But sometimes he failed, and sometimes he failed spectacularly. Again, never when lives were on the line, but even that bit of uncertainty, coupled with Elzar Mann’s general unwillingness to take the time to explain whatever he was trying to do…well, some in the Order found him frustrating to deal with. Avar believed that might explain his continued status as a Jedi Knight rather than a Master. She knew that bothered Elzar. He thought it was unfair. He didn’t care about other Jedi’s paths through the Force—why should they concern themselves with his? He just wanted to follow his road where it led.

Avar didn’t understand Elzar’s explorations any more than most of the Jedi, but the key to their relationship was that she never asked him to explain. Anything, ever. That arrangement had powered their friendship since their days as younglings together in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. That, and she just liked him. He was funny, and clever, and they had come up together through the Order, Stellan and Elzar and her, the three of them inseparable through all their years of training.

She pulled her mind away from Elzar Mann, listening to the Force. She sensed Jedi on the system’s worlds, Jedi in Vectors, and still more on stations or satellites or ships, all around the system, helping wherever they could, usually in conjunction with the twenty-eight Republic Longbeams deployed by the Third Horizon.

The chain of connection through the Force even told her that others of her Order were on their way, doing their best to respond to Minister Ecka’s original distress call despite being so far from Hetzal. Closest was Master Jora Malli, future commander of the Jedi quarter on the just completed Starlight Beacon, along with her second-in-command, the imposing Trandoshan Master Sskeer. Stellan Gios was powering in from his Temple outpost on Hynestia as if summoned by her thoughts of him a few moments before, whipping through hyperspace in a borrowed starship. And more besides.

Avar sent out a note of welcome, and called to every other Jedi she could reach, near Hetzal or not. Distance was nothing to the Force. Who knew how they might help?

So far, the death toll from the disaster was low, barely above the baseline churn of life and death constantly at work in any large group of beings. She was worried that could change at any moment—they didn’t have a good understanding of what was happening here. Nothing about it felt natural. She had never heard of anything like this—a huge spread of projectiles appearing in a system, popping out of hyperspace with no notice.