Using his toes, Hal turned the chair to face Jeryd, looking up at the tall, visibly frustrated cadet. To his credit, Jeryd hadn't yelled, or burst into a rage, whereas a few months ago, he likely would have. He'd grown. A bit. Matured. A bit. And possibly even learned the tiniest bit of humility. Maybe.

It was a start.

"I'm sure you're capable of leaving, yes," Hal shrugged, then held up a paw as his smile faded. "But right now you have to ask yourself if leaving is what you really want. If you go through that door, you will not be on this mission, and you might be overlooked for many others, because of it. I need you to swallow your pride, and climb down from your fucking ivory tower, and think about things from the ground level for a moment. Because right now, let me tell you, you're acting like an officer, but not at all like a Knight, and there's a very big difference there."

Getting up from his chair, Hal didn't move toward the door, instead crossing to the window to gaze out at the storm raging beyond. Droplets of rain refracted the lights from thousands of signs and billboards, and the tens of thousands of speeders which clogged the airlanes. Left to his own devices, he would have simply watched the rain and been happy, as rain in the kingdom of Nehantish was a rare sight indeed. But this was not Nehantish, nor did he possess the luxury of simply letting his mind relax in his current surroundings.

"This situation we're in; do you not find it interesting?" he asked, stifling a bit of a chuckle as he spotted an open-roof speeder stuck amongst the traffic, its driver miserable and wet. "I did not ask for you, I asked for someone else. Yet someone in authority here selected you instead. Selected someone they knew I do not get along well with. Was that to punish me? Or was it to punish you for something? It's clearly one or the other, right? Unless it's not."

Turning back from the window, he arched an eyebrow at Jeryd. "You have no idea of what life is like beyond the grasp of the Empire, nor do you scarcely understand those in a lower economic class than yourself. Sure, you study hard, you excel in your classes and your tests, and that'll make you a fine poster boy, someday. But you'll never get the hard missions, thinking like you do. It'll be the photo-op softballs for life, while Knights like me get the real work done. Knights with greater perspective, with knowledge of all that off-limits stuff in the archives. Knights who have lived beyond the reach of the Empire, and among the normal people out there just trying to get by."

A step forward, and he began to draw closer, having to look up at the taller cadet. "I was hunted by the Empire, did you know that? Literally hunted. And while looking for me, Imperial soldiers brutalized, and murdered innocent people, and were prepared to put an entire lineup to the firing squad because they lacked perspective, and lacked insight. There is so much more out there than black and white, Cadet Redsun. And I have seen your so-called good guys operate in some of the darkest, dirtiest shades of gray. And I have operated in those shades myself, while wearing this uniform, because I understand the galaxy as it really is, not how it has been presented to you. You'll get to operate in the light, the purest, most spotless light, while the real work is done in the shadows. And you just told them that's what you want, by how you've failed to even remotely grasp how to approach the assignment someone picked you for."

Nearly in Jeryd's face, Hal's voice lowered to a whisper, though it was not in an attempt to hide something from whoever was listening. "Because the way I see it, someone sent you here to test you, and me in the process. So tell me, do you still want to go out that door, or are you starting to understand things a little better?"