He was having an incredible dream.

The sun was shining high overhead, bathing him in its warmth as he lay stretched out on the sandy shores of Mon Calamari, the sparkling oceans in the distance.

Jaina was with him.

There was no war, no fighting or death, the galaxy was forgotten and they were at peace, just the two of them, on a well earned vacation far away from everyone and anything. The beach was deserted, there was no one else for miles, and the gentle melody of the Force wove its way around them, warming the air even more than the sun itself.

It was peaceful here, and for the first time in many, many years, Kyp felt peaceful, too.

Beside him, he felt Jaina stir and he opened his eyes as she propped herself up on one elbow, laying on her side, her dark hair cascading over one shoulders as she smiled at him. Her eyes were bright and warm, and she was a sun herself in the Force, full of life and love, a brilliant light that couldn't be contained within the confines of her small body, so it seeped outward into the world around her.

She's beautiful, he thought to himself in awed wonder, reaching out a hand to brush a stray strand of hair away from her eyes. Like a goddess...

Jaina laughed at that, but it wasn't the tinkling, airy sound he'd heard earlier in this dream, it was somehow darker and more menacing, strangely out of place in this tranquil moment, and he winced, as if it hurt his ears.

"Aww, poor Master Durron," Jaina purred, her lips curling up into a smirk. "Do you need me to kiss it and make it all better?"

Warning bells went off somewhere in the murky corners of his mind, and he knew something wasn't right, but he couldn't bring himself to care as Jaina leaned closer until their noses were almost touching, her dark eyes full of an emotion he wasn't able to identify.

"Do you know what I need, Kyp?" she whispered, warm breath spilling across his cheek. "I need you."

I need you...

As if coming out of a daze, Kyp Durron's eyes fluttered open, and he found himself staring up at Jaina Solo, who was seated on the edge of his bed, peering down at him with a frown.

"Jaina?" he rasped groggily, sleep still clouding his thoughts. "What...?"

"I need you," Jaina repeated.

Those words sent a shiver of anticipation through him that was entirely inappropriate, and Kyp stifled it as quickly as possible, but if the wicked gleam in Jaina's eyes was any indication, he hadn't completely managed to keep her from noticing.

Pulling his shields tightly around him, Kyp sat up, acutely aware of the fact that he was shirtless and even more aware of her eyes tracing over his chest appreciatively, but he ignored her and the twisting flutter in his stomach, taking a moment to gather his wits and look around the room.

He was in his tent among the refugee camp, just as he's expected, so it wasn't surprising that Jaina had been able to get inside. What was surprising, though, was that she had done so without him noticing her presence. Even in sleep, he should have been able to detect her approaching.

You're losing your touch, Durron, he told himself ruefully.

Jaina was watching him expectantly, and he finally focused his attention on her, forcing himself to ignore how close she was sitting on his bed and fixing his gaze directly on her own.

"What are you talking about?" he asked curiously.

"I need your help," Jaina replied evenly. "You're the only one I can trust with this."

"I thought you didn't trust me?" Kyp reminded her dryly. "That you never would?"

"I said that I can trust you," Jaina shot back smugly. "Not that I do."

That stung a little, but he couldn't argue that he did deserve her distrust after Sernpidal, so he focused on what she was saying instead, eyeing her warily. "You said I'm the only one you can trust 'with this'... and what, pray tell, is this 'this' that you're avoiding telling me about?"

If she was irritated that he'd picked up on the fact that she was keeping something from him, she didn't show it.

"What?" Jaina asked with a wry smirk, lowering her eyelashes in mock affront. "Don't you trust me?"

"Should I?" Kyp replied skeptically. "You still haven't told me what it is you want from me."

Dark eyes lingered over his bare shoulders for a moment from under hooded eyelids, her gaze heating his skin, and Jaina gave him an appreciative smile. "Oh, I want many things, Master Durron," she purred softly, and the space between them seemed to shrink into nothingness, causing Kyp's heartbeat to suddenly race in a manner he knew it shouldn't be.

Forcing himself to look away, Kyp relied on the Force to slow his pulse and steady his breathing, flooding himself with a cool, calm sense of unconcern that was entirely fake.

"Cut to the chase, Jaina," he ordered irritably. "Or I'm going back to sleep."

"Fine," Jaina replied, giving him a dark look, and she became serious at once. "I've gotten royal permission for a trip to Gallinore."

"Gallinore?" Kyp echoed, raising an eyebrow.

"You've heard about their expertise in bioengineering, I'm sure," Jaina said shortly, pausing only to give him a withering look of contempt in case he hadn't. "The problems New Republic scientists have had when dealing with Yuuzhan Vong technology is that they've never had experience working on bio-organic materials. The scientists on Gallinore have."

"And you think they'll have better luck?"

"Don't you?"

"Possibly," Kyp said with a shrug, then eyed her appraisingly. "What Yuuzhan Vong 'material' are you going to give them to work with? I can't see you handing over the Trickster to a bunch of scientists after all the work you've put into it."

"No," Jaina conceded with a faint smile that was something more than rueful, but not quite malevolent. "Lowie and I have been able to get almost everything on the Trickster to work already, and we can figure out the rest of her secrets on our own. I don't need the Gallinore scientists to work on Yuuzhan Vong ships anyway, that's not their specialty. I'm more interested in what they can tell me about the slave seeds, like the one Uncle Luke cut out of Jacen's cheek on Garqi."

"Slave seeds, huh?"

Kyp remembered hearing about them, Jacen had gone off on one of his righteous rants again after witnessing the slaves having to fight at the Yuuzhan Vong's command, which in itself wasn't unusual, but even Master Skywalker had been troubled by what he'd seen on Garqi, and that wasn't something Kyp could so easily dismiss.

"And where do you propose to find a working slave seed?" he demanded irritably. "Or is that what you need me for... to get captured by the Vong and implanted like your brother?"

"As tempting as that sounds," Jaina retorted with a wicked smirk. "Nothing that drastic is necessary. It just so happens that three Ni'Korish pirates are locked up here on Hapes at the moment, all three of them sporting coral slave seeds."

"I see," Kyp murmured.

"I've already arranged for them to 'break out'," Jaina explained. "All we have to do is grab one of them, knock him out, and stow him away in the cargo hold of the ship we're being given for this trip."

"Oh, is that all?" Kyp snorted.

"Tenel Ka and Lowie are accompanying us..." Jaina commented evenly, but there was a stirring of anxiety within her that he detected through the Force.

"But you don't want them to know about any of this, obviously," Kyp concluded bluntly. "Or you'd be going to them instead of me."

"Are you in or not?" Jaina demanded, neither admitting to or denying his words.

Kyp didn't answer right away, taking a moment to reflect on what she'd told him, and what she hadn't. Something didn't feel quite right about this whole thing, but he couldn't really pinpoint what it was he didn't like, all he had to go on was a vague feeling of unease. Jaina was still holding something back from him about this little mission of hers, that much he was certain of, but what and why were questions he couldn't even begin to formulate answers to.

If he wanted answers, he would just have to be patient, because she would have to fill him in sooner or later, if he was to be of any help at all on Gallinore.

"Give me a few minutes to change clothes and pack some gear," he replied wearily. "Then we'll go nab this pirate of yours, all right?"

"Whatever you need," Jaina agreed, and started to rise from the bed, then stopped suddenly, and stretched out on the cot with a smile that reminded him eerily of a Tusken wildcat. "You know what, there's a changing screen," she said, gesturing to the screen in the corner, eyes full of wicked revenge. "I think I'll just stay right here."

Kyp stared down at her for a long moment, contemplating forcibly removing her from his tent, and then shook his head, grabbing a set of Jedi robes and heading for the changing screen. If that was how she wanted it, that was just fine with him.

He'd play whatever little game she had in mind, and he'd win.

Once changed, he emerged from behind the screen to find Jaina lounging on his bed, casually using the Force to levitate a small silver orb above her, dark eyes watching it spin slowly. Kyp felt a flicker of irritation that she had gone through his things, but he didn't say anything, knowing it would be hypocritical after he'd broken into her room at the palace the night of Anakin's funeral to get her lightsaber.

Instead, he purposefully didn't speak, rummaging about his stuff to gather together the equipment he might need for this mission of hers, aware of her mirthless amusement as he did so.

"I'll need to make arrangements for my squadron while I'm gone," Kyp informed her once he was done.

"Already taken care of," Jaina retorted, letting the sphere settle down on the bed and rising to her feet. "Vanguard Two is going to play Lead while we're gone."

Startled, he turned to fix her with a disapproving glare, not at all happy to realize she had already gone behind his back to fix things to her liking.

"I might have turned you down you know," Kyp pointed out with a scowl.

"No," Jaina said simply, striding past him. "You wouldn't have."

Without sparing him so much as a glance, she disappeared out the flap of his tent and into the refugee camp, leaving him gaping after her with indignation. Just who did she think she was, anyway, to be making decisions about his squadron without even consulting him?

Growling, he slung his pack over his shoulder and stalked out into the night after her, muttering under his breath about sithly Jedi princesses.

A landspeeder, the same one he'd commandeered to take her to Anakin's funeral, was waiting a few feet away, and Jaina was already seated in the pilot's seat, so he threw his gear in and settled down in the passenger space, giving her a sharp look that she promptly ignored.

Twenty minutes later, they had stowed their equipment into the cargo hold of a Hapan light freighter, opening the hidden compartment under the deckplates in the hold, and they made their way to the sprawling detention center, slipping inside easily and undetected with the aide of the Force.

This way, Jaina's phantom touch on his mind caused an inexplicable shiver to pass through him, but Kyp followed her just the same as she led the way to the guard house, and to the landing where three E-wings had been conveniently, almost too conveniently, left unattended and ready for an escape. Kyp considered pointing out that it was a little too clean, that the Ni'Korish pirates might get suspicious, but he sensed she was already aware of that and had measured her options carefully before finalizing the details of this plan.

Six guards sat around a small table playing sabacc, but they didn't even notice Kyp and Jaina's arrival thanks to a simple manipulation of the Force around them, and the two Jedi took up a place in the far corner, leaning back against the wall to wait for the Ni'Korish.

They didn't have to wait long, whatever the arrangement to get the prisoners out of their cells was, it must have gone smoothly, because two men dressed in guard uniforms soon appeared in the doorway with a third man, acting like a prisoner being moved, between them. The tension in their step, and the grim confidence he detected through the Force, gave their true identities away even without reading their thoughts.

Glancing at Jaina just to be sure, he received a curt nod in reply.

Just like the guards, the Ni'Korish didn't see them, either, although their gazes swept right over Kyp at least twice as they scanned the room.

It happened fast, but Kyp knew he and Jaina could have saved the guards, had she felt any inclination to do so. The pirate dressed as a prisoner kicked over the table, pinning three of the real guards, and he slit their throats in one fluid movement as his comrades took out the remaining three.

Tempted to intervene somehow, Kyp had actually taken a step forward until Jaina froze him in his tracks with a cold glare that would have caused Sullest to turn to ice. Standing by and doing nothing while the guards were murdered twisted at his stomach, but Kyp remained where he was, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed sharply, watching the pirates with disgust and loathing as they killed the last guard.

Stepping over the bodies without so much as a glance, the three Ni'Korish headed for the landing pad.

Kyp and Jaina moved away from the wall together and followed.

"Three ships," one of the pirates muttered upon spotting the E-wings waiting. "Seems to me it's a bit too neat and tidy."

The Force rippled faintly around Jaina, and he felt her give the pirates a whisper of suggestion.

"Save it for your memoirs," the one in prisoner clothing snapped, suddenly much more confident in their escape. "Go!"

The three men rushed for the E-wings, and Kyp's sights fell on the one who had spoken last as he began to climb into the cockpit of the battered fighter. Reaching out with the Force, he touched the pirate's mind, slowing down his body and shutting down the nervous system until the man came to a complete and utter halt, his hands still hovering over the controls on the console, his bafflement groggy but clear.
His Ni'Korish companions didn't notice his predicament as they took off, and wouldn't until it was too late, but Kyp doubted they would care anyway.

Striding over the grounded E-wing, he pried open the hatch to find himself face-to-face with the pirate, whose eyes were glossy and frozen, just like the rest of his body, but there was a flicker of nervous energy behind those eyes, a stab of dread at having his escape ruined.

"This the one you wanted?" Kyp asked aloud without looking away from the pirate.

Jaina stepped forward, reaching out a small, slender hand to the back of the man's neck, and he felt her grim satisfaction when her fingers discovered a slave seed. "He'll do," she confirmed evenly, and gestured for him to continue.

Grasping the Force, Kyp gave a gentle twist of the man's mind, just enough to render the man unconscious, but not before he felt a spasm of cold terror flood over the pirate.

He told himself it was a natural reaction to the situation the helpless Ni'Korish had found himself in, that the man had probably just been frightened by the prospect of what he thought was awaiting him back in the Hapan prison, but a small voice in the deepest corner of his heart told him what he didn't want to admit.

It hadn't been him that the pirate that the pirate was afraid of, or even the thought of being executed.

The pirate had been looking directly at Jaina as he lost consciousness, staring up at her with blatant fear that had nearly paralyzed him.

Whatever he'd seen in her eyes had filled him with cold terror.

The implications of that realization would leave Kyp unsettled for days to come.