Suddenly, Valt charged clumsily at Jirik. Jirik ducked and swerved, and Valt dove past him, howling as Jirik's practice blade scraped his ribs. The practice weapons substituted a soft blade for the real weapon's lethal one, but the edges of that practice blade were charged, designed to stimulate the nerve endings in any part of the body that they touched. A practice blade left a slash of pain and an angry red welt in its wake.
Jirik straightened and looked impassively at the astrogator, who was kneeling and hugging himself. Jirik shook his head "That won't do, Valt. If these blades were real, you'd be dead."
Valt straightened painfully, flushing with annoyance and embarrassment. "Yeah, Well, Let's try it again!"
As they circled cautiously, Valt kept a respectful eye on Jirik's blade. Suddenly, Jirik feinted with his knife hand. As Valt dodged frantically, Jirik slammed his other fist into the side of Valt's head. As the bigger man went to his knees, a surprisingly agile Jirik danced closer to the dazed Valt, and drew another line of agony across Jori's chest. Valt howled, and slashed madly with his blade, but Jirik was once again out of reach.
"You're dead again, Valt!" Jirik noted. Valt remained silent crouched on the deck. Suddenly, he lunged from his crouch at Jirik, blade outthrust before him. Jirik dodged, and drew another red welt across Valt's outstretched arm. Valt yelled in agony, and his blade clattered to the deck,
Jirik smiled. "Want to try again, Valt?" Valt shook his head surlily, and Jirik continued, "I didn't do this to humiliate you, Valt. I'm trying to save your neck. I wanted to show you that you can't learn to fight from a book, and that solo practice isn't enough. I'm old, and fat, and out of shape, but I've been trained properly. You didn't stand a chance."
Valt straightened painfully, cradling his red-welted arm. The three angry red welts stood out starkly against his white skin His face was flushed with anger. "I'll get better!" he vowed.
Jirik nodded. "You will, if you practice. But, you'll have to practice regularly and properly! I don't know why people assume that skill with weapons is any easier to gain than any other skill. They seem to think that merely buying a weapon makes them a warrior. Sorry. It doesn't work that way. It's like thinking that buying a vibroharp means that you can give a concert."
"The point is," Jirik continued, "that you're not ready to go looking for a fight; at least not with vibroblades. How are you at hand-to-hand?"
Valt's anger had faded, to be replaced with a new respect for his captain. He shook his head. "Oh, no. You're not going to sucker me into that! I know your reputation as a brawler, remember?"
Jirik shook his head. "No, Valt. You can't confuse a brawl with hand-to-hand combat. Sure, I brawl a lot, and have a helluva good time. But the man you need to see about hand-to-hand is Bran."
"Bran?" Valt's tone was incredulous. "He hates fighting!"
Jirik nodded. "That's right. He hates it, so he has learned more ways to disable an opponent fast than anyone I've ever met He's as fast as an Elyrian Jaqth, and utterly merciless. He's honestly confused by the term 'fair fight'. He says that the term 'fair' can only describe rules; and if it has rules, it isn't a fight, it's a sporting event. If it's a fight, there are no rules; only survival. If you really want to learn hand-to-hand, he's your man. But, I warn you, you'll end up wearing a lot of bruises, or maybe a broken bone or two. Bran plays rough!"
Valt was looking thoughtful. "Maybe I'm not quite ready to go chasing terrorist thugs."
Jirik shrugged. "You're not. And you won't be for at least a standard year, if you plan to master hand-to-hand, vibroblade and projectile or beam weapons. Each of them has their own techniques to be learned, and none of them is easy."
Valt's expression had become dismayed. "By then we'll be off the rim! I'll never see those bastards again!"
Jirik nodded. "That's right. That's one reason that spacers don't hold grudges much." He shrugged again.
"So, you think I'm wasting my time!" Valt's tone was plaintive
"No, I don't." Jirik replied seriously. "Everyone, especially a spacer, has a right, and in fact a duty, to learn to protect himself. If every citizen of every planet knew how to defend himself, an awful lot of crime rates would drop dramatically. A person who hasn't learned to defend himself is nothing but a helpless victim, volunteering to become a statistic."
Valt shook his head. "No. That's what the blues are for. A citizen trying to defend himself is risking death or disability. The blues are paid to take that risk, and trained for it."
Jirik looked irritated. "Bullshit. A citizen who is incapable of defending himself is dependent upon the state, whatever it may be, for his own safety. Whenever self-defense is denigrated, crimes, and especially violent crimes, rise dramatically. The blues can't be everywhere, and the criminals know it. When you turn the population into sheep, it attracts the wolves. Ah, hell, you got me off the subject. I want you to forget this revenge crap, and help us concentrate on surviving this fiasco. We need you Valt, and we need you thinking, not emoting. All right?" He clapped the big man on his back, making him lurch, then they gathered their clothing and weapons and walked out of the hold. Valt was looking very thoughtful.
After the eventful past few months, Jirik, Bran and Tor finally found the breakout for Farout comforting in its routine. It was only now that they were beginning to not feel a small thrill of fear and anticipation during and after breakout. Tor and Jirik exchanged rueful grins as they began maneuvering toward the planet, but they were soon engrossed in their pre-landing duties.
Tor glanced out the port as,they descended toward the spaceport, and felt a sudden wave of homesickness. Farout was an agricultural planet, one of three in the so-called Rim Worlds Coalition. It's settlements were as small and scattered as those of Boondock, though for a different reason. As far as Tor could see, in every direction, stretched a huge checkerboard of cultivated fields, relieved only occasionally by a tiny cluster of settlement. To Tor, it looked nearly identical to his home world of Corona. With it's sister planets of Beyond and Toolie, Farout was the breadbasket of the rim worlds. Between them, they produced enough to not only feed all of the rim worlds, but sold huge surpluses to neighboring Alliance planets.
Only one other vessel occupied the port, a Rim Tramp. Jirik thought that he recognized it from Boondock, but reminded himself not to ask. As they shut down their in-flight systems, Jirik noted the approach of several ground cars. He went to the lock to greet their visitors. First aboard was the Port Captain, followed by Customs and trade representatives. Cony had evidently learned something. No equivalent of Fanlin was on hand to pressure for immediate unloading. Jirik was unsurprised to be told that they could not be unloaded until the next local day, but he had to pretend to he frustrated by the delay. He was equally unsurprised when the Customs representative insisted on searching the ship, on the pretext of looking for alien, and possibly diseased plants, but he protested vigorously, for appearance's sake. When the officials left, Jirik joined the others in the mess.
"Well," he said as he entered, "Our friend Cony learns fast and well. There was no way that he was going to let us lift off this planet without being searched, and questioned, if necessary."
Bran chuckled. "He sure didn't waste any time getting the Lass searched! That Customs agent wasn't very good, though. He barely looked at the cargo. It was obvious that what he wanted was in the crew quarters!"