Adrian Makaryk

Well, this was embarrassing. Adenna was right: Adrian found the local microbiology interesting indeed. Too interesting. The doctor found it so interesting, in fact, that in his quest to determine just how quickly and in what manner said microbiology had interacted with the local battle casualties, he had failed to actually search for a way out of this place. Only now, with Adenna suggesting they move on and the Mandalorian agreeing to cooperate (for now) did the error become apparent to the doctor. Oops. Adrian should have known where the exits were. He had worked in the same building for some years. Only when he now found himself in an unfamiliar environment did he suddenly realize that the exits had changed. They were no longer static. Just one of the first things he had to realize as a Jedi... He said nothing of this. But his interest in the local microbiology immediately waned, at least for the time being, his attention diverted towards answering Adenna and this armor-clad, self-styled "Saberforce." For the first time, Adrian spoke, though only a single word at first. "Indeed." Despite the acoustical dampening properties of all the local mosses, molds, and other assorted living spongy materials, his rather deep voice still managed to fill what remained of the room rather easily. Though Adrian was perhaps the least experienced in the group, perhaps his commanding voice would help him convincingly play the part Adenna had in mind, though he wasn't an actor. Adrian was new to that part. The doctor smiled. He seemed to be warming to Adenna's suggestion. "There are at least three species of fungus here that I would like to investigate as having medicinal value, and it would be a shame if decomposing corpses were to somehow interfere with my research," the doctor said, already trying his hand at what Adenna had in mind. The bit about possible medicinal uses of the native flora and fauna was, at least, true. The part about decomposing corpses really wasn't that big of a deal, strictly speaking, at least from the strictly medical research point of view--though of course they should be investigated for other reasons. "So, of course it makes sense to find out about any unusual movements in the area. The information might even help me identify some of the remains, something that the local authorities might expect me as a doctor to do."

For a long time, Adrian seemed more than content to let the two warriors negotiate amongst themselves, for his own purpose here still required revealing. In the shadow of an experienced Jedi Knight and at least one, probably more somewhere, Mandalorians, he knew he would amount to practical uselessness in a fight. Therefore, the quiet one remained so, careful not to do anything that might provoke hostilities like interrupting. Adrian might have leaned up against the wall had this meeting taken place on Onderon, or for that matter at any reasonably clean facility, but here the doctor decided that the various microbial populations living on the walls constituted too great an infectious risk to be worth a few moments' comfort--thereby conclusively proving there were worse places in the galaxy than his old home planet, which he had previously thought not possible. He did more than simply listen to the conversation, however, not that the Mandalorian would necessarily notice it. Adenna, however, almost certainly would. It seemed only natural a doctor's first instinct when surrounded by the detritus of recent battle would entail looking for survivors, and while the doctor who presently stood behind Adenna remained stationary on account of being more or less tethered to her--this place presented too many dangers for one so untrained in martial skills as he to roam about unsupervised--he extended his search for survivors through the Force. Even after expending great concentration filtering out the native fauna from his search, he could find only death outside of the two warriors that stood before him. Those that had survived the initial battle had either left or succumbed to various opportunistic infections after sustaining some form of battle-related injury. Adrian had no way of telling how many might have been in the former category--the number could be zero or a few dozen for all he could tell--but yes, he could discern casualties from the latter category. It was one thing for a Mandalorian to die from injuries sustained in battle. Adrian suspected, however, that it would be quite different for a Mandalorian to survive the initial battle, and then slowly decompose to death because there was no one present to aid him. Though he had grown up on Onderon, he was not Mandalorian, and he tended not to allow his patients, Mandalorian or not, decompose while still alive, no matter how overwhelming his caseload might be. The doctor had a sinking feeling that he would be performing autopsies after all, as the conversation between Adenna and the Mandalorian portended an investigation. But should Adrian reveal his knowledge as a doctor? As he didn't know the stranger, he decided that time had yet to arrive, though a flick of his head nodded to Adenna that he would cooperate. For now, Adrian remained silent. If Adenna judged it prudent to introduce him to the Mandalorian, he had no doubt she would do so. ((I am still actively reading the thread, but I'll only post when I see a point in doing so. The last few rounds have given me severe writers' block because it's been difficult to envision doing more than just watching. Please don't wait more than about 4 days for me unless I post in the absence thread.))

In some ways, Adrian wanted to thank Adenna for her desire to quickly move on. The need to move quickly superseded the requirement for an autopsy on the rapidly-decomposing body. While the doctor-cum-padawan believed the Force would render such an autopsy easier (not to mention safer--as it would reduce the need to physically handle the corpse), the body had already decomposed enough to render the cause of death less than immediately obvious. Adrian hoped there would be no need to come back here, though if Adenna had any interest in his thoughts at all, she might be inclined to tell her padawan to be careful what he wished for. Ever happy to leave the rotting fungal food behind, Adrian followed closely behind Adenna, but not too close, for he wanted her to take the lead. Perhaps it was a bit cowardly on his part, but one of the group members knew what to do, and it wasn't him. Though Adrian hadn't wanted to perform that autopsy, as he followed Adenna, he realized he would probably be more at home doing that grotesque task than clearing the Enclave of whatever might haunt it. The padawan noticed Adenna thumbing her lightsaber. Haunted the Enclave was. The doctor strained his senses to try to discern anything that might cause Adenna to reach for her weapon, but whatever it was, the dense biomass of the place camouflaged it well. Though most of that biomass seemed preoccupied with general subsistence, Adrian, having only the barest of training in discerning much of anything, and that in the deep void of hyperspace where there existed pretty much nothing, wouldn't be predicting any specific ambushes though Force precognition any time soon. He let his own hand drop near his blaster, though he didn't unholster it, though he did that more because his mentor thumbed her own weapon than any notion of imminent threat. However, something gnawed at the back of his mind. What horrible fate had befallen that soldier? Was that threat still present? Had it ever had any reason to leave? Though he could not yet detect anything specific, Adrian found himself wondering if the two of them were really alone.

Adrian knew, even before the shuttle landed, that he would soon receive lots of practice in identifying the intentions of various life-forms and assessing their threat potential. Here, on Haruun Kal, he would learn the very lesson Adenna had tried, and failed, to instill in her new padawan during the hyperspace journey here--a journey nearly utterly devoid of anything that might have intentions or feelings to sense at all. But the padawan that Adenna brought in tow would probably not learn that lesson quite as she expected. To Adrian Makaryk, Adenna seemed almost too consumed in her search for threats. She sought evidence, whatever it might be, of some ambush waiting to attack the both of them, or perhaps an attack from some native predator. Maybe even an attack from Sith, though her words seemed to discount that possibility. But the environment seemed almost to smother the Force here--unlike the desolation of hyperspace, there was so much life here that even trained Jedi might well need a moment to filter out the background and sense humanoids at all. Adrian's nose immediately informed him that donning one of the breath masks from the ship was probably a very prudent idea. A full environment suit would have been better, but Adrian didn't have one. He did carry an ultra-lightweight compressor-ventilator within his mobile surgical kit--it was designed to filter pure oxygen from highly compressed air from the atmosphere, which could then be administered to patients who required a ventilator in a field hospital setting. This was lighter (and safer) than carrying canisters of oxygen around for such contingencies. But the exceptionally thick atmosphere here would clog its filters within thirty minutes or so; therefore its use was out of the question. After the relative desolation of hyperspace, it took the padawan's senses several moments to adjust to the oversaturation of Haruun Kal. However, quickly the padawan determined that the "lot of life around that is clouding things" represented a type of threat that Adenna seemed to overlook. "I do believe that trying to filter non-sentient life out of your senses might be a mistake, Adenna," Adrian suggested. "I know, it is overwhelming, and much of it is harmless, but the resident biofilms here represent a much greater threat than exists anywhere I have ever set foot. You might dismiss that because I've only set foot on two planets, but the likelihood of illness seems several orders of magnitude higher here." Indeed, Adrian wryly thought to himself, he would get his practice in Adenna's lesson by determining which microbes intended to cause various parasitic infections, and which were harmless. Adrian followed his nose to a pile of metal debris that Adenna had seemed to overlook. A pile of metal debris covered in bumpy white hyphae and webbed with mycelia drew the doctor's attention; he looked nearly straight down at a fungal colony intently ripping apart and digesting what once had been armor of some sort. That species, which like many others present, hadn't existed on Onderon, leaving Adrian's immune system with no exposure to them. Adrian didn't touch, of course. Yet, beneath that fungal food, Adrian could sense something else. More food, in a way--but something that might be of interest to the one who would protect him from any threat--or, at least, any non-microbial threat. But his immune system would be under great stress here. "Look here," Adrian called out. "There is a decomposing body under here, I think." Adrian had no training in psychometry whatsoever, but as a doctor, he could have some use as a medical examiner...even if his previous experience had left him too busy trying to triage the needs of the living to care about the dead.

"Adenna," the doctor answered, his voice much firmer than the unsure, hesitant deference she might have grown accustomed to. "If I am to learn how to sense emotions and intents, perhaps we should, when we get the chance, go to a place where they actually exist. It is desolate here, with little else other than the pilot's probable boredom. While I have had years to develop my senses for medical use, I am little more than a five-year-old in determining where, ahead of time, an attack will strike, along with a host of other things that I am sure Jedi are expected to sense. I can think of several places on Onderon, not the least of which is the shattered hospital where I used to work, but I fear my pre-existing knowledge and experience with the area would introduce bias to what I could sense there. But it will be most difficult for me to figure out how to sense such things on my own, in a place so sparsely populated that there is scarcely any emotion at all." The doctor took a deep breath before restoring the couch cushion to its original position. "Obviously, however, we do not have that luxury right this second, so it makes a bit of sense to move on. Please proceed, Adenna." (OOC: Sorry for the short and curt post. I accidentally clicked the touchpad when typing and closed the tab with a much more developed one--and had no way to recover it.)

Adrian still did not quite understand how to sense the 'intent' of inanimate objects, or even the living. He did, however, get the distinct feeling that learning how to sense such currents would be akin to learning how to walk, talk, and chew gum all over again. The padawan recognized certainly that he had some potential to learn how to sense specific dangers at some point in the future. If he hadn't, with his eyes closed and almost no information coming from his usual five biological senses, Adrian would not have been able to react to the stylus attack at all. However, clearly the doctor could not yet glean enough information from the Force to do what his duties of a Jedi would require him to do. It almost seemed his extrasensory perception was too narrow, but he didn't yet know how to widen it. He didn't know what to look for. For quite a few moments, Adrian remained in quiet reflection, obviously finding it hard to let go of his analytical side. Then again, once upon a time he'd had no idea how to read medical images, either. He'd had to be taught how to read and interpret them--obviously that had involved substantial practice with sample images. But how was his instructor to convey such images, to teach him how to detect things like emotion and intent, when the two of them very clearly saw very different things through the Force? The doctor could tell that the spoken word alone was wholly inadequate to the concept she was trying to convey. She tried to explain by intellect senses that should become instinctual, and it wasn't really working. Whatever Adenna was trying to describe, Adrian could not perceive. But it did give the student an idea. After a long moment of silence, Adrian scritched his head. "Is it possible to share sensations and feelings through the Force? I somehow get the feeling that trying to confine a lesson in the Force to the spoken word isn't working too well. And it might be difficult for me to learn how to interpret something I cannot yet see." Of course, Adrian had yet to learn the slightest thing about such abilities, though an earlier incident between Halo and her previous instructor had given him clues as to the existence of such abilities. Now, he wondered if his current instructor could show him some examples of what he might need to look for, rather than stumble over what words to use in vain attempts to describe it.

The padawan was confused. Oh, so very confused. Adrian had no idea or concept of what Adenna meant by 'giving himself over to the Force.' What the kriff was that supposed to mean? While Adenna toyed with the stylus, Adrian recognized only that he had not the slightest kriffin' clue. How was he supposed to place his trust in some ephemeral omnipresence that he had somewhat managed to sense, yet utterly failed to understand? It appeared to the poor padawan that he was doomed, oh so very doomed. Adenna's constant fidgeting with the stylus only seemed to add to his confusion. Defend yourself. Those two words announced that no longer could Adrian afford to wallow in his confusion. It was in this moment, when all hope of comprehension seemed utterly lost, when the Force identified the same strains of bacteria that had been present on the stylus earlier. Immediately, and at last with some simple understanding of what Adenna had meant by "guidance of the Force," the padawan took evasive action, sidestepping the trajectory of Adenna's attack. But without access to the standard Jedi repertoire of speed and coordination-boosting abilities, and without the slightest hint of training therein, even the instinct to dodge came far too late. The attack still grazed his right leg as he dodged to his left--due to the padawan's substantial height, the attack had come too low for him to block effectively with the cushion. Had Adrian possessed the slightest notion of Force speed, or even precognition, the attack could have been evaded--even if barely. But the padawan lacked experience with either, so his trust in the Force had come merely a tenth of a second too late to prevent the blister he now sensed forming in his leg...

While Adenna found sitting on the durasteel floor for extended periods of time a bit uncomfortable, the doctor didn't mind. Not at all. In fact, he found it slightly preferable to being on his feet for two or more days, with perhaps an hour or so combined during all that time to sit at all--and that, if he was lucky. The doctor made no rush to get up, and in fact seemed to savor every second of anything that might be construed "rest." It just seemed such a novel concept for him. Not that he was lazy, for if he had been, there were far easier (and some illegal) ways to scratch together a living on the economic wasteland that was Onderon... But when Adenna tossed her padawan a couch cushion, he had to get up. As he did so, Adrian let the cushion bounce harmlessly off his head, as a means of quickly clearing any residual images of microbes, nanites, and white blood cells that still filled his mind. "Why, I've never been in a pillow fight before," Adrian observed. "What a novel idea!" Kidding aside, as Adrian picked up the couch cushion off the floor, he seemed relieved that his instructor suffered no delusions of a newly-arrived Force-sensitive somehow being almost ready for his Jedi Trials--as one of his previous instructors had somehow deluded himself into thinking. Indeed, combat was an art in which the doctor had little experience, and he had never observed himself to have any particularly noteworthy instincts or reflexes in those few situations when he had encountered it. As far as he knew, his reaction time was well within the normal range for twenty-five to thirty-year old males. Only when seconds made the difference between life and death during a medical procedure had he ever noticed any unusual shift in his ability to react that could retroactively be explained by the Force. Likewise, the flashes of "bad feelings" he had experienced from time to time had always occurred while he was on duty as a surgeon, or immediately before his shift or some catastrophic event that required him to report on a scheduled off day. He had never benefited from precognition in anything resembling combat. Nevertheless, upon hearing Adenna's cautionary words about relying upon standard sight and hearing, Adrian closed his eyes so he could better observe her through the Force. At minimum, he'd be able to observe the form of her body, and thus her actions, with a reaction time comparable to if he used standard eyesight to sense her. But what advantage, or lack thereof, the Force could provide him with...the padawan had no idea, though he suspected his teacher was intent on finding out. Adrian raised the couch cushion as a shield for his right arm. "I think I'm about as ready as I'm going to get."

Upon learning that he could presently do nothing for Adenna, the doctor felt a certain sadness that she must suffer such a burden, while he remained helpless to ease it. But such was the life of a doctor; not everything could be cured, especially not instantaneously. Some things were better left to mend on their own, and Adenna clearly considered her mind to be in just that category. It wasn't Adrian's place to interfere with that decision. "Very well," the doctor replied soflty, turning his own senses inward, well away from her body. "Should you determine that I have learned enough to be of help to you, you need but ask." Adenna then proceeded with a set of instructions as she rubbed a finger against Adrian's forehead. The doctor listened carefully, and sure enough, he had no problem sensing and tracking the three nanites as they burrowed into his skin. This had not been the first time he had need to turn his nascent senses inwards upon himself, so of course the ability to track foreign objects entering his body came as naturally to him as did the ability to sense very small organisms. There were, however, complications. Close examination revealed his immune response to be healthy, despite the fact that his recent starvation had somewhat weakened his immune system. (Generally, it would take well more than three of any pathogen to cause illness.) Before the nanites had even burrowed completely through Adrian's pores, a light red speck of a dot had appeared on Adrian's forehead, centered around the point of entry where Adenna had rubbed her finger. It was but a tiny, insignificant dot, just enough inflammation to indicate the skin around the immediate area had been disturbed and to summon an immune response. By the time the three nanites managed to slip into sub-dermal capillaries a couple of moments later, various types of white blood cells were already waiting to investigate the intrusion. The poor nanites were effectively trapped. Had Adenna performed this test upon a normal organism, the nanites would probably have just been ingested by phagocytes and digested, with the host organism being none the wiser. But Adrian was no normal organism; he was a Force-sensitive who had sensed the intrusion coming, so his immune system seemed content to simply quarantine the nanites while it, or he, figured out what to do with them. Adrian's white blood cells seemed perfectly content to simply hold their position, clinging to capillary walls, trapping the nanites where they were, while waiting for direction. That direction could easily have come from said nanites attacking a cell, in which case that cell would release various proteins calling for help and the nanites would meet an immediate end. But with the nanites doing nothing, Adrian's white blood cells simply seemed to wait as they quietly surveyed the foreign bodies. Their restraint implied a degree of conscious control over normally autonomous functions that most organisms did not have--a control that Adrian had developed just the other day, when he had called upon the Force to catalyze digestion, so he could stabilize his condition post-starvation that much faster. Meanwhile, Adrian pondered what to do with those three nanites. Though Adenna had told him to excrete said nanites through his left forefinger, there was no medical necessity to do so. If Adrian willed the nanites gone, the pathogen-ingesting white blood cells surrounding said nanites would immediately ingest the nanites and proceed to dissolve them with powerful digestive enzymes, and any waste from the process would eventually be excreted via normal biological means. The doctor could think of precisely two ways to accomplish what his teacher asked of him. The first involved his medkit and a blood draw, whereby he would draw blood from the inflamed skin, filter the nanites out of the sample via mechanical means, and place the filtered nanites on his left forefinger. But the blood draw would cause far more harm (though the side effects would be really, really minor) than the exercise was worth, and the filtering would by itself take longer than the half hour allowed. The doctor's second option (that he knew of) was to attempt telekinesis. But that left him with a really bad feeling. His most basic instincts seemed to warn heavily against it, and the mere thought filled his mind with great unease and dread. It did not take Adrian long to deduce why. Using the Force to look for things was one thing; using the Force to alter them was quite something else. And the doctor's experience with telekinesis had consisted solely of hurling a multi-ton boulder through the air; he knew that he lacked the practice and precision to use such an ability on a microscopic scale. If he attempted an internal telekinesis, within his own body, with his skill at such a coarse and unrefined state, he would cause far more internal damage to himself than he risked by leaving the nanites there, or even by resorting to conventional methods, with all their side effects, of removing them. It just was not worth it. And so the doctor let his immune system have its way with the foreign material. His white blood cells swallowed up and consumed the three nanites; if they would have broken apart after less than an hour anyway, surely they would not survive phagocytic digestive processes. The doctor observed carefully, his due diligence required, for though he had been told the nanites were harmless, he understood the exercise to be some kind of test of his healing--and he further knew that some viruses multiplied by infecting the very cells that would attack them. Carefully, the doctor watched for this form of cellular hijacking to occur, for if it did, it best be treated early, but it did not. "Well," the doctor observed, "it would appear the nanites did not survive to their intended destination." Technically, by the letter of his teacher's instruction, the padawan had failed--though he certainly had shown an ability to actively interact with his body, to counter the types of threats Adenna's experiences had taught her to be concerned about.

Unfortunately for Adenna, Adrian had no concept of allowing someone else to enter his mind. However, the newish padawan had no concept of how to defend his mind from intrusion, either. He knew not how to offer resistance; therefore, for this exercise at least, Adenna need not worry. Padawan Makaryk wasted no time in sitting before his teacher, cross-legged and allowing his knees to contact hers as instructed. Though the circumstances of his arrival at the Jedi Temple had necessitated a version of this very lesson, that he might learn to call the Force to aid in his own recovery from starvation, he did not voice complaint about the apparent redundancy. While Adrian had already touched the Force, Adenna had not witnessed that, and she required some way to evaluate where her new padawan stood. Therefore, Adrian determined that she wanted him to push his latent senses in the Force to their limits, so that she could properly gauge her new student's inherent strengths and weaknesses--both of which would prove highly distinctive. Somehow, Adrian could not help but be relaxed--compared to the life from whence he came, where he worked for days at a time and learned to be thankful whenever he could scrounge together a ten-minute 'meal' break, there existed no stressors here. Not at all. Perhaps there would in the future, but for now, no emergency demanded the doctor's attention--which meant he seemed to fall back to an inner state of peace as he savored the quiet, stress-free moment. Adenna's description of a "clear mind," however, seemed a bit vague. Adrian did not know whether or not his mind was clear, but that little bit of doubt seemed insignificant, at least for now. He knew he had touched the Force before, and now under more favorable circumstances, when he did not have to worry so much about his blood sugar dropping below acceptable levels within the next moment, he would do it again. The man closed his eyes. All fell quiet. The quiet hum and vibration of the hyperdrive, the flipping of flimsiplast as a bored pilot caught up on his reading while autopilot navigated the ship through hyperspace--all sound seemed utterly insignificant to the padawan. It was there, and the padawan was aware of it, but next to the presence of the Force filling his mind, the mundane sounds of space travel, despite their novelty to someone who had only done it once, while utterly exhausted before, seemed completely irrelevant. And there it was. Greyscale. If the Force existed as an energy field that bound all living things together, perhaps not surprisingly for someone who just days earlier spent time in the sick bay recovering from starvation, who first touched the Force while recovering such a state, that was exactly what Adrian sensed. His own body seemed to burn as a white star--as did Adenna's. The pilot appeared white to Adrian's senses, too, as the pilot was a relatively large, living organism and therefore connected to the Force as was all life, but the pilot's connection to the Force was less well-defined, hazier, with tinges of grey denoting the weaker connection. At first, the imagery Adrian's senses conveyed to him, somewhat like seeing the Force in a manner such as an infrared spectrum, was blurry and ill-defined. Though it vaguely sensed energy use, the image did not pick up on inorganic sources of energy, such as the ship's reactor, at all, at least not at first. But before Adenna sat a man who, just the other day and with very little formal instruction in the ways of the Force, had called upon the Force to assess his own brain's metabolism--and then within the hour, utilized the Force again to accelerate digestion a couple thousand times over. Presently, the padawan viewed the Force as if through the scanning lens of a microscope. It was by far the weakest lens, used only to identify an object of interest to focus a more powerful lens upon. And one thing this particular padawan was very, very good at was maintaining his focus. He'd had to be, to even function within his old work environment. The initial haziness of the image lasted only a few seconds as Adrian focused upon interpreting the influx of raw data his newest sense provided him with. The humanoid-shaped blur of white that originally represented his own body dimmed, as did the blur of white representing Adenna. But that in no way implied either experienced a degradation of connection to the Force. Not at all. The brightest whites retreated to the space occupying Adrian's brain (along with Adenna's), the heartbeat became a tinge dimmer, and the rest of the bodies of the two Jedi appeared to Adrian as various shades of grey. Within a few seconds, Adrian had filtered his senses to detect which parts of the body utilized the most energy--perhaps not surprising, for a man who just days earlier had been starving. Adrian retreated ever deeper into this new sense, which to Adenna would probably seem to unfold in time-lapse by now. The black void of the ship's atmosphere started to fill with imperceptible specks of dark grey, until a moment later a light mist of that grey filled the recirculated air. Likewise, a thin film sprouted across just about every flat surface present on the inside of the spacecraft. That all happened to be the doctor focusing his senses further--until he sensed the microbes that populated nigh everything remotely habitable--and their connections, tiny and imperceptible though they might be, to the Force. With further effort on the padawan's part, inorganic energy sources, such as batteries and operating reactors, began appearing in varying shades of grey too, the brightness of which correlated to the strength of the energy source. The padawan had received instruction that the Force was not confined to living things, that it affected the inorganic as well, though very clearly the doctor was more at ease sensing the Force through its connection to all things living. However, Adrian's ability to sense the Force seemed confined to perceiving the Force as more or less an energy field. He sensed it most easily through the biorhythms of living things, with inorganic matter being nearly an afterthought. This paradigm left no room at all for sensing emotions, nor for foresight, nor for anything resembling telepathy or mental defenses. If Adenna called upon her padawan to perform pretty much any Jedi-like activity that did not involve healing of some sort...she might find her padawan just a tad under-prepared, just like he said he would be. Adrian had not been kidding when he said he needed more training to take on the wide diversity of duties that fit within the job description of Jedi. In the moment, however, Adrian immediately recognized the potential of the Force for medical diagnostics. Before him, he had a teacher who had sustained some form of brain injury, currently treated by nanites. Nanites that she desperately wanted out of her body. With his own senses becoming more precise, subtly and unwittingly honed in his years as a surgeon and now able to detect single-celled organisms, Adrian's mind always seemed to come back to that. Did he dare focus his own senses upon his instructor's mind, that he might more fully understand her injury? Did he dare do this, in spite of the knowledge that he currently almost certainly lacked the skill to heal what he would see? Would any diagnosis alone that he could provide help Adenna to heal her own problem? Before long, the questions imposed themselves upon his mind. Ever omnipresent they were. And Adrian's mind was fully open to hers. "Teacher?" the padawan finally asked, wholly uncertain as to whether or not she would wish him to proceed. "Do you think this...exercise might help you? Do you wish me to proceed?"

Twenty-eight minutes and thirty-nine seconds later, the tall padawan reappeared, this time clad in sky-blue Jedi robes, so chosen because of their similarity to his old hospital scrubs. Quiet he remained as he boarded the ship; he only nodded to Adenna as she showed him the passengers' quarters for he found speech quite unnecessary. The surgeon's eyes roved over the ship's appointments, and though they be mundane by the standards of the galaxy, in Adrian's eyes, wearied by war, strife, and the uttermost of poverty, even the simple linens seemed absolutely kingly. Quietly, the padawan stowed his sole piece of luggage, which contained a couple of sets of robes that had not been there before. Perhaps fortunately for Adenna's sanity, but less fortunately for any injured sentients the doctor might happen across, the funds issued to Adrian by the Jedi Order had not proven sufficient to fund the addition of nanites to his medical kit. A certain anticipation flickered in the Force, though what exactly Adrian anticipated, he did not know. Perhaps, he thought, the Jedi might train him as a pilot, so he would not be such a burden to the Order every single time his duties summoned him to some really far-off place. But in the moment, such long-term considerations seemed vastly countervailed by the burden he would pose as a flight deck observer right now; the pilot certainly did not seem to want the inexperienced padawan watching over his shoulder. As the doctor had more or less received instruction to sit down and shut up, and he certainly had no reasonable grounds to object, he did exactly that. (OOC: to space thread?)

At last, Adrian could make sense of Adenna's objection to the nanites within her system. Sure, they were benign now that they had been re-purposed back to accepted medical use, but suddenly Adenna's objection to them seemed logical in light of the new information about a Sith once controlling these particular nanites for various nefarious purposes. But medicine itself could be corrupted to destroy rather than heal. Dr. Makaryk had himself used treatments that did not discriminate between healthy and diseased tissue, as a means of buying time with which to remove the disease, when no other option existed with the meager resources he had had at his disposal. The surgeon would have much preferred access to the nanites. "Adenna..." Adrian began softly. He certainly had no desire to trivialize whatever it was Adenna had experienced, what with a Sith infecting her body with poisoned nanites and all. Nevertheless, his response displayed a certain type of ignorance, the ignorance of any knowledge of galactic affairs whatsoever that might happen after prolonged periods without HoloNet access and a generally subsistence lifestyle that did not allow for such luxuries as news consumption. "There is much about medicine out there that can be used for good or ill. The only method of treating cancer I had available to me, for example, was administering radiation to halt its spread whilst I surgically removed the tumor. But radiation destroys healthy tissue along with the cancerous cells--does that mean I should not use it and instead let the cancer spread and kill the patient? No, of course not. I would give the patient his dose of chemotherapy and then remove the cancer as soon as possible to minimize the damage done to the healthy parts of his body and allow him to recover. A Sith, if the very few rumors I've heard about them are true, would probably just laugh manically and watch as the radiation slowly destroyed the patient's body." "But, as a doctor, I would much rather have had access to the nanites, rather than have to destroy a patient's body in order to save the patient. I don't seek to infect anyone. I seek to heal them with the best treatments I have available to me, which admittedly on Onderon, was not much. I will leave you with that thought while I go procure some changes of clothes. I will be back here in thirty minutes." The surgeon had only brought a couple outfits of scrubs with him to Lehon. So little had he possessed that he hand-washed them during his off-days. Now, with a credit chip issued in his name by the Jedi and a mission of unknown duration before him, the time was come for him to rectify that by going shopping, however briefly, for the first time since he had found protein ration bars in the commissary. True to his word, however, the surgeon returned within a half hour (thankfully remembering where such commissary was so he wouldn't get lost again), this time his rucksack a little bit heavier for the trip. Perhaps fortunately for Adenna's sanity, he had found he had not been issued a sufficient allowance to afford adding nanites to his medical kit...

"Infected?" The doctor's mouth hung open for a moment. Clearly, he had not expected Adenna to view the aforementioned nanites as an infection to be cleansed, especially not when Adrian's own admittedly nascent senses determined the artificial microbes to be benign. The doctor had determined early that something plagued Adenna, but also that whatever it was, it was not a physical malady such that he had experience treating. That determination, along with the appearance of Adenna's condition slowly improving, excluded the nanites as a source of potential infection. While Adrian knew little of the nanites, having never experienced working with them before, he understood them to be commonly accepted medical treatment upon industrialized worlds. Either the Force lied to him, feeding him false information through the senses he had only now received any training in how to use, or there was something that Adenna wasn't telling him. The padawan could not have known about the specific circumstances that led to Adenna's determination of the nanites as an infection; he had only just met her. And while the padawan probably should have departed for a mini-shopping trip with his newly-issued credit chip, that he may purchase a few changes of Jedi robes, he found he could do little but pursue Adenna down the hall. "I can sense no such thing. While you have experienced some kind of mental distress, your condition appears to be improving, whereas if the nanites were indeed an affliction upon you, your condition would instead deteriorate. Perhaps I am missing something here. If there is something I need to know to make sense of this, I would ask that you tell me."

At long last, Adrian found peace with the pace and manner of his training that Adenna had planned for him. The surgeon finally seemed to relax a little, even eliciting a chuckle when Adenna mentioned the importance of proper diet and exercise. Once upon a time, the doctor had made the time for exercise on what passed for his "off day" between shifts--even when the exhaustion from working forty-eight to sixty consecutive hours meant he would rather have slept the entire day instead. But that was before his case of starvation had erased much of the gain from that exercise. His condition now was stable, but definitely not at its peak--his two-meter frame could easily bear another twenty pounds of lean muscle mass, muscle that not long ago, he had. While the Force had served as a convenient shortcut to stabilizing him, he did not expect the same to be said of returning to peak condition. Otherwise, Adrian figured, Adenna might well have not mentioned the more traditional route. Though perhaps the Jedi, with all of their resources across the galaxy, knew of exercises that he did not. "You really would not expect a doctor to know the importance of proper diet and exercise, would you?" Adrian grinned. "You simply caught me at a bad time. Now as for supplies, I have only the clothes on my back, my blaster, and the contents of my rucksack, to include one medkit and some field rations. Though perhaps I could do with a change of clothes from the credit stick the Jedi issued me. And maybe some of these newfangled nanites, if there be enough credits left over."

For several moments, the padawan remained silent. He could do little else, though that sensation of dread that tingled around Adenna seemed to flare heavily when he addressed her with the word Master. The aura of doom more or less confirmed Adrian's suspicions that Adenna had been abused in some manner, though the extent of it he still could not know. Regardless of what she told him, he didn't want to make that mistake again--fortunately Adenna provided alternative forms of address to what had up until then seemed the standard Jedi protocol. Adrian waited for Adenna to finish her rather extended monologue, as he remained silent and thoughtfully contemplated it. The doctor had certainly done much to minimize himself; perhaps the time was now come for him to enumerate specifically what he knew how to do? He had received at least a little training so far, even if he would have liked far more before going out on missions. "Adenna," he said softly, respecting her wish while at the same time declining to whine that use of the word Master had seemed standard protocol right up to that point. "I have received at least a minimal amount of training in the Force. For three decades did it remain undiagnosed, quietly extending my endurance that I may bear hundred-twenty hour workweeks--and often more--and guiding my hands as I performed surgeries for which my hospital was not otherwise equipped to handle. But the effects of my connection to the Force were subtle, never triggering the type of events such as uncommanded precognition or telekinesis that might have resulted in testing and diagnosis; instead its signs buried themselves in patient outcomes not known for days, or in some cases, weeks later. Yes, there are signs for non-Force sensitive medical personnel to look for to refer potential Force-sensitives for testing, but I never really fit the criteria. Even when the Jedi--" Abruptly, Adrian stopped again. Did he dare use the word Grandmaster when Adenna had told him not to use the word Master again? It was technically correct, and would not imply a master-slave relationship when used to refer to someone not present, but something about the word seemed to traumatize his new instructor. "--Trevelian visited my hospital looking for something, I don't think it was originally supposed to be me, for the nurses informed me he was not aware of my presence for more than an hour. It was as if he came in looking for something, and upon seeing the condition of the place determined we did not have what he sought, but lingered to do what he could in the face of great need. I was excising a brain tumor at the time, and he seemed oblivious to me until word reached my ears of his presence, and I asked him to keep my patient stable so I could treat someone else who had just been admitted, who would have bled to death within moments otherwise." "I am fairly certain he only realized my Force affinity when he assessed my cancer patient and concluded that no normal person should have attempted that operation with only the scalpel and drill I had available to me. At the end of my shift, we met again, and we...ahem...debated for a while about the merits of Jedi training against leaving what little healthcare was available to Onderon to collapse entirely. While he did agree to send Jedi to relieve me so I could come here with a clear conscience, he gave me his comlink frequency but no comlink capable of reaching it. I had already pointed out how poor the planet was, though he still seemed to assume I had access to creature comforts. His assumption that I had a long-range comlink was obvious, though I did not, and my energy was already spent from debating him right on the heels of a nearly sixty hour shift." "So for two weeks I did not buy any food, while I saved the credits I needed just to send that one transmission. By the time I arrived here, I was ready to collapse unconscious from the cocktail of starvation and exhaustion. And I did, I did. After I awoke and insisted on leaving the care of the medical droid so I could begin training, a Jedi took me aside and showed me how I might use the Force to recover myself. As I already had very specific knowledge of my ailment--and the biological processes required to recover from it, I was able to use the Force in such a manner as to metabolize about fifteen pounds' worth of fruit within moments, far exceeding the decidedly non-medic Jedi's attempts to explain Force healing to me." "Probably because of my knowledge as a doctor, I am presently attuned to sense the body in great detail," Adrian explained. "Even now, I can sense that your body has much recently-regenerated tissue. You bear a prosthetic hand, and the cutoff between biological and technological is very clear to me. You have benign artificial substances circulating within your bloodstream, no larger than microbes--nanites you called them. Of these I know little, other than a rough definition from medical dictionaries, for I never had access to them in treatment. You have been treated for the physical injuries you sustained, but you were also somehow injured in your connection to the Force--which cannot be treated by any craft or knowledge that I now possess. The only thing I would know to try is the prescription of antidepressants, but I do not believe it to be wise because I have no experience nor knowledge with how they might interact with the Force. But as I learn more of the Force, perhaps I might find a way to help you in the future, should you desire it." "I have also received some very basic training in telekinesis, though it is probably useless in combat as it takes me several moments to use. I appreciate your caution, though I am not closed to learning new things. I am simply wary of having to use various abilities I do not yet know how to use, before I am taught how to use them. I hope you recognize that distinction. Tell me, is learning how to use the Force as specialized as learning medicine, where one must spend at least a few months in classroom training, practicing on mannequins and cadavers, before going out into the real world even as a medic or nurse?"