I am looking for the name and or author of a book I read back in the late 80's. There was a female heroine she had mind powers, she was being taught to use her powers by a older man, she was supposed to use her powers to steal something. There was a spaceship they were traveling on, and the pilot of the spaceship was once a spacemarine, and the female spends time throughout the book, trying to tear down a barrier in the pilots mind, she is practicing her powers and she wants to know who the pilot really was.

It sounds a bit like one of the Talent series by Anne McCaffrey, perhaps Damia or Damia's Children