Engines of Heaven: Blades in Pairs
Posted on Sun Dec 7th, 2025 @ 3:58pm by Bomoor Thort & Thane
1,549 words; about a 8 minute read
Chapter:
Additional Stories
Location: Above Ord Yutani, Yutani System, High Promise Sector, Mid Rim
Timeline: After "Wing and a Prayer"
This post takes place in 1,213 ABY, around four years before Thane and Bomoor encountered the Cult of Axion on Nar Shaddaa, during their earliest years as Jedi Knights.
"With fire She tests the faithful, and through descent She reveals the true shape of their hearts. For the void shall open its mouth to swallow the weak, and the skies shall burn with Her Terrible Glare. But lo! Those who descend not alone, who are met in the storm by their kin, shall not be consumed. For the Goddess sends Her blades in pairs, that they may strike together and not falter. Blessed is the one who falls and is caught, for they shall rise again in Her name."
Seripture: Centax Revised Edition
— Celbus 18:9–13The cockpit was dim.
Bomoor’s fingers darted across the consoles attempting to revive them from their stupor to no avail. His Starhopper groaned around him, its frame shuddering with every passing second as gravity took hold. The planet below, Ord Yutani, loomed larger in the viewport, its cloud-layer rapidly approaching. Below that, a blunt, crushing end to the Ithorian’s story should he fail to alter course.
“Come on…” he muttered, voice low and holding back a measure of panic, “Just give me thrusters. Shields. Anything!”
A flicker of lights danced on with a surge of power, then died as quickly as they came. Only backup power remained: the emergency stabilisers blinked red while altitude warnings wailed. The Ithorian exhaled through both mouths, steadying his breath against the rising fear. He knew how to resist it; how to maintain serenity in chaos but he could feel the weight of his situation closing in. Blockade ships around him and the planet’s pull ever increasing. His companions would risk too much chasing after him into this maelstrom.
Outside, the stars had thinned. The upper atmosphere licked at the hull, painting the edges of his view in fire. There was a slim chance the heat would help to expand the ship’s circuits and give him a chance to get something working, but it was perhaps more likely that the damage to his vessel meant that re-entry would simply burn him to a crisp. He could already detect the acid scent of scorched metal inside the cabin. Not a good sign.
He had to try though.
Firmly grabbing the control lever in one hand, while holding another hand over the ignition switch, he paused; waiting for just the right moment. But before that moment came, Bomoor’s eyes caught a glint of motion emerging from the fiery periphery of his vision: it was Thane’s Starhopper, banking hard to match his descent vector. The blue hull shimmered against the heat bloom, flying dangerously close.
“Thane…” he whispered, not over comms, but to the void itself, “Of course you came. Thank you.”
The fire at the edge of Bomoor’s vision thickened as his descent steepened. The Starhopper’s hull juddered with every kilometre lost, each vibration climbing another octave toward catastrophic failure. He could feel the ship beginning to tremble under him like a wounded beast.
Thane's Starhopper rolled sharply, matching Bomoor’s falling vector with dangerous precision. Through the flickering glow, Bomoor saw the Human’s silhouette lean forward in concentration, his craft’s stabiliser fins glowing cherry-red from the strain.
A crackle of comm interference spat across Bomoor’s speaker, then—
“-moor! Stay with me!”
The connection dissolved into static again, but the intent was clear. The younger Jedi was not turning back.
"Thane!" Bomoor jabbed at the intercom control firmly, not knowing if his voice would make it through, "I have near-total engine failure. I'm going to try it again but need to wait for re-entry."
The first wisps of atmosphere licked the hull, painting the canopy edges in streaks of gold. The backup stabilisers sputtered once - they might as well have been decorative.
Outside, Thane dropped lower still, the blue hull sliding beneath Bomoor’s port wing. A moment later, the airflow shifted. The Ithorian felt it - his ship’s worst spin dulled, the violent roll smoothing into a wobble as Thane shaped the descent with the wake of his own.
More alarms howled in answer.
A sharp bang jolted the Starhopper as a panel tore free and spiralled away into the flames. The cockpit lights flickered; the viewport dimmed. The ground was coming fast for them both. Through the thinning cloud cover, the dunes of an Ord Yutani desert stretched in every direction, an ocean of pale copper and broken stone.
And beyond them - far on the horizon, half-shrouded in heat haze - stood a colossus. A great structure of metal and cathedral spires, its engines glowing with the first hints of life, barely discernible.
Another jolt snapped Bomoor back to his present crisis. His Starhopper lurched violently to starboard. Thane’s craft adjusted instantly, matching the movement, keeping their two spirals bound together rather than drifting apart.
Bomoor tried to react in sync with Thane, flipping open whatever flaps still responded on the port side to shift his craft back to centre, without undoing the lift Thane's Starhopper was gifting him. They settled into an equilibrium but were still descending at a dangerous rate.
The comm sparked again as Thane’s voice fought through the interference. “Brace—coming up on the dunes!”
The clouds broke open fully.
Wind punched through the weakened plating, roaring into the cabin. Sand and desert wind surged upward to meet them. Thane shifted position beneath Bomoor, his blue Starhopper now directly under Bomoor's failing descent, sacrificing stability to buy him seconds.
The desert blurred, the dunes rising to swallow them.
Then, the shadow of Thane’s fighter crept across Bomoor’s canopy - closer... closer...
With a sudden spluttered chirp, a series of lights blinked to life in the cockpit around Bomoor. He may yet briefly trigger the ignition of the engines and soften his landing just marginally without Thane risking his own craft. The Ithorian's knuckles tightened around the ignition switch, the cockpit rattling like it might tear apart at any moment. He forced his throat to work, voice raw against the static.
“Thane… I'm going to try the engines once more so pull back! Don’t risk it for me!”
The comm cracked, being thin, distorted, almost inaudible beneath the howl of re-entry, but Bomoor caught just enough of the tone beneath the static to know what was coming.
“-not leaving-”
Thane’s voice was strained, the words half-swallowed by atmospheric interference, but the refusal in them cut through everything else. Through the broad smear of heat across the canopy, Bomoor saw the younger Jedi’s Starhopper tighten its position instead of retreating. The Human dropped even lower, directly beneath Bomoor’s spiralling craft, as if bracing to shoulder the Ithorian’s fall with his own vessel.
The airflow shifted violently, with Thane forcing his ship beneath Bomoor’s centreline, lifting him by wake alone. It was reckless, dangerous, foolish - and exactly what Bomoor would have expected.
Thane held the line.
His stabiliser fins glowed white-hot, the metal shimmering with distortion. The distance between their ships narrowed to a terrifying handspan. Every vibration from Bomoor’s dying Starhopper transmitted directly into Thane’s hull.
Thane's voice attempted to breach through the last burst through the static but failed, the words dissolving as the comm overloaded.
The dunes surged upward beneath them in a roaring rush of colour.
Whether or not they were ready for it, this was Bomoor's last chance to ignite the engines so, with a final glance towards his fellow Knight's ship, he thrust the ignition down hard. The cockpit shook so violently the console blurred. He could feel the moment narrowing. Seconds becoming slivers, slivers becoming a single instant, and the engines of his ship screamed.
A blast of unstable power tore through the aft compartment, jolting the ship so hard Bomoor’s harness dug into his shoulders and chest. The force of the ignition burst downward, directly into Thane’s fighter, and the blue Starhopper lurched..
Through the trembling canopy, Bomoor saw it whip sideways, knocked brutally off its stabilising vector. A wingtip clipped the turbulence wake, and the entire craft flipped into a spiralling roll, disappearing in a streak of blue and fire as it was dragged helplessly down toward the dunes on a diagonal trajectory.
Bomoor’s own ship bucked, the temporary burst damping his fall, but not saving it. The Ithorian felt the Starhopper’s frame sag as the engines coughed twice, and then died altogether.
"Thane!" Bomoor shouted into the chaos, reaching out an arm as though he could grasp the silvery-blue ship with his fingertips and prevent it spiralling away. All he could do was watch on until a sudden blast of precognition forced him to look ahead at his own fate. The cockpit darkened as the ground approached and the Ithorian hunched forwards, hugging his body while attempting a faint shimmering shield of protection bubble before Ord Yutani came at him with full force.
TBC
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