Jax smiled a little, seeing the brief flashes of memory that accompanied the telepathic words of his friend. He was glad that it seemed to be working.<span style="font-style: italic">“I rather enjoyed the lightsaber training,”</span>he admitted. He had enjoyed teaching them to meditate, but he thought that teaching them how to properly handle lightsaber combat, including keeping their minds and hearts clear in battle was very important. After all, battles were intense, and it was easy to allow yourself to be distracted or to let emotions overwhelm you. These things affected how one fought and giving in to intense emotions during a battle would be a step in the wrong direction—a step towards the Dark Side.<br/><br/>He was a little surprised when Jek asked him to teach him to fly the ship. He wasn’t opposed to it, though. Knowing how to fly a ship was a good skill to have, and it may very well come in handy on their mission.<span style="font-style: italic">“Yes, of course,”</span>he replied. He nodded when Jek suggested that using telepathy this way might help them to master it.<span style="font-style: italic">“Good idea,”</span>he agreed. It would give them a lot of practice to try to use telepathy for as much of their communication as possible. It might eventually get tiring, but that was nothing that the two of them were not used to.<br/><br/>After Jek had placed the book behind him and leaned forward, seeming ready to learn, Jax started to explain the basics, going over what each of the various buttons, levels, switches, and so on would do. He explained everything slowly and in detail, giving the other man time to ask questions if needed. Once he thought that Jek had most of it down, he quizzed him on a few things such as how to start the engines, jump to hyperspace, raise the shields, put in coordinates, set the autopilots, and so on. He didn’t cover any more advanced concepts like routing power, wanting to make sure he got the main things down before delving into any of that stuff.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">“Alright. That covers the basics of what you need to know before you can fly,”</span>he told him without words.<span style="font-style: italic">“Every ship is a little different,” he added, taking the sentence in pieces, [i] “But you can figure them out if you know the basics,”</span>he explained before moving on.<span style="font-style: italic">“This is how you steer,”</span>he said, patting the controls in front of him, maneuvering the controls a bit to demonstrate, although the ship was on autopilot in hyperspace, so it did nothing to actually alter the course of the ship.<span style="font-style: italic">“And these control speed,”</span>he pointed to nearby levels, but did not demonstrate this time.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">“Do you want to drop out of hyperspace and give it a try?”</span>he wondered,<span style="font-style: italic">“Or wait until we reach our destination?”</span>he asked, continuing to use telepathy rather than words. He wouldn’t mind dropping out of hyperspace in a safe and non-occupied space to give him a chance to play around with the controls a bit, since they didn’t have the luxury of a simulator at the moment. But if he wished to wait until they reached their destination, he could still give it a try before they made their approach to the planet.<br/><br/>--------------------------------------<br/>Aeris chuckled, “Perhaps you are not wrong,” she had answered before attacking again. When the other woman had flipped away, she had made no move to stop her, and when the Force push came, she was pushed back, but rather than fighting with the push, she used the momentum and flipped backwards, landing prepped to push-off again and launch her next strike. Before she pushed off, however, the other woman called out and asked for a moment. Aeris altered her pose into a defensive Djem So pose, blocking the incoming blaster bolts and fighting the urge to deflect them back at the droids, as she didn’t wish to destroy the droids.<br/><br/>After a moment, An-Lok flipped over the barricade and resumed her assault using Juyo. Aeris opted to continue using Djem So, blocking and parrying her opponent’s strikes, immediately counterattacking the moment she had an opening, using the force of the blocked blows in her favor. She carefully watched the other Sith’s movements as she flipped and rolled around her, trying to send false movements through their bond to trick her. Aeris was, however, not the same youngling she had been before. She did not rely so heavily on her abilities as she once had, instead using all of her sense, paying attention to the smallest details such as a slight tensing of muscles that would tell her what the next move would be, as well as her own battle-sharpened intuition to aid her in predicting and responding to attacks.<br/><br/>She employed one of the main principles of Djem So and used every attack, push, or pull to her advantage, using the force or momentum that they provided to launch her own counterattack. Her strategy differed greatly from An-Lok’s, as she did not go towards all out aggression, at least not right away. Overwhelming an opponent with sheer power was another strength of Djem So, and one she did employ in many battles, but when the other party was already using a similar tactic, it seemed both exhausting and counter-intuitive to do the same thing. She wasn’t exactly fond of battles consisting of two targets essentially trying to overpower one another. It was boring, at least to her.<br/><br/>During a flip, An was struck by a blaster bolt in the ankle and she landed on her side, holding her blade up to defend herself. Had they been Jedi, Aeris might have put away her sabers and rushed to help; they were not Jedi anymore, though, and the reality of battle was that an injured opponent was still an opponent, and mercy was a weakness that could get you killed. She leapt across the room, landing inches from An, using one blade to strike her blade, pushing it out of her way as her second blade moved in to strike.<br/><br/>Not that she would have actually struck her with the blade, but just before the blade neared her, the other Sith yielded, turning off the bots and deactivating her saber. Aeris immediately moved from the stance she held to Soresu, deflecting the remaining blaster bolts away from them before deactivating the sabers and clipping them to her belt. She then turned back to An and knelt next to her, examining the wound. “I’ve seen worse,” she offered the good news before slipping her boot off so that she could examine it more closely.<br/><br/>She was not a healer by any means, but her Master had taught her the basics of Force healing, and it was a skill that had come in handy many times over the years, so she was not entirely unpracticed. She could at least partially mend minor wounds such as this. She held her hand over the wound, closing her eyes and using the Force to sense the tissue and cells in the area, then focused on pouring some of her own Force energy into the area, visualizing the tissues growing together, reconnecting, and mending. It took a little time, but she managed to almost entirely heal the small wound.<br/><br/>Once she had finished, she opened her eyes, let out a breath, and then plopped herself on the floor next to An-Lok. “The rest should heal on its own by the time we get to our first destination,” she informed her, “Can’t do anything about the boots, though. Sorry,” she joked, giving her a grin before leaning her head back and closing her eyes again. She was quiet for a few moments, allowing her heart rate and her breathing to slow back to normal.<br/><br/>“You’ve improved,” she noted, “You’ve come a long way from that little troublemaker you used to be,” she paused for a moment, “Now you’re a bigger troublemaker,” she teased, a light smile on her face. “I guess we’ve both changed a lot since then, huh?” she mused, her smile gradually fading. “Do you ever think about them?” she wondered, not specifying who, but knowing the other would understand who she was referring to. She didn’t say anything else, just laid there, staring up at the ceiling, her face holding a complex mix of emotions.<br/><br/>After a brief moment, she shook her head, “Forget it. I guess that’s a stupid question,” she half muttered, sitting up with one knee pulled up to her chest while the other leg remained straight. She rested her chin on her knee, trying to fight the resurgence of restlessness that suddenly came over her.<span style="font-style: italic">Damn it!</span>she cursed at herself for allowing her mind to drift to them, and for bringing An-Lok down with her.