Valin and Jysella breathed heavily as they sat in the alley between two apartment buildings in Coronet City as they thought about what they could do next; in the city all around them, all they could feel were the Force-presences of imposters. It would have seemed strange and absurd that there would be imposters posing as people that neither of them had ever met, yet that was the case, and that sentiment pressed down on their minds in a way that no rationality could overcome.

And it was that very thought pattern that made them unsure as to how they could proceed; they couldn't go to any spaceports, at least not indiscreetly. And hijacking a transport out of the Corellian system seemed unfeasible, especially with the false Galactic Alliance presence that seemed strangely unaligned with the imposters who were running the Five Worlds having a tight grip on this system; they would be blown away and, thus, unable to help the Queen of the Stars who called out to them through the Force.

Still, the Horn siblings knew they had to try something.

When they finally got their breathing under control and started to think about what they could do, Valin looked to his sister with realization strong in his eyes. "Jysella... I think we can escape this system."

She looked at him in askance. "How?"

"Hijacking a transport might be possible after all," Valin elaborated. "The Queen of the Stars has given us great power. We can use it if we direct it properly." A mournful look came over his face. "Do you remember how Jaina Solo killed our grandfather?"

"Why do you bring that up?" Jysella asked scornfully.

"Because it may be how we can escape," Valin explained.

Now the same realization came into Jysella's own eyes; they were aware that Jaina had killed their grandfather, Booster Terrik, and thousands aboard the Errant Venture by reaching out through the Force and killing them in various ways. Of course, as Solo admitted when she stood trial for that massacre and the preceding one on Coruscant, that took her nearly an hour to complete, and it was with only one ship, massive though it was; Here, however, they would have to not only contend with the entirety of the forces that the Corellians could bring to bear, but also the GA fleet who could...

That line of thinking trailed into one that aligned with Valin's yet again; they didn't have to kill the forces around them all by themselves. No, they just had to get them to kill each other instead.

With that thought cemented into both their minds, they looked at each other with a shared grin, stood up, and walked out of the alley for the nearest spaceport, now uncaring of the threat posed by the imposters around them.

. . .

Because of the deaths of the Jedi Knights—both sane and insane—aboard Sinkhole Station, that left fourteen StealthX fighters without any pilots; those were too many vessels for the Solo Quest II and the two Jedi Blastboats to either slave or tug, especially with all of the near-constant hyperspace dropouts that they would have to make as they left the Maw. Hence, it was agreed by the surviving Jedi who still didn't think that everyone around them was an imposter—or who weren't still Mind Walking—that, at some point in the future, they would have to come back for those StealthXs, and that was assuming that Sinkhole didn't explode. But for now, as they had the Quest's cargo hold filled with the bodies of the fallen Jedi, they had to find this Dagger of Mortis and use it to kill Abeloth before she wreaked any havoc on the galaxy.

Of course, even the threat that Abeloth posed didn't weigh so heavily on Kyp Durron's mind as being virtually alone with Jaina Solo aboard the Quest did; technically, with her Mind Walking brother Jacen and Luke Skywalker in the ship's medbay, Kyp and Jaina weren't really alone, but they might as well have been. As he sat in the Quest's pilot seat, keeping watch through the forward viewport for any points into which he had to drop out of hyperspace while Jaina sat next to him in the copilot seat, Kyp hoped that either Luke or Jacen would wake up soon, because the tension between him and the younger woman was palpable.

"We've been cruising through lightspeed for quite some time now, huh?" she asked casually.

"Hmm," Kyp grunted; he didn't know how else to make it clearer that he wasn't in any mood to talk.

"Noticed that when we were first getting to Sinkhole?" Jaina followed up anyway. "Maybe it really does have something to do with Centerpoint's destruction. Tell me, Kyp, how long between hyperspace jumps does it take in the Maw before we have to-"

"That's Master Durron to you," he snapped.

She scowled. "Last I checked, I wasn't a Jedi. So you can't really pull rank on me, Master." The sarcasm in her voice was thick.

"Well, last I checked, I thought you wanted to atone for everything you did as a Sith," Kyp replied; he hated himself for being dragged into any kind of conversation with this treacherous witch who replaced the woman for whom he once cared, maybe even loved, but now he was in it. A part of him wondered, had this been any other Jedi Knight, if he would allow himself to get caught up so easily like this.

"What makes you think I wanna go back to being a Jedi again?" Jaina asked.

Kyp's brows raised in consternation. "And be what, then? Even with your selfishness, it's clear to me and Master K'Kruhk and even Master Katarn that you don't wanna be a Sith again, either. So what do you want to become, Jaina Solo?"

She shrugged nonchalantly, as if she were choosing what to eat for lunch instead of choosing her life path. "Doesn't seem like I'll have much of a future, what with the prison sentence I'd have to face."

Kyp frowned in thought. "But let's say you were somehow acquitted. Abeloth is defeated, and so are the Sith. What would you do, then?"

Jaina scoffed. "Why would you care?"

He shrugged as nonchalantly as her. "Just curious. What, you have anything better to do right now?"

She levied an annoyed expression at him. "I could check what the latest fashions on Denon are like right now. With this kind of recent clearance in the Maw, we might even get a decent a HoloNet connection."

Kyp rolled his eyes. "Fine. Better that we don't speak anyway." He went back to staring out the forward viewport.

"Fine," Jaina echoed bitterly before she did the same.

They sat like that for an uncomfortably long time, with only Kyp's stillness being broken up thrice as he dropped the Quest out of hyperspace thanks to the Maw's gravitic anomalies, fewer though they were prior to Centerpoint Station's destruction. A few minutes after the third dropout from lightspeed, Jaina undid her crash-webbing and stood up.

"Where are you going?" Kyp asked suspiciously.

"To get some caf," Jaina answered defensively. "What, you afraid I'm gonna blow the ship up or something?"

"Something," Kyp answered seriously. He didn't have to elaborate that he didn't trust her not to slip into the medbay and possibly kill the Mind Walking Luke and Jacen; at this point, even with her semi-reformed attitude, he wouldn't put it past her.

Jaina's gaze toward him narrowed contemptuously. "If I really wanted to betray you and the other Jedi, you think I would have saved you and the others from those insane Knights? I coulda sneaked away while you were dueling all of 'em."

"Fair enough," Kyp admitted reluctantly. "But that doesn't mean that I can still trust you to be on your own at any given time aboard this ship; not after Masters K'Kruhk and Katarn learned of your intended treachery."

"Yeah, and you could leave this ship on its own to end up being torn apart or swallowed up by a black hole while you're babysitting me in the galley or standing outside while I'm in the 'fresher," Jaina mocked.

Kyp turned back and dropped the ship out of hyperspace into an empty system where the nearest black holes were light years away.

"That's why I'll make sure this ship's not going through hyperspace while I'm babysitting you," Kyp retorted.

"That's gonna waste quite some time in getting to the Dagger of Mortis," Jaina argued, though her tone sounded slightly desperate. Indeed, Kyp could felt her Force-presence matched. "I mean, every second we lose while Abeloth's on the loose means-"

"I'm confident we can make that time," Kyp interrupted. "Now, let's get some caf, shall we?"

Once they were in the galley and seated in one of the tables drinking their respective cups, Jaina broke the silence by asking, "Do you think I would have poisoned you, Kyp?"

"Of course," Kyp answered stoically before he took another sip from his cup. "Part of why I won't take my eyes off you."

Jaina raised one eyebrow in askance. "So what's the other part?"

Kyp stammered, "Well, it's to make sure you're... eligible for atonement."

"Even though I've already told you I'm not coming back as a Jedi? And that's also if I were to somehow get out of a prison or death sentence?"

"Master K'Kruhk has faith in you, and so do I."

"But Master Katarn doesn't. And neither does Jedi Korr. Why do you value K'Kruhk's opinion more than Master Katarn's?"

"Because Master K'Kruhk is an older and wiser Jedi Master than the rest of us."

"And that would include my uncle, too, the Grand Master of the Order?"

A brief silence permeated the space between Kyp and Jaina before he said, "He's the best Master to rely on while Master Skywalker is indisposed."

Jaina chuckled. "My, my, Kyp. You're all so professional and duty-bound now. Far cry from the rebel who led the Dozen against the Vong."

"We all change, Jaina. You of all people should know that by now."

She nodded. "Indeed, I do. But, tell me, Kyp, is there anything of that man who thought that my uncle wasn't doing enough for the Jedi or the rest of the galaxy when the Vong were invading? Who thought that maybe just because a Jedi was older didn't necessarily mean he was wiser?"

Kyp schooled himself from scowling as he also tempered his Force-presence from Jaina's senses. "I learned the error of my ways, Jaina, just as you should have by now."

"Oh, so judgmental," Jaina mocked. "And this comin' from the guy who blew up an entire star system with his brother in it."

Just like that, Kyp's calm Jedi Master composure was broken as he set his cup down, reached both hands across the table, grabbed Jaina by the collar of her shirt, and pulled her forward so that their faces were inches apart.

As she gave him a fearless, cynical sneer, Kyp exhaled through his nostrils and said, "You're not showing me you're worthy of redemption, Jaina Solo."

"Oh, dear me," she replied sarcastically. "I guess good ol' Master K'Kruhk's judgment in me was misplaced, as Master Katarn must've thought, hmm? Then again, perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea of his to put you in charge of me; after all, your judgment in me is clearly not clouded by what we once had."

"What we once had," Kyp growled, "is insignificant."

"Oh, c'mon, Kyp, don't gimme that," Jaina replied lightly. "I knew how you felt about me, and I knew that you knew. You wanted us to be more than just Master and apprentice, just like I did. But I grew up, and, apparently, so did you."

"You're less of a grown-up now than when we fought the Vong."

"Am I now?"

Kyp nodded. "You were a lot more mature then. More level head on you."

"I agree about the more mature part, but less about the level head bit. You see, losing a brother to death and the other to Vong captivity can really do both those things to a teenage girl; one prone to the influence of an older and wiser man." Her tone was flippant and mocking the whole way through, without an ounce of grief for the mention of her late brother Anakin or the time Jacen was absent from her life during the Yuuzhan Vong War.

Kyp scowled before he shoved Jaina back into her seat; still, he remained standing as he glared down at her and wondered what to say next. She, for her part, remained seated but still had that mocking grin plastered on her face.

Finally, after an uncomfortably long pause between them, he said, "I tried to help you. I'm sorry I wasn't there the whole way through. But we can't change the past; we have to press ahead and-"

"Oh, spare me," Jaina spat. "Your apology means nothing to me. So why don't you finish the rest of your caf, I finish mine, and then we go back to the cockpit and get on with finding this kriffing Dagger?"

Kyp bared his teeth in frustration. "You're in no position to make demands here."

"Oh, really?" Jaina snorted. She then stood up and planted her hands on the tabletop as she leaned toward him. "Well, last I checked, it was my brother's ship, and while he's in a coma and I'm his next of kin, that means-"

"That doesn't work that way and you know it," Kyp interrupted angrily. "So long as you're still the same selfish, bitter woman that you've been since the Killiks-"

"The Killiks? You think the Killiks made me into what I am? No, no, no, Kyp. I've always been this way, and you know it! All that the Dark Nest did to me was just bring up my true personality to the surface; you always knew what I was capable of, and you did everything in your power to repress it, just like Uncle Luke and all the other Jedi! So stop pretending like you're just trying to help me and just admit that you do this because, deep down, even after all these years, you still haven't gotten over the fact that you killed your own brother and you think helping me is gonna make up for that! It's not, it never will, and no matter how far you get as a Jedi Master, you'll always be that same scared stupid kid that Exar Kun manipulated into killing Zeth!"

That prompted Kyp to slap Jaina right across the face, in the exact same spot where Mara had slapped her well over a year earlier.

When she looked back at him, her grin was more cynical than before in speaking to him; and he stared back at her in pure rage. He knew that what he was doing was wrong. A part of him feared that this interaction with Jaina might lead him here. But like a recovering spice addict getting back to his drug-induced bliss, he allowed himself to get roped in by Jaina's words because of the effect that she still had on him from the years they had known each other previously. It was all unbecoming of a Jedi Master, he knew, but right now, he didn't care.

"You ungrateful little bitch," he growled. "After everything you've done, after everything we've tried, you dare have the nerve to treat those who care about you like this? Leaving your own brother and uncle to fend for themselves against Abeloth, lying to your fellow Jedi after we gave you a chance, and now you... you..." He couldn't bring himself to say Zeth's name in front of Jaina; instead, he pointed an accusatory finger right up to her face and muttered through gritted teeth, "You have no right."

"I have all the right in the galaxy to say what I want, Kyp sleemo Durron," Jaina said just as she made herself small through the Force. "Especially after I reprogrammed the medical droid to poison Luke and Jacen while you weren't looking."

Kyp's eyes widened in shock; he didn't even think about why Jaina just made her Force-presence become invisible in that moment, or how she was able to tamper with that droid when he, as he said, had her eyes on her the whole time since they boarded the Quest. So without thinking further, he turned away and rushed out of the galley to head directly to the ship's medbay.

When he got there, however, he saw that the medical droid stood over Luke and Jacen's Mind Walking forms dutifully. And, according to the readouts that Kyp could see just from the 'bay's threshold, both Jedi were perfectly fine in their deep meditative trances.

Then Kyp felt Jaina's Force-presence suddenly reappear from off to his left. He looked and didn't have time to react before she lobbed a flash-grenade right at his feet; he stumbled back as he was temporarily blinded, and the next thing he felt, he was enveloped in a wash of painful electricity.

Then awareness slipped away into the black as he collapsed prone to his back, unconscious.