"Had a vision, apparently you and I are going to conquer a great evil and also perhaps we should prevent ghosts from possessing you."

She laughs. "So you're here to help."

"Hmm in a way, I suppose. I have some hope that if there aren't ghosts possessing you you might kill less people. And I'm not particularly impressed by the Voss's handling of the Force, either."

"What do you know of possession, little girl?"

"I actually spent the last while studying mind healing almost exclusively and there was something here and there about it. I believe the description was 'sudden mood swings, irritability, impulsiveness, paranoia, shortened attention span, and drastic personality drift,' but perhaps I'm misremembering something." She's not. "I hear if it goes untreated it can end up subsuming the host."

Occlus growls and faces away from Rafa, fists clenching. "Shut up! I don't need your talking. You obey my commands. I am in control."

"I call bullshit. Let's preempt the ending of this story and get that fixed before it gets out of hand?"

She points at Rafa and zaps her. It hurts. "Wasn't. Talking. To. You."

She doesn't scream. She doesn't even yelp. She'd been expecting it. She just clenches her fists and grits her teeth.

Occlus breathes heavily for a few seconds, then spins back to face Rafa.

"Fine," she grits out. "First, we destroy that ship."

"—what ship?" she asks, trying to pretend she's not breathing just as hard if not harder.

"Don't play stupid with me. The one you came from. It's clearly not going anywhere and if the Esh-kha get their hands on even a non-functional hyperdrive the galaxy will be overrun in a matter of months."

"Oh, my ship. Why should you care what the Esh-kha do? Why are you even here, for that matter?"

"The last time the Esh-kha were loose in the galaxy, it took the full might of the Rakatan Infinite Empire to subdue them. I would find having to deal with that... inconvenient."

"Okay, I'll ask you about that later, can I be the one to destroy it, I promised I wouldn't bring you there—"

"I don't need to go there." Dark energy swirls around her hands as she brings them up, focusing on the ship. Pale, ghostly outlines of figures appear next to her, mimicking her movements. Rafa gets the sense it would be a very, very bad idea to do anything at this point. The ship rises into the air and begins rotating slowly. With a crash and a crackle, Occlus and the ghosts slam their hands together and the ship implodes in a flare of purple light.

—damnit Occlus. She runs towards where it was to see if the people who were there are alive.

That would be a rather definite no.

"Why couldn't you just warn them before doing that?"

"And have to deal with carting them around this Tomb as well? No, I think not. Come, let us be off."

"Fine."

"Off we go then." She heads for another tunnel in the glacier surrounding the sinkhole, her steps light and jaunty.

Rafa follows her silently.

"I do hope you're not going to let that silly little pacifistic streak get the better of you if we run into another band of Esh-kha."

"Is your goal not to just prevent them from leaving the planet? Can you not just do that? And what's the story here, anyway, why are they here and why'd you come and how'd you know to?"