Author's notes: I fully intended to pull this story from the site, but after getting a few requests, I have decided to leave the story up and mark it as abandoned. Before I do that, however, I think it's only fair that I post what I have managed to write on chapter 6. This is not a full chapter and updates are very unlikely.

Disclaimer: The Dragonriders of Pern is owned by the estate of Anne McCaffrey and her son Todd. This is a work of fan fiction which garners No money or other resources whatsoever for the author of this work.

Chapter 6

J'nah had just signed in for his first day of Peaceforcer Training. He was looking forward to the training. He had liked school before impressing Ratath and he had liked weyrling training.

"Let go of me!"

The voice sounded frightened. He hastened his pace and turned a corner.

There were two boys. One had the other one up against the wall and appeared to be threatening him.

"After you told the old man I was cheating?"

"Well, you were," the smaller boy said.

"We don't like people here who tell on others."

"Then you shouldn't have been cheating," J'nah said in a voice slightly above normal volume.

"I wasn't cheating." The older boy looked over at J'nah without relaxing his grip on his intended victim."And stay out of this, boy. Around here, to get along, you go along."

"Was too," the smaller boy claimed.

"If Peaceforce means letting someone bully a smaller person for doing what's right, then I want no part of it," J'nah told him. "Now get your hands off him."

The larger boy said, "I'm telling you for the last time. Walk away! Do it now!"

J'nah smiled. "Sorry. I've already had my dragon tell the head instructor's dragon what's going on."

The larger boy released the smaller one and snarled. He drew back his arm and swung.

J'nah saw what was coming and braced himself. As the boy's arm came forward, he grabbed the hand and then the middle finger. He began bending it back.

"Unless you want that finger broken," J'nah told him, "you will get on your knees. We'll just wait here for M'tarek."

M'tarek chose that moment to round the corner. "Release him, Candidate."

"But sir," J'nah began, " He..."

"I know all about it from the dragons. Release him."

Not letting his guard down, J'nah released him,. "You'll do alright here, brat," the older boy told him.

"On your way, you two," M'tarek told them. "Very good performance."

They walked off chatting in low tones. J'nah was confused.

"Performance? It looked like the bigger one was going to hurt the smaller one."

M'tarek nodded. "That's what it was supposed to look like. That was your first test. Peaceforcers must set the example. We don't need or want anyone who will see an injustice and allow status to remain quo for fear of getting involved or injured. Nor do we want or need those who are afraid to tell the truth because they would be labeled a tattler. A bit of teasing and hazing does no harm, but a peaceforcer must intervene if something looks like it will cause injury or worse.

"If you had just walked away from this, you would have been on your way home without ever having had a class. We've lost more candidates than I care to remember that way in my twenty five turn tenure as Head Master. And I was glad to see the backside of everyone of them,. They would have brought dishonor on all of us. You however show a lot of promise. I heard what you said about not wanting to be a part of an organization that would let something like this go on. That's good. That's very good. Now get your lunch. Classes start at the thirteenth hour."

"But what if his blow had connected," J'nah wanted to know.

"As I said we don't want people here who won't stand up for themselves for fear of getting hurt. If you had put up a good fight, you would have been fine. You had no chance of beating him in ordinary hand to hand, as you will see later. The finger trick you tried wouldn't have worked either unless he let it. I don't have time for this. Get your lunch, Candidate. I have other matters to attend to."

J'nah reported to classroom seventeen at the thirteenth hour for basic hand combat classes. He stepped in to see fourteen others in the room. There was a podium at the front of the room and chairs for the students. There were mats on the floor between the podium and the seats. He took a seat at one of the desks toward the front of the room.

The 'aggressor' in the test walked in and waked to the podium.

"Good afternoon, everyone. I'm S'mane, rider of brown Hatarth, your instructor."

Now J'nah understood what M'tarek had said about him not having a chance of winning in ordinary hand to hand. The man was an instructor. He didn't look old enough. Maybe twenty turns old, and that was being generous.

"Hatarth is now speaking to all of your dragons. It is very important that the dragon have confidence in his rider's ability to physically defend himself. Often times a dragon will want to get involved to protect his rider. This is usually not a good idea because a dragon can easily kill a human. We aren't here to kill. We are here to serve Pern and enforce the peace. We don't pass judgment. We enforce the Charter and the amendments thereto and carry out sentence if someone is exiled or sent to one of the prison mines.

"Today, we will begin to learn how to fall and maybe a few other techniques"

"I know how to fall," the boy next to J'nah muttered, mostly to himself.

"I heard that, candidate," S'name said. "And that is something else you will learn here. How to listen and hear well. But when I say fall, I mean fall without hurting yourself."

He walked to the door, opened it and looked outside. It appeared he was waiting for someone. "There you are."

The 'victim' in the test walked in.

"This is my assistant, B'nag, rider of blue Colath," S'nane told them. "First, you will learn how to fall safely. But before we even get to that, I think a demonstration is in order."

Both B'nag and S'nane walked to the mats and faced each other. B'nag turned to the class and said, "This is to show you that someone smaller can get the better of a person who is more physically imposing."

He turned back to B'nag. "Ready?"

B'nag nodded.

S'nane moved in as if to grab the smaller man. Before the class knew what happened, S'nane was flying and landed flat on his back, slapping the mat with his palm as he hit. He sprang back up immediately.

"As I said, you have to know how to fall," he told them. "If you don't, you will definitely hurt yourselves. You will use the mats until you get used to it, but once you know how, it's not necessary."

They moved off the mats and again S'nane moved in. Once again he was flying through the air. He landed flat on his back on the hard floor slapping it with his palm as he hit.

Most of the class winced. That had to hurt. S'nane disabused them of that immediately.

"That's not the most comfortable thing in the world, but it really doesn't hurt. If you do it right. You do it wrong and you will be very sore. If you're lucky. If you aren't lucky, you will be in the infirmary.

"The trick to this is when you land, you want to land flat on your back to present the most area to the landing surface. This will dissipate the force of the fall. You also want to slap your dominant hand against the floor at the exact moment you land. This helps take your mind off the impact."

J'nah raised his hand. S'nane nodded. "I don't understand what you mean by dominant hand, sir."

"That means the hand you write with," the instructor said. "It doesn't have to be with that hand, but that hand, and the arm it is attached to, has the most fine control so it's better to use it, as it is important, vitally so until this becomes second nature, that the slap happens at the same instant as the impact. Once this becomes second nature, you don't have to slap the ground, but it certainly can't hurt. And I always do, even though it now seems like I was born knowing how to do this.

"In any event, you will do so in this class. You will get points marked off if you don't."

J'nah mounted Ratath for the trip back to Benden Weyr. When he was accepted into Peaceforcer training he had been transferred to the next Weyr with a vacancy, which had been Benden. He had found his wingleader, M'terk to be a fair, if stern man.

That looks like it would hurt, Ratath told him. He had reviewed his rider's memories.

"You'd think so, dear heart," J'nah replied aloud. "But it really doesn't. Of course, we are still on the mats. But from what S'nane says, it really doesn't hurt on a hard floor if you do it right."

I'm glad dragons don't have to learn how to do that. Ratath said. I've never fallen and don't want to.

Dragons have wings, humans don't, J'nah replied. Since you do have wings, there's no need for you to learn it.

A/N: That's where my muse quit me. I can't seem to get anything else out on this story, but I do have a couple of story ideas in advanced pre-planning.