Something caught her attention—one of the hyperspace anomalies, deep in the system, not far from the largest of Hetzal’s three suns.

Avar beckoned to the closest bridge officer, then pointed at the display.

“This,” she said, pointing at the anomaly near the sun. “What is this, Lieutenant?”

The officer looked where she indicated.

“One of the fragments, Master Kriss,” he replied. “It doesn’t have any living beings aboard, and fortunately we can more or less ignore it.”

“Ignore it? Why?”

He tapped a control on a datapad. A dotted line appeared on the display, showing the projectile’s path. It would follow a short arc through the inner system before vanishing deep into the sun.

“As you can see,” the lieutenant said, gesturing at the display, “it will just fall into the star and be vaporized. Fortunate, really—we don’t have any ships near it. It exited hyperspace deep in the system, and most of our resources are deployed elsewhere.”

Avar frowned.

“There’s something else. Something about it. The Force drew my attention to it, and we need to understand why. Do you know what it is? Specifically, I mean?”

The officer hesitated, squinting at the screen as if that might tell him something new.

“It’s too far away for our onboard sensors to get any additional information, ma’am,” the officer said. “I can check with the Hetzalian administrators, though. They might have some satellites closer that could provide more information.”

“Please,” Avar said. “And hurry.”

The officer nodded and moved away, headed for a communications console.

Admiral Kronara, back from his conversation with the chancellor, stepped up beside her. “What is it, Master Jedi?” he said.

“I don’t know yet, Admiral,” Avar replied. “Trust in the Force.”

“Well, obviously,” Kronara said.

“How is the chancellor?”

“Relieved, I would say. This wasn’t a good day, but she knows it could have been much worse. Chancellor Soh asked me a lot of questions I couldn’t answer yet—about the source of the anomalies, whether it would happen again, things like that. She’s thinking long-term.”

“That’s her job,” Avar said. “What do you think she’ll do?”

“If I had to guess, she’s worried this was some kind of attack. I know it’s unlikely, but it’s not impossible. Enemies don’t usually announce their intentions to hit you ahead of time.”

“They also don’t usually send engineless passenger compartments filled with people, Admiral. What are those supposed to be? Some sort of invasion force?”

“I’m not going to pretend I know, Master Kriss. It could be some bizarre tactic we don’t yet understand. The important thing is that we were here to help stop it, and—”