Chapter Sixteen
Two days later, the Redemption made its final course correction and began the final leg of its journey back to Coruscant. Michelle met Ryu in the same gym where they had sparred. Ryu was waiting there with a metal carry-case similar to a Starfleet issue emergency medical kit. After a light warm up and simple shadow spar with her cousin, Michelle asked, "So what's on the training plan for today Ryu?" He said, "Now that you've started to open yourself to the Force, its time for your first lightsaber lesson."
"What do I do first then? She asked. Ryu opened up the case at his feet and withdrew an orb that was about the size of a cantaloupe and studded with needle-like projections over it. He said, "This device is called a training remote. It's used in all manner of training scenarios. It will hover around you and fire stingers beams at you in random sequences. None of these stingers is more than annoying, but it will help you to learn how to focus past distraction. Your job is to block the bolts with your lightsaber. I know that you've done a little practicing in your room because Warbler has been complaining to me about the repeated maintenance requests for small furniture items from the main computer."
Michelle's face reddened a little but she didn't try to deny it. Ryu said, "It's all right. My first attempts at saber handling were pretty pathetic so I'm not going to say anything further on the issue." Ryu tossed the globe into the air. Its miniaturized repulsorlifts clicked on as it performed a series of simple maneuvers as part of its diagnostic routine. When it stopped moving, it was floating next to Ryu's head. He said, "Command, level 1 difficulty. Begin." The seeker zipped in and fired a few bolts that Michelle dodged. As she did so, she drew the lightsaber from her belt, the one that had once belonged to her uncle, activated its red blade and took a defensive stance.
At first, Michelle over-compensated the parry motions since the only weight from a lightsaber was in the handle, and was stung several times. As she began to adapt though, her technique became a little cleaner, a little more certain but still very much in need of detailed instruction. After being stung for the tenth time, she dropped her guard a little too much and the seeker swung around and fired a double bolt into the backs of both legs, causing her to collapse to the floor. As she dropped the saber, the safeties in the handle deactivated the blade before it could damage the floor and the seeker resumed a neutral position in the air next to Ryu.
As she sat there and rubbed the feeling back into her legs, Ryu came over to her, knelt down to be on the same eye level as her and said, "The same exact thing happened to me when I first started my saber training but I was still a little boy at the time." She asked, "What happened then?" He said, "My father dried my tears of frustration and said something to me that his teacher told him." "And that was?" She asked. He answered, "My dad said to me, 'Your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them', at which point he gave me my first headband. In your case though, I have something else that will perform the same function."
Turning back to the carry case, Michelle only then noticed the helmet that sat next to it. As she stood up and picked her lightsaber up off the floor, Ryu walked over to her and put the helmet on her head. Michelle's eyes were suddenly blocked completely as she said, "With the blast shield down, how can I see to fight?" Ryu said, "With the Force. Always remember that but for very few exceptions, the Force is omnipresent. It can be felt as something and as nothing at the same time." Michelle said, "You mean it controls your actions?" He said, "Partially, but it also obeys your commands. Now, do it again; this time, stretch out with your feelings and act on instinct."
Michelle reactivated her saber and raised it back to guard. As the seeker resumed motion, it hummed and flew around looking for the most effective target. Michelle started to track it by its sound through the air but was rewarded with another stinging bolt to her posterior. She took a deep breath and relaxed just as Ryu had instructed her and stretched out with her feelings. Seemingly, in her mind's eye, she saw it move up and to her high right. Raising her blade she felt a minute impact on the blade. Seconds later, in her mind's eye, she saw it perform a complicated series of motions, high to the left, low right, back to high right, over to low left and finally high center, firing each time. Each time she felt the tiny impact on the blade instead of her flesh.
After the final bolt was blocked against the blade horizontally, she let out the breath she didn't know she was holding. In the darkness before her eyes, she heard Ryu's voice saying, "You see . . . you can do it."
Meanwhile, in another part of the ship, Deanna and Armis were talking. "What do you know of telekinesis and its related abilities Deanna?" Armis asked her. She said, "Well, I've seen you summon objects to your hand from just over a meter away. After you left the Enterprise D to return to your home, Worf once told me of the things you did while working with him on the holo-deck. Flips and rolls, other assorted things that only the most skilled of acrobats or people from heavy gravity worlds in the Federation can do. Why do you ask?" Armis answered, "Since the majority of the training you received to be a Counselor focused on your empathic abilities, this will be a case of 'unlearning what you have learned'. I've already felt your mind opening to the Force and I'm sure you've noticed the related boost in your empathic talents?" When she nodded, he took a small metal box out of a pocket in his robes, set it on a table across the room from them both and said, "Start by opening yourself to the Force and visualize the box you see on the table over there. Look at it, expand your senses. Feel the box. Feel where it occupies space. When you've done that, visualize reaching out for it with your hand but don't walk over to it. This may take some getting used to since you were probably never told that telekinesis is similar to empathy in the way its mentally comprehended. Now, do you see the box? Do you feel it in your awareness?"
When Deanna nodded yes, Armis said, "Now reach out and pick it up. Just do it. Don't think about it, don't ponder it, just do it." As she focused and did as she was told, the box sat there unmoving at first. Armis could feel the Force being manipulated but realized that she was trying too hard. He said, "I'm going to tell you something now that you will hear so much through the course of your training that you'll probably become sick of it; something that Ronin's teacher said to him on many occasions. Ronin in turn said it to his wife when he started to train her, and they both said to Ryu as they started his training, 'Do or do not, there is no try'. Deanna took a breath and looking within, realized what Armis was telling her. Adjusting her perception of the box on the table, it began to slide across the table at first in fits and spurts, then suddenly as if thrown; it flew across the room so fast that only Armis's catching it prevented it from smacking her in the forehead.
Looking at Deanna, Armis used the Force to put the box back on the table and said, "You see . . . you can do it. Now, do it again but use a little more control this time okay? You put so much into that exercise that if I hadn't caught it and/or you avoided it, there would be a sizable dent in your forehead or in the bulkhead behind you." Smiling rather sheepishly, she nodded and resumed the exercise.
Still elsewhere on the Redemption, Jean-Luc and Beverly both were finishing there first Galactic Standard writing and comprehension exams with Emerald looking on impartially. After going over their flimsiplast sheets she said, "You are both making marvelous progress in your learning of Basic but need a little more work on punctuation and contextual spelling. Still though, for having been raised in a completely different writing system, you're both progressing well. That will be all for today. Is there anything else I can help you with?" Beverly spoke, "Emmee, how is it that you're sentient yet still acknowledge that you are property to be bought, sold and owned on a whim? Do you ever feel, I don't know, used somehow?" Emerald's head turned toward Beverly and said, "Not at all Mistress Beverly. My purpose is to serve. If I had no owner, what use would there be in my existence in the first place? In my assignments with the Diplomatic Corps., I have encountered, on rare occasion a free or manumitted droid. Speaking only for myself, I would not want to be manumitted. I have no better explanation for it than simply it is what it is. I am happy to have a purpose in my function. I once met See Threepio, the protocol unit of the Jedi Knight Leia Organa-Solo, sister to the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. By the time he and R2-D2 had been bought by Own and Beru Lars and upon their untimely shutdown, passed into Master Skywalker's ownership, they both had been active for so long with no recent memory wipes that their personalities and that of Master Skywalker complimented each other very, very well. See Threepio and his astromech counterpart, R2-D2 had once been the property of Master Skywalker and Mistress Leia's birth father the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and what was believed to be their birth mother Padme Amidala. Upon entering the service of their children, some kind of isolated memory was triggered and restored to them both and they freely chose to stay with the children of their prior owners. This proved to be especially fortuitous as that it was also only recently that a record-keeper in the clergy archives on the planet of Naboo discovered the actual marriage certificate of Anakin Skywlker and Padme Amidala-Skywalker.
Jean-Luc who had listened closely said, "Why was it only just recently discovered Emerald?" Emerald turned her head to Picard and said, "In the days of the Old Republic, it was forbidden for Jedi Knights to marry although there have been rare exceptions of which I have no detail on at this time. You would have to ask the Jedi Historian Dieter Jayks-Bree for that information. Also at that time, Padme Amidala-Skywalker was the Senator for the planet of Naboo. It would have created a scandal that might have shaken the very foundations of the Jedi Order of the time. With the Clone War on the verge of engulfing our entire galaxy, it would have been a very bad time for one of the Jedi's greatest heroes and one the Senate's most valued diplomats stripped of their positions and censured or worse, cast out of their respective callings. Fortunately, when Master Luke Skywalker reformed the Jedi Council, he did not even consider forbidding marriage and family to the members of the new Jedi Order, especially as that he himself was a husband and father as were several of his first students." Jean-Luc and Beverly thanked Emerald for the information and dismissed her to other duties of the moment. When Emerald had left, Beverly said, "Well Jean-Luc, I think we've been otherwise occupied long enough. Let's go find a gym facility and get a solid workout in and then turn in early tonight. According to the last message that Commander Mythril relayed to us, we should be arriving on Coruscant tomorrow. After we get there, we'll both be too busy to get much exercise in. You with your Ambassadorial duties and I with my medical and science information exchange program to get coordinated and started."
Picard smiled and said, "You're the doctor, Doctor. Let's make it so."