Its untamed land masses provided an appropriate range of training environments: arctic wastelands, trackless rain forests, splintered mountain crags, and searing desert hardpan crawling with venomous multilegged reptiles.Ĭarida seemed the opposite of Kyp’s peaceful homeworld of Deyer, where he and his family had lived in raft colonies on the calm terraformed lakes-but that peace had been shattered years ago when Kyp’s parents had chosen to protest the destruction of Alderaan. The military planet was a largish world with high gravity to toughen the muscles of potential stormtroopers. On the fringes of the explosion, he had dropped off one of the Sun Crusher’s coffin-sized message pods so that the galaxy would know who was responsible for the victory.Īs his next target, Kyp would challenge the Imperial military training center on Carida. Only days before, he had annihilated Admiral Daala and her two Star Destroyers in the Cauldron Nebula. With the might of the superweapon-as well as powerful techniques his spectral mentor Exar Kun had taught him-Kyp would extinguish all threats against the New Republic.

Old beyond his years, Kyp Durron sat hunched over the controls with dark eyes blazing, intent on his new target.

The Sun Crusher plunged into the Caridan system like an assassin’s knife into an unsuspecting heart.