It had just been one day.
Upon returning to Hapes, Kyp Durron had taken it upon himself to keep watch over the Hapan pilot as he recovered from his ordeal in a hidden bacta tank, far away from prying eyes, and he had mistakenly believed that Jaina would be able to stay out of trouble for this short period of time, that he could afford to not watch her every move for a little while longer.
After all, it was only a day.
Now trailing Seth, also known as Vanguard Four, into the hangar, Kyp took a few deep breaths, making a halfhearted attempt at a Jedi calming technique, but it did little to diminish the outraged anger coursing through him, and he didn't care in the least.
Jaina! he bellowed through the Force. Get in here this instant!
He continued his furious summons for his 'apprentice' as he powered down his X-wing, vowing to beat some sense into the girl with her own lightsaber if necessary.
It shouldn't have surprised him that she had been sending up pilots, including his pilots, on suicide missions, not after what he'd seen her do on Gallinore just a few days prior, but it had. Some part of him, despite his realization that she was dancing with the dark side, had not believed she could show such a callous disregard for human life.
But now he couldn't help remembering the detachment he'd seen from her in Sinsor Khal's lab, the way she had willingly stood by and watched as the Hapan pirate had been 'tested' to near death and back over and over.
As soon as the Ni'Korish had come out of the bacta tank, Kyp wiped his memories and sent him on his way, ensuring his escape, but he didn't feel nearly as uneasy about releasing a pirate now as he had at the beginning of Jaina's little mission to Gallinore. After everything that Crimpler had endured there, he supposed the man was entitled to do as much pillaging as his greedy little heart wanted.
Jaina! he shouted, projecting his fury in her direction as he vaulted out of his X-wing. Get. In. Here. Now.
"You don't have to shout," a cool female voice called from the wings of the hangar, and he turned to see Jaina calmly striding into the room, indifference and unconcern etched across her soft features, giving her a surprisingly ruthless appearance.
She bypassed Kyp entirely, not even giving him a spare glance, and moved in on Seth as the Hapan pilot made for the doors, clearly anxious to get as far away from here as possible.
"Did you get any?" she asked the surviving pilot, with blatant disregard for the fact that only one of the 'scouts' she had sent up had returned alive.
"One," Seth paused to answer tersely, glancing at Kyp as he passed. "Maybe."
Jaina nodded and turned away, but Kyp grabbed her by the arm and jerked her back to face him, none too gently, and her angry gaze locked with his own. Neither of them spoke, both glaring daggers at one another, and Kyp couldn't help cursing that Solo temperament.
As soon as he'd found time to retreat to his tent in the refugee camp late the night before, he'd found a message waiting for him from none other than Princess Leia herself, which in itself had put him on edge. After hearing her story about the brawl Han had been goaded into by Hapan guards, which had ended when Zekk arrived and knocked them out, and the fractured skull his old friend had suffered for it, Kyp was even more certain that something very wrong was going on here on Hapes.
The fact that Leia had requested he keep a close eye on Jaina only told him that she sensed it, too.
It was a rare thing for Leia Solo to express faith of any kind in him, much less to ask a favor, especially one so important, so Kyp was determined to see her wish done. If he had to flank Jaina every waking moment from here on out, he was more than prepared to do so.
At the moment, though, he would have preferred it if Jaina hadn't inherited her mother's stubbornness.
They continued their staredown for another few heartbeats, and then Jaina looked away. "They're gathering data," she said at last, the first to concede. "Important data."
"How many pilots have you sent up?" Kyp demanded sharply, cursing himself for not watching her more closely since their return from Gallinore, for not paying attention to what she'd been up to over the past day while he was busy attending to Crimpler. "How many returned?"
"Most likely a higher percentage than those from your command," Jaina shot back venomously.
"People die in war," Kyp retorted bluntly. "I accept that, and so do the pilots who fly with me. But I never deliberately threw their lives away. How good is your tracking data?"
"Getting better," she said defensively.
"So you had a good idea how many skips were patrolling the sector," Kyp concluded, clenching his jaw as his fury doubled. "And you sent up two men."
Two.
Not even Darth Vader would have been so careless.
As soon as that thought crossed his mind, Kyp's stomach dropped, but he didn't have time to dwell on it, because he'd put Jaina back on the defensive again.
"We don't have enough of the implants yet, or the delivery weapons, to justify sending up more," Jaina argued coldly, her dark eyes bitter and accusing, full of too many truths and painful answers to consider at the moment. "You would have made the same decision."
"Which brings us to the next issue," Kyp said, purposefully ignoring her claim and his uncertainty that he could argue otherwise. "Those pilots apparently think I ordered this mission."
"You used my name and influence when it suited you," Jaina pointed with a snarky smirk, shrugging her slender shoulders with casual smugness. "I'm here to learn from the master."
There it was again, the reminder of what he'd done at Sernpidal, the way he'd manipulated her with the Force to get her to help him with his plans to destroy a worldship, convincing her that it had been a superweapon of some kind. It had been all too easy to fill her with dread, just a simple tweak to remind her of the Death Star and her mother's homeworld of Alderaan, and of what the Yuuzhan Vong had already done to Ithor, and she had been more than ready to help him achieve his goals.
Did he regret having to resort to such methods? Of course, he'd always been fond of Jaina and using her had never been something he was proud of. But did he regret the outcome of the situation?
That was a more difficult question, one which made every reprimand he gave Jaina sound hollow and more than a little hypocritical. How could he be an effective teacher, when for every mistake she made, she could cite two of his own that were too similar for comfort?
For the first time, he was beginning to realize just what a frustration he must have been to Luke Skywalker.
An approaching presence, cool and regal, filled his senses, and he looked up to find a tall, slender woman moving toward them, dressed in a deep purple gown with violet sashes, the very best in Hapan finery. She looked younger than she was, of that he was certain, and she'd retained much of the beauty of her youth, as well as the fluid movements. There was a faint, and distorted, echo of Tenel Ka about her in the Force, but her presence was layered with shadow and deceit, whereas the Hapan princess was clear and open to him.
Whoever she was, a nod from her brought guards hurrying to dispel the small crowd of pilots and mechanics that had gathered on the perimeter, and Jaina straightened upon spotting her coming their way.
"Difficult times call for hard decisions, young man," the older woman said sternly. "Selecting a leader is a difficult thing, and should never be done lightly. Once done, however, a constant second-guessing of a leader is worse than having no leader at all."
Taken aback by her intrusion into private Jedi matters, and the condescending, lecturing tone in her voice, Kyp blinked and turned to Jaina for an explanation. "Who is this?" he demanded.
"The former queen of Hapes," she answered curtly, inclining her head in a show of respect. "Ta'a Chume, this is Kyp Durron, Jedi Master. He's training me."
For some reason the woman found this idea amusing, and Kyp decided right then and there that he liked her less than he liked the Yuuzhan Vong. There was something about her that rubbed him the wrong way, and the interest he sensed she had in Jaina sent chills down his spine that he couldn't really explain.
This woman was trouble.
"If you have anything worthwhile to impart," Ta'a Chume told him, lifting her nose. "Then I suggest you stop whining and get to it."
Indignant, Kyp clenched his jaw, calling on every last ounce of his Jedi control, and kept his silence.
With a thin smile, mistaking his silence for a small victory in her favor, the former queen turned to Jaina, speaking with a sense of familiarity that set him on edge. "I will be offworld for a day or so," Ta'a Chume informed her. "But we will speak again upon my return."
Without waiting for a reply, she glided off again, and Kyp waited until she'd disappeared from the hangar, taking the guards with her, before he drew Jaina aside, now more worried than ever.
Jaina seemed to sense the uneasiness that Ta'a Chume had bred within him, because she gave him an ironic smile and folded her arms over her chest, suddenly looking more like her father than ever. "Don't worry," she said smoothly. "I know she's up to something, and I know she's using me."
"Do you?" Kyp narrowed his eyes appraisingly. "And are you using her in return?"
"We need supplies to fight the Vong," Jaina pointed out with a shrug, not denying it. "Ships, pilots, weaponry... Ta'a Chume can provide all of that and more. I don't know exactly what she's got up her sleeve, but whatever it is, I'm not interested."
"No?" Kyp questioned, raising an eyebrow.
"I fight my own battles," Jaina said shortly. "And I don't like political intrigue. As long as she's a useful ally, I'm not going to turn down her help, but she expects too much if she thinks I'm going to return the favor somewhere down the road."
"I see," Kyp murmured, and despite himself, he was partly relieved by her words.
He had enough to worry about on her behalf without having to watch out for Ta'a Chume, as well.
Still, in the future he would be keeping a watchful eye on any interaction the former queen of Hapes had with his apprentice. Just because Jaina was aware of the games the woman was playing, didn't make her games any less dangerous.
And if anything, it only made the ones Jaina was playing in return all the more potent.
"You said you were here to learn," Kyp told her gruffly, jabbing a finger in her direction. "Listen and see if you can wrap your mind around this: from now on, anything you do will be cleared through me. You will not assume that my actions, past of present, justify yours."
"Oh, please," Jaina scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Next thing I know you'll be telling me, 'Do as I say, not as I do'."
"That's the general idea, yeah," Kyp confirmed, folding his arms.
The sneer fell from her lips, replaced with a startled expression that would have been amusing in any other situation, it wasn't often that he was able to take her by surprise like that these days.
"You're serious?"
"As a thermal detonator," he said, nodding sharply. "Start filling me in."
"Fine- a quick recap, then," Jaina agreed with a weary sigh, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear, a mannerism that made her seem younger somehow, like the girl he'd known before the invasion began. "A yammosk communicates with smaller ships through some sort of telepathy. The daughter ships move, shield and navigate through gravitic fluctuations. These are both created and received by the dovin basal. Each of these creatures has a genetic imprint, a distinct and unique voice that's formed by its gravitic signals. When the dovin basal picks up information, they know what ship originated it."
Interesting, Kyp mused to himself. This has potential.
"You with me so far?" Jaina asked, mocking light in her dark eyes.
Kyp nodded. "Go on."
"Danni Quee discovered how to jam a yammosk signal: we took that one step further," she continued, lifting her chin proudly. "Lowbacca was able to isolate and define the pattern of the Trickster's gravitic signature. The pattern is very subtle, but right now we can disrupt it using the coral implants."
"Yeah, I just saw that demonstrated," Kyp noted darkly.
"We've learned a lot from the skips we've managed to mess up," Jaina insisted, as if that made everything okay, and the disturbing thing was that he knew in her eyes, it did. "What we're trying to do now is get the skip so confused that it loses contact with the yammosk altogether."
"I'd say you're there," Kyp informed her, thinking back on the total chaos he'd witnessed up in space with the Yuuzhan Vong skips terrorizing Seth and the other Hapan pilot.
"Next step, then," Jaina said, pleased to hear that. "All skips seem to fly and shield in pretty much the same way. It's the navigation that depends on unique information. Lowbacca has been working on a small mechanical device, a repulsor, that could mimic the Trickster's gravitic code. This would overlay another ship's 'voice', letting us create decoys that will lure the Vong into traps."
"Ambush by trickery," Kyp observed, and her eyes glittered as she nodded.
"The Yuuzhan Vong are looking for the Trickster," Jaina reminded him with a slow, predatory smirk. "We're going to make sure they find and destroy her- not once, but several times."
Kyp stared at her for a long moment, then let out a slow whistle. "It's good," he conceded. "I'm in."
Her answering smile reminded him of a Tusken wildcat. "Lead on, Master."
There was something almost mocking in her words, although her tone was carefully neutral, and Kyp was unsettled as he led the way to the private hangar where the Yuuzhan Vong frigate that Jaina had stolen in her escape from the worldship over Myrkr was being kept.
He was surprised to find it empty, and he had a sudden prickling along his neck, a tingle in the Force, as he noted the Wookiee Jedi's absence, but when he inquired about it to Jaina, all he got was a sense of weariness from her.
"Lowie went back to Kashyyk," she replied, opening the portal door and ducking inside. "He's trying to recruit some of the Wookiee techs there to come back with him to help us work on figuring out our experimental technology for combating the Yuuzhan Vong."
Following her inside, Kyp looked around for the first time, his eyes raking over the coral hull and living attachments on the rocky walls as the spongy floor beneath his feet rippled faintly. This was the first time he'd been inside of an enemy ship with the time to actually study it, and he found it wasn't nearly as repulsive as he had been expecting.
"Impressive, isn't she?" Jaina asked, and he looked up to find her leaning in a coral doorway, looking about the ship proudly. "She belonged to Nom Anor before I took it from him."
"Nom Anor?" Kyp echoed in surprise. "Really?"
Jaina nodded, lips curving up in smug satisfaction. "He was... extremely displeased," she said with a wry chuckle. "It seems the very idea of a mere infidel like me flying upon a living ship, much less his own, is offending."
"Infidel, huh?" Kyp smirked. "I thought you were a goddess now."
She snorted, turning and continuing further into the ship, and he followed.
"This whole goddess thing is for their benefit," she informed him as she led him into an open area where a pair of villips sat on a smooth rock table, which seemed to grow up out of the floor, as if it was just another part of the ship. "Not mine."
"Sure," Kyp said dryly, watching her as she lowered herself down at the table, lifting a villip into her hand for inspection. "I'm sure it's such a hassle being a deity."
"Hey, you think it's easy simultaneously inspiring fear and reverence?" Jaina retorted.
"I imagine it's hard work," Kyp played along, leaning against the coral wall.
"Exhausting, really," Jaina said, tossing a lighthearted grin at him from over the villip. "And the unfortunate thing about being an immortal is there's no retirement plan."
Shaking his head, Kyp chuckled as she went back to work, focusing her attention on the villip in her hands, although what she was hoping to achieve with it, he wasn't sure. For a moment there, he'd seen a glimmer of the old Jaina, and it had been nice.
He wanted to see that side of her more.
While she was distracted by the villip, he took the opportunity to study her without her knowing it. She hadn't been in a set of Jedi robes in weeks now, not since Anakin's funeral, but she was at least wearing the tunic and leggings, and her dark hair fell across her face as she worked. For a time, it was as if she'd forgotten he was there, she was so caught up in tinkering with the living ship, and the cold durasteel walls between them fell away.
He still couldn't get a very good read on her, her powers were formidable enough to keep him out even without any real conscious effort, but she was a little less jagged around the edges now, a little less harsh.
No less dangerous, of course, both to him and to herself, but it was reassuring to see her let her guard down for once.
Maybe she was starting to warm up to him, to trust him again. If their experiences on Gallinore had served to gain her trust, then maybe it had been worth it after all.
Because if he was going to save her, she was going to have to trust him first.
"Could you use some help working on this hunk of rock?" he found himself asking, and when Jaina looked up at him in surprise, he cleared his throat. "I mean, even between running the Vanguards and spending some time working on your training- which we need to start brushing up on, by the way- I've got some spare time to kill, and maybe having an extra set of hands around will give you time to discover the rest of her secrets."
Jaina gazed at him appraisingly for a long moment, and he actually shifted, feeling as if she was looking right through him somehow, seeing into the deepest, most hidden corners of his soul.
"First of all," she said, rising to her feet. "Stop calling my ship a 'hunk of rock'."
"Would you prefer large piece of coral?" Kyp quipped.
"Secondly," Jaina continued, ignoring him. "If you're serious about pitching in, that's fine. Like you said, I can always use an extra set of hands. But this is my ship, Durron. You may be the Master out there, but in here, I'm in charge, got it?"
"Got it," Kyp promised evenly.
"All right, then," Jaina said, tossing him a multitool from the tool pouch on the floor. "There's a tear in the wall of the back coral alcove- the frigate's version of cabins. Get to work."
"Your wish is my command, Goddess," he said, executing a wry bow before starting off in that direction. He felt her eyes on him as he left, and he knew she was wondering why he'd suddenly volunteered to help out with the repairs on the Trickster.
The thing was, he was wondering the same thing himself.
He wanted to tell himself it was because the best way to pull Jaina back from the dark side was to stick close to her, to get her to spend as much time in his company as possible, but it would have only been a partial truth.
The fact was, even after everything she'd done, even after what he'd seen her do on Gallinore, he just wanted to be near her.
And that, more than anything else, made him wonder if he was in over his head.