightening or Electric Judgement yet because they are actually much more powerful than a single blaster shot. While the blaster may hit harder, it is all at once and not over the course of time like somebody channeling lightening at you."

Raising her hand holding the blaster, she took aim at the form she saw of Jessica and let off a single shot. Jairdain had aimed it at her torso and hoped she brought her hand up in time to intercept the shot.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"You're focusing on one of the two properties of tutaminis users: the burst. From what I've seen, there are these tutaminis users that can absorb a lot of energy all at once, but cannot do so for very long, and hence have good bursts but poor sustainment, and there are those tutaminis users who can keep going over the course of time but whose ability to absorb energy bursts is limited, that is, have good sustainment but poor bursts"

That was the kind of legwork Jessica did prior to coming to Eredenn Prime to learn the practical finer points of tutaminis. In her mind, the effectiveness of the energy racquet that is tutaminis depended on how much energy it could instantly redirect, as well as how long could it hold, respectively the burst and sustainment. That's two separate properties she'd need to watch out for in training. True, [member="Jairdain"] had a point that a blaster is very intense for a split-second, and that int P dt was going to be greater for the user redirecting Force-lightning. As she saw Jera fire off a blaster, she placed her hand near the area of the torso where she would expect the blaster to hit her, that is, right between her breasts, and the blaster bolt hit some sort of Force-racquet, reflecting it back to the boulder next to Jera. The boulder got a dent, and yes, she was able to redirect the bolt, but in no way can she take it as an indication that she will actually be able to use it against Sith, especially if the Sith Empire placed an "orc" type of Sith in charge against her, one of those types that will use Force-lightning at point-blank range before closing in with a lightsaber.

"Whether the ability to absorb a lot of energy at once in short bursts or the ability to sustain absorption of energy is important for you, depends on the sort of enemies you are expecting to fight. The former is important if you expect to fight blaster-armed enemies more often than you would enemies using Force-lightning, the latter is more important if you expect enemies to fight you with sustained streams of energy. Which one is your case?"

 

[Jairdain]

"You are correct, there are varying levels of a person's ability to perform Tutaminis. I would assume with more practice you could master both burst and sustainment. The more practice you get, the more power you will gain in the skill."

While it might sound like Jairdain was speaking like a sith and wanting to gain power, she didn't try to come across this way. Her time with them though had opened her eyes to great many things, power was one of them. She wanted more, but not to use it in an evil or bad way. However it was known the more power a person claimed, the more likely they were to go dark and corrupt.

Jessica then asked which form of Tutaminis she was more proficient in. Taking a moment to think about it, Jairdain was actually at a loss.

"I'm not sure. I have been able to do both with my people. Since I was banished though, I haven't needed to use it. When I did try, it ended up not being against an energy weapon and I was captured by Krest at that point. He had shot me with a dart, not a gun."

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"I guess, you're different from the potential audience of students that may be willing to, or need to, learn Force-barrier and tutaminis. Like me, you don't fight directly that much. However, most of the people with poor sustainment ability I've seen are often padawan-level users, because tutaminis drain Force-batteries"

So Jairdain had a limited experience of tutaminis? Better her than nothing, she thought. Now that she had an idea of how to go around training Force-barrier and tutaminis, Jessica also realized that those of the "high-burst, low-sustainment" variety were often padawans. It would be more straightforward for her to keep training the burst, knowing that the sustainment is, at least in part, easier to train if one had larger Force-batteries. To the extent [member="Jairdain"] know other Jedi, she might have a large audience for that sort of thing. I hope that Jair is comfortable being in front of a large audience, whatever large means in terms of Force-lessons, she thought, while acknowledging that it is not going to be easy for her, to bring their skills up to par. But for each Jessica, or Jairdain, for whom Force-barrier and tutaminis are skills that will see limited use at best, there are others like Eri, Kal, or even Jair's beloved Yuroic, for whom they might be regularly using those skills.

"I hope you're comfortable with large audiences for teaching these two skills, because we will need it"

 

[Jairdain]

"At least you and I both know we do better avoiding those front line activities."

This was said with a smile to take any sting out of the words, but Jairdain was fairly confident Jessica wouldn't take the comment in a negative manner. Since she had been with the sith, she had learned to speak more openly. More likely to point out faults or weaknesses and seeing them in others. In a way, their views had opened her mind to learning of ways to exploit them.

She also had a far greater understanding of her own weaknesses and wanted to get rid of them. Jessica wasn't the one to teach her that though. Jairdain did wonder what knowledge Jessica did have saber combat though. It was a weakness maybe they could work on together in the future.

Bringing her mind back to what was going on around her though, she listened to what the other woman said and let out a small snort of amusement. Her head shook in reply before speaking her mind.

"No, Master Jessica, I have no issues speaking in front of many people. It helps not being able to see them. I am happy to share what I know with anybody that wants to learn."

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Ah, there's so much to catch up between each other. I've had my successes in a command capacity, mostly ground ones. When I have to speak in front of large audiences, I usually try to be brief: that's what most audiences tend to prefer for those instances"

So stage fright was much less of an issue for [member="Jairdain"] than it would be for some other Jedi. Yet, sometimes, she knew that there was nothing to uplift a force's morale prior to a deployment. Like the early stages of the Tartarus campaign. Yes, she was able to see the campaign through to victory. But capturing the Machine was ultimately of little comfort since the Machine had to be evacuated shortly after the Contingency ceased hostilities in around the capital. Jairdain told about how she was captured by one Krest, one of those guys that attempted to disrupt negotiations on Charros IV prior to the invasion of the planet by the Galactic Empire. If Jair is more interested in talking about her own experience in captivity, perhaps she would be allowed for that afterward; after all, it's entirely possible that she may not be interested in hearing how she managed to win over the main Primeval army on Irn, the Resurgent Empire on Ord Radama (because RE-vs-SJ on Dromund Kaas was more of Soja's doing) or the Contingency on Tartarus.

"Is there a particular engagement you would like to learn more about, between the Rift campaign, Ord Radama or Tartarus?"

 

[Jairdain]

"Of course, be brief, but through in explanation. Allowing time to answer questions that might be there. One on one like this, there is all the time needed. In a classroom type setting, there isn't that much of a chance. Not everybody can get some skills easily and may need to have that one on one time at another time."

Jessica then asked if there were any engagements or battles she had an interest in learning more about. Many of them she knew only a little about and others she had been a part of. The Choloon Rift was of a little more interest than the others since that took place right around the time she had been captured and rescued by the Dominion. Not having been a part of that though, she only heard the barest of information on it.

"What is commanding a fleet like? I've sort of wanted to be a pilot, but my own ship doesn't have much for armament."

It might be a very broad question, but Jairdain had no clue how or what to ask for a more finite answer.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]