Light of the Jedi(15)
Threaded through that song—the Jedi, and the brave personnel of the Republic, and the heroic citizens of Hetzal itself, using the resources they had to try to save the people of these worlds.
The Third Horizon had landed not far from the Ministerial Residence in Aguirre City, the capital of Hetzal Prime. The Republic was coordinating its efforts with the Hetzalian government to try to stem the tide of the disaster—ensuring the evacuation proceeded in as orderly a fashion as possible, tracking the incoming projectiles, helping as they could.
Avar Kriss was still on the ship’s bridge, still serving as the point of connection for the Jedi in the system, letting them sense one another’s presence and location and emotional states. Sometimes words or images came through unbidden, but only rarely. It was all just a song, and Avar sang and was sung to.
Still, she was able to gather a great deal of information from what it told her. She knew that fifty-three Jedi Vectors were currently active in the Hetzal system. She knew which Jedi were working on the planet—for example, at that moment, Bell Zettifar, Loden Greatstorm’s promising Padawan, was approaching the surface of Hetzal Prime at extraordinary speed.
Elzar Mann, her oldest, closest friend in the Order, was in a Vector of his own, flying a single-person version of the ship near one of the system’s three suns. He was almost always alone. Avar was one of only two Jedi he worked with regularly—it was just her and Stellan Gios. This was mostly because Elzar was…unreliable wasn’t exactly the right word. He was a tinkerer, if that term could apply to Jedi techniques. He never liked to use the Force the same way twice.
Elzar’s instincts were good, and he didn’t try anything too unusual when the stakes were high. Usually, his experiments in Force techniques did expand the Order’s understanding, and occasionally he accomplished incredible things.
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.
She could not imagine what would have happened here if the Third Horizon was not in transit nearby after a refueling stop, or if their inspection tour of the Starlight Beacon wasn’t interminably delayed by the project’s overseer, an officious Bith named Shai Tennem. She had insisted on showing her Jedi and Republic visitors every last obscure element of Starlight Beacon’s construction, pushing back their scheduled departure and irritating Admiral Kronara immensely. But if they had left on time, the Third Horizon would have been deep into hyperspace when Minister Ecka’s evacuation order went out, too far to get to Hetzal in any reasonable amount of time.
If not for an overzealous Bith administrator, Hetzal would be dealing with this apocalypse on its own.
The song of the Force.
Between what it told Avar directly and the chatter she heard around her from the Third Horizon’s deck officers, she was able to maintain an up-to-date picture of the disaster, in all its moments large and small.
Above Hetzal Prime, a Republic technician completed repairs to an evacuation ship that had lost power on its way offplanet, so it could continue on its way to safety.