"Umm, John?"
"Yeah, Delia?" I asked even as I focused on welding a hook to the wall.
"If the ship always had this extra space above and below the halls and the mess… Why are you only setting it up to hold cargo now?"
"Because I was already over budget and the cargo elevator to bring things up or down would have made things worse. Since there wasn't anyone else on board, I had plenty of room before. With you three along now though it's getting cramped. And that's not even counting passengers." Damn but those kids were noisy. I hadn't even thought to ask about the age of the family's kids when they booked their flight.
"Luckily, I'd basically paid off the ship already, so between our passenger's charter money, the ad revenue from my videos, and whatever the banks might be willing to loan us we should be able to get that installed now. It'll have to go where the mess is now, but with all this new storage space we can turn one of the cargo holds into a larger more comfortable mess. Give us all a bit of room to spread out. Though getting back to hauling cargo instead of people should do wonders for our space issues all on its own."
I'd hated leaving so much cargo space unused, but the only alternative would have been raising and lowering two sizable holds worth of cargo with the Force. Not beyond my ability, but certainly tiring, never mind the kind of attention it would have brought me. Playing the long game had just been more practical in the end.
"Could we turn the other cargo room on the main floor into a training room?" Delia asked, "There's only enough space in my cabin for stretches and running laps is alright, but I kind of want enough space to actually practice the Matukai forms. Plus, you and Obi-Wan could spar whenever!"
The unspoken 'and me as soon as you show me how to make a lightsaber' went unsaid, but I heard it anyway.
Rocking back on my feet till I could slide down the wall to my back I took the time to seriously consider the idea. Finally installing the service elevator would more than double the Arcane Knowledge's cargo capacity. Keeping one of the main floor cargo holds would mean an even larger profit margin. A necessity given that I now had to pay three salaries in addition to my own and keep the ship running. Turning the port hold into a mess hall with a game table would more than triple the size of the room we used for eating and relaxing. And that still left the couch and entertainment center before the cockpit. With just four of us on board that would be more than enough space for everyone to spread out and stop tripping over each other.
The idea of having a dedicated space for physical training was still tempting though…. Maybe I could just find some tables and chairs that folded into the wall? The cooking and cleaning stations would still take up a bit of room after that, but we would have enough space for some more serious exorcise that way…
"We'll see." I finally answered. "I think I've got an idea about how to make our new mess double as a training room. I don't want to lose that extra cargo space." After all, with the crew quarters finally getting used for their real purpose I hadn't been able to stock up on alcohol to sell on the side. And our destination made spirits sought after by those of discerning taste the whole galaxy over. If I had anything to say about it, we'd be leaving with the starboard cargo hold packed full of brandy.
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Obi-Wan was watching the proceedings with uncertainty. I was just bemused. The reason being that Anakin had offered to try coaching Delia through meditation when I'd needed to put her off to make a small repair. I'd told the parents to keep their kids from poking the ship's computer, so naturally they hadn't listened. Now I was adding the cost of the replacement part one of the little monsters had jammed a crayon into to their bill. The two had decided to retreat to the upper storage compartment I'd finally finished prepping.
It might have started as meditation an hour ago, but clearly the two of them had gotten bored with that and moved on to something else.
"Here, try and feel what I'm doing." Anakin suggested and he caused a small force push just to her left.
"Do that again?" Delia asked with a frown. Anakin obliged by repeating the effect, this time Delia's head snapped to the side following the small surge generated by Anakin's light Force Push.
"I felt that!"
"Seems like you two are making some progress." I called out drawing the teens attention to Obi-Wan and I.
Anakin blushed lightly when he realized he had an audience. Delia just smiled sunnily.
"Yeah, Anakin's a pretty good teacher." The boy blushed further at the praise.
"Glad to hear it, but we came looking to let you know dinner's ready." I smiled lightly as I added a developing crush to the list of things I could tease Anakin about. Granted I wasn't sure just yet. I'd have to keep an eye out for wandering eyes if I wanted to confirm my suspicion.
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Anakin and Obi-Wan watched my new lesson with rapt attention. Delia did as well but that was to be expected, given I was actually instructing her. I placed a lit candle in front of each of us. R3 was off to the side recording. This was a good entry level lesson on how to meditate on emotion, and an even better exercise on learning to control them. Given Delia was getting to the point where she could sense the Force, and I'd already done a video on what the Jedi would consider standard meditation, as well as the Matukai moving meditation... It was time to give the overachievers an exercise that would let them really see what I was talking about when I mentioned the risks of the Dark Side.
"I picked this up from a small Force sect I managed to stumble across following rumors of witchcraft on a planet in the outer rim. They were… odd. None of them really had a genuinely strong connection to the Force, but they could pool their abilities to enhance the natural properties of herbal medicines to something genuinely effective… Or to lay sicknesses on people who offended them. They weren't willing to teach me any of that, and I kind of thought it would be a waste of time to learn herbalism since it would only be useful on that one planet. I did manage to observe their favored method of meditation." I gestured to the candles.
"Now, the candles they used were made with special plants they believed enhanced their connection to the Force. I don't have any of those plants, but I've found the style of meditation genuinely useful for learning to balance the Light and Dark sides of the Force."
I closed my eyes and settled myself into the familiar cross legged position.
"Reach out and feel the candle's flame. Feel how it spikes and recedes, how every stray breath of air causes it to flicker and twist. It has its own rhythm, its own heartbeat if you will. If you feed energy into the flame, feed emotion into it…" I fed a bare hint of anger into the Force. My candle's flame grew from a modest inch high spark to a six inch flame. It actually put off enough heat to be easily felt now. "Power and energy," I forced my voice to stay level and calm in spite of the boosted emotions the Force was pushing into me, "but at a cost. See how much more quickly the candle burns. It burns so much more fiercely, but if it continues to burn so hotly it won't burn for nearly as long as it could."
I opened my eyes and looked my student in the eye. She was visibly nervous. Anakin looked much the same as Delia, Obi-Wan was visibly fighting not to draw his lightsaber.
"Using the Dark Side of the Force doesn't cost us the same way, but it's risky. Like I explained before, if you lose yourself, if you let those emotions control you?" I fed still more anger and energy into the candle. The flame spiked to a full foot, and it threw out enough heat to be uncomfortable. The flame seemed to snap and snarl in random directions almost as if the fire itself was trying to lash out at the world around it. It burned like that for maybe twenty seconds before the flame consumed all of its wax and guttered out. "Then just like the candle, you too will go out in a blaze." The smirk on my face was maybe a touch darker than it would have been had I not been drawing on such a negative emotion, but that just served to highlight the importance of the lesson.
I reached to the side and picked up another candle which I lit and placed before myself.
"That was anger. A negative emotion, and easily one of the most dangerous to draw on. Now I'm going to purge myself of those effects and center myself back in the Light Side of the Force. Watch the effect it has on the candle." After a bare moment spent struggling with my anger, I immersed myself fully in the Light Side of the Force. The candles flickering flame followed my emotions. Stabilizing until it burned low and cool. Only a half inch flame, cool, controlled and unnaturally stable. It did not so much as flicker or spike, staying a constant size, temperature and brightness.
"Now I'm going to feed a more positive emotion into the flame. Let's use… hmm, how about playfulness. A more complex emotion than anger, but generally a positive one unless you slip into malicious pranks or something."
The candle flame grew, fluctuating between maybe two and four inches, it flickered and danced even seeming to spin and curl. I grinned cheekily at my student.
"The flame reacts to what you feed into it. This form of meditation serves a number of purposes. It teaches you how to moderate the amount of emotion and power you feed into the Force. It gives you a visible example of the effects those emotions have, something you can associate with them to reinforce the lesson. It also serves as a good way to practice controlling those emotions. First draw on an emotion," I gestured to the still dancing candle, "then draw it back and center yourself in the Light Side of the Force." It took a moment for the flame to return to the tiny controlled spark that denoted the Light Side of the Force.
"Emotion and Logic. Action and Restraint. You have both, you are both. Don't deny either, but don't let either consume you. Balance is a struggle, a journey, but it has its own rewards." I smiled the serene smile of someone surrounded by the sense of peace that the Light side of the Force brought with it.
"Alright, Delia, give it a try."
The girl closed her eyes and focused. It took a moment but the flame grew to almost seven inches and put off a respectable amount of heat, but unlike when I had channeled anger her flame burned with as consistently as if she was drawing on the Light Side of the Force.
"Love." I'd seen the effect myself. "Familial love specifically." I could also feel it as she radiated the emotion into the Force. "Try and reduce how much power you put into the flame, Delia. Part of the idea is to make the candle last." The flame shrank slightly, but maintained its properties. "Good. Now reach for the Light Side of the Force. Those are your emotions, they are real and important, you aren't getting rid of them. Just setting them aside."
It took a few minutes in which the size and temperature of the flame fluctuated wildly, but eventually she succeeded and her flame matched my own. She glanced up at me with a tentative smile.
"Well done. Now it's just a matter of practice and speed."
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"Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking." I spoke over the ship's intercom. "We are now making our final approach to Corellia. Please be ready to depart in roughly fifteen minutes."
Corellia, home of countless smugglers, Corellian Brandy, Coresec, and the Green Jedi. The Green Jedi were considered Heretics by the Coruscant Jedi. Of course, the fact that the few Green Jedi I'd met thought I was a heretic meant I was even further off the reservation then they were. But after weeks spent in my company, I was seriously hoping the Green Jedi would be something Obi-Wan could relate too and hopefully chip away a bit at his adherence to the Coruscant teachings he had grown up with.
I was too out there, too extreme, for him to be comfortable with. But the Corellian Jedi didn't draw on their emotions. They acknowledged them. They lived with them. But they didn't use them. Hopefully that more moderate stance would resonate better with Obi-Wan. It also might be nice to see if I could convince one of them to do a video explaining their stance to the wider galaxy.
Better still the Arcane Knowledge was from the Corellian shipyards, so this was the best place to get it worked on and the local Brandy was the envy of the galaxy. Yes, with any luck this would be an extremely profitable all around.
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Obi-Wan had declared his intention to stay on the ship and meditate in peace, so that left the teens and I to take care of some immediate concerns like restocking supplies, and getting a quote for the work I wanted done. We were heading back to the ship when Anakin surprised all of us, possibly including himself if the look on his face was anything to go by.
"Uhm, Delia? Would you want to get dinner later?" the blushing teen asked out of the blue.
"Like a date?"
"Yes?"
"Awwww." Delia swooped up to his side and pulled the boy into a one armed hug. "I'm flattered, really, but I like girls too." She chirped. "Don't worry though, you can be my wingman!"
Anakin, still blushing, and now also sputtering managed to look indignant at the suggestion.
"Why am I your wingman?"
"Because I'm the people person!" She declared, "Besides, I'll use you to weed out the straight girls!"
Anakin did a rather impressive fish out of water impression for a few seconds.
"Ok?"
I managed to keep my amusement restrained to some quiet chuckles as Delia started to outline a not terrible plan for the two of them to pick up girls at a local swoop bike race we'd seen being advertised. I'd admit I hadn't seen that coming but at least now I wouldn't need to worry about any drama between the two of them.
"Come on you two, you can finish plotting after we get this stuff put away." I called over my shoulder to the lagging pair.
Yup, our stay on Corellia was going to be all kinds of interesting.