Disclaimer: All characters are property of Lucasfilms and George Lucas, and a galaxy far, far away.

Things might be confusing in this fic for a while, but it will all be cleared up eventually. What you need to know: Kyp Sith, Jaina Jedi, Vong Bad


Prologue

Hyperspace was quiet.

The vast emptiness was unsettled to some, but he found it soothing.

Nothing but the silence, the solitude, as the space between the stars stretched out beyond him, enveloping him in a swirling kaleidoscope of amorphous swirls.

Kyp Durron like hyperspace, he liked being alone out there.

There had been times, in his youth, when he would take one of the fighters from the Temple and jump into hyperspace over Korriban, just to enjoy the silence. It gave him time to be alone, time to think, to let his mind wander away from the harsh rigors of his training.

That was a long time ago, though.

Before the Vong.

Back when all he had to worry about was staying on his Master's good side, keeping an eye on his potential rivals with the Order, maintaining the Empire and racking up an impressive kill list of Jedi.

Life was so much simpler then.

Ah, the good old days, Kyp thought with a sigh.

Much had changed since then.

As a boy, he'd been drilled and tested and trained to the breaking point, because strength was power and power was everything. He'd worked hard to be the best at every task, to live up to his Master's expectations.

He'd learned at a young age that one did not want to disappoint Exar Kun.

It was a great honor, he'd been told entirely too many times throughout the years, to have been chosen by the Emperor himself. To have been taken as Kun's apprentice at such a young age, nurtured in the Sith arts from the tender age of six. He was envied, in the Empire, and he knew that there were many who would love to see him displaced, but so long as he had Kun's favor, none would dare to oppose him.

Not even the treacherous leech Brakiss.

That one had been so terribly disappointed when Exar Kun refused to leave his former apprentice to the Yuuzhan Vong.

Of course, Kyp had no delusions about why Kun had mounted a rescue party. It was not out of fondness for his old student, it was all about power. Kun had died once, thousands of years ago, only to be resurrected into a new body by Sidious, but even Kun knew that he was not immortal.

And without the ability to produce a child, Kun had to look to his former apprentice as his only heir.

He knew that Kyp, at least, would not turn on him. Others might see Kun to an early grave if it gave them a chance at the throne of the Imperial Remnant, but Kyp owed Kun too much to betray him, and Kun knew it.

If not for Kun, Kyp would have died with the rest of his family on Deyer when the New Republic came.

Kun made sure that he never forgot that.

As a teenager, angry and rumbling with fury, Kyp had found his calling in combat. It was easy to overcome his Jedi opponents, when they so blindly served the New Republic.

But even then, there had been a certain respect between the Sith and the Jedi.

They served opposite spectrums of the Force, but the Force still bound them together in some deeper way.

It was different with the Yuuzhan Vong.

They existed outside of the Force, an entire species of abominations, of butchers and religious fanatics. The Vong had swept into the galaxy like a plague, mutilating everything in their path and leaving death and destruction on a galactic scale in their wake.

Billions had been slaughtered, millions more sacrificed the Yuuzhan Vong's imaginary gods.

Dozens of worlds had been captured and hacked apart, forever tainted.

Coruscant was unrecognizable these days.

The Yuuzhan Vong called it "shaping", but Kyp didn't think there was a word powerful and disgusting enough for what they did to the planets they took.

And it wasn't just worlds that they were after.

Some little Jedi, Veila or something like that, had been captured at Myrkr. She'd been a part of the Jedi mission to wipe out the voxyn that the Yuuzhan Vong had breed to hunt down and kill any Force-user they came across, and although Kyp was pleased their mission had succeeded, for it meant he didn't have to worry about a pack of voxyn ambushing him and eating him alive, he cursed the Veila girl for falling into Yuuzhan Vong hands.

Better that she had died, or taken her own life.

Because the Veila girl had intrigued the Vong, she was the first Jedi that they'd been able to take alive, and they'd decided to use her as a lab specimen.

The Force fascinated the Yuuzhan Vong, because they were not a part of it they couldn't understand it, and they were obsessed with finding a way to harness the mysterious powers of the Jedi and Sith for themselves.

Veila had been "shaped", much like Coruscant, into something different.

Something distinctly Vong.

She had been rescued by the surviving members of her Jedi strike team after only a few days in captivity, so the Yuuzhan Vong brainwashing had not taken permanent root, but the damage had already been done.

The Yuuzhan Vong had realized that shaping Force-users could create a new generation of "super" Vong, with the powers of the Sith and the Jedi.

But their failure with Veila had shown them that they needed younger subjects to work with, and some shaper by the name of Kwaad had come to the conclusion that the best method of producing these "super" Vong was to use infants.

Thus the breeding labs were born.

Suddenly the Yuuzhan Vong were going to great lengths to capture Force-users alive. It didn't matter what their affiliation was; Sith, Jedi, Fallanassi, Jenasaari, Aing-Tii and Dathomiri alike, all were hunted.

And even the most powerful Force-users weren't always able to elude them.

Kyp himself had suffered the misfortune of being captured, when his bumbling apprentice walked them right into a trap.

Miko had not survived, and Kyp no longer felt regret about that fact. His apprentice had failed, and it had cost him his life, as was only fitting. According to tradition, such a failure would have required Kyp to take his life in the end, so it simply saved him the trouble. He would just have to take care to make sure his next apprentice was wiser.

If everything went according to plan, his next apprentice would also be much more powerful.

After all, any child of his would have to be strong in the Force.

And, if his spies were correct, that child was only a few weeks away from being born.

He had no idea what the sex of the child was going to be, he hadn't exactly had much contact with the soon-to-be mother, not since the day the Yuuzhan Vong had removed her from his cell and taken her to the maternity facility.

The Yuuzhan Vong weren't entirely stupid, they knew that even with ysalamari subduing the captives from accessing the Force it was dangerous to leave the two of them together. Of course what the Vong probably hadn't realized was that they were just as likely to kill each as they were their captors if the chance arose.

He was a Sith, after all, and Jaina Solo was one of the most stubborn Jedi in the galaxy.

She got that from her mother, no doubt.

A trait my child could do without, Kyp mused idly.

Of course, if the child was as powerful as Exar Kun expected it to be, then that stubborn temperament could be overlooked.

"I foresee that this child will be strong, Lord Durron. Strong, indeed..."

The blood of Lord Vader himself ran in Jaina Solo's veins, and would be passed on to her son or daughter.

It was ironic, really.

The Yuuzhan Vong had hoped to take the child and shape it into the ultimate Yuuzhan Vong warrior, a slayer, that could help them wipe out both the Sith and the Jedi.

But they hadn't counted on the Jedi rescuing their beloved little Jedi princess, and taking their weapon away from them.

And the Jedi hadn't counted on the Sith rescuing him, or they would have hidden Jaina better.

It had been seven months after the Yuuzhan Vong whisked Jaina Solo away to another facility that Kyp awoke to find that Exar Kun had sent a team of his best Sith warriors to free him from the breeding lab. He would learn, after being brought back to Korriban, that the Jedi had found Jaina several months earlier.

Kyp had already known she was pregnant when the Vong took her away, but he'd been pleased to hear she hadn't had one of the Jedi healers interfere with the pregnancy.

And so he'd waited as three months passed, until her due date grew closer.

Some of the best Sith spies had been recruited to find out her location, as Kyp was not the only one with a vested interest in the child.

Exar Kun had plans for the newest member of the Sith family, as well.

A light on the display console flashed, signaling the approaching jump back to real-space, and Kyp swiveled his seat back around to face the front of the viewport, reaching for the controls as his ship trembled, emerging from hyperspace.

In front of him, the Maw came into view, blackholes looming across the horizon.

And Kyp smiled with amused anticipation.

Jaina Solo was not going to be happy to see him.