"If there was anyone like that you killed him."

"Do you remember what it felt like? A twisting heat coiled inside you, or ice-cold clarity suffusing your mind. Recall it. Focus your energy upon it." Pause. "Then let it out."

She looks at the dummy.

She thinks about her master.

She'd met other masters before. They'd say things, and those were the same things her master would say, but—different, somehow. It was like he was trying to be more of a Jedi than anyone else, to embody its precepts. And he looked down on everyone who wasn't like that—looked down on her. She could see the way he despised her, the way he thought she was worthless, useless, would never amount to anything, would never live up to any standards. The disgust in his eyes, the chores, the way he subtly nudged everyone else to "make a better Jedi out of her."

She hates him.

She tries to let it all out.

She fails.

"Pathetic," Occlus sneers. "Worthless little girl. Can't meditate like a Jedi, can't even meditate like a Sith. No grasp at all of any fundamentals, and you think yourself capable of founding a third order? You will languish and die in obscurity, and no one will ever have their lives changed by you for the better."

"Am I supposed to start hating you instead? You haven't done a hundredth of what he has."

"I learned this my first day at the Academy. If you cannot muster up even this much feeling, he has done nothing to you."

She looks at the dummy again and pictures his—

—face—

—sneering at her, worse than even Occlus could even dream of, because of the unattainable ideal which she's still clinging to, in spite of all spites, and he's dead and it's all her fault and she shouldn't have let this horrible, horrible Sith in, what was she even thinking, who's she lying to? Why does she think this Sith could help her with anything?

She fails again.

"Congratulations. The Jedi have broken you." She turns to leave. "Don't waste any more of my time."

"Do you have a datapad?"

Occlus waves a hand and a locker on the wall pops open as she leaves the room.

She sits.

She writes.

She spends a lot of time writing.

No one comes to the cargo hold.

And then there was light.

Unless she zaps something important that is not the target dummy, no one is going to come running at her achievement.

No. She leaves the room.

Andronikos is playing solitaire at the holo-chess board.

"Where is Occlus?"

"In her room."

So she walks there.

The door is closed.

...screw it. She knocks.

The door opens.

"What."

"I have done it."