Engines of Heaven: Lost Masters

Posted on Mon Aug 31st, 2026 @ 5:12pm by Darth Serus & Bomoor Thort

6,182 words; about a 31 minute read

Chapter: Additional Stories
Location: Reborn Jedi Temple, Coruscant
Timeline: 1,213 ABY

---

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.

---

---

"The Nea Glarist faith was a short-lived Pius Dea revivalist movement active primarily within the Yutani system during the early thirteenth century ABY. Characterised by militant humanocentrism, religious absolutism, and limited armed activity, the sect briefly disrupted local commerce and civil administration before being dismantled following intervention by the Jedi Knights. No significant successor movements are recorded, and its influence upon subsequent Third Republic political or religious history is considered negligible."

---

The Hall of Lost Masters was not really a hall at all.

Buried within one of the quieter reaches of the Reborn Jedi Temple, far removed from its soaring atriums and sunlit galleries, it was a comparatively small sanctuary of dark stone and deep alcoves. There were no windows here through which Coruscant might intrude. Instead, blue flames burned within shallow sconces along the walls, casting a cold and shifting light across the carved likenesses of Jedi Masters arranged throughout the chamber. Narrow channels had been worked into the masonry between them, carrying clear water from somewhere unseen above. It emerged at intervals in tiny wall-bound waterfalls, trickling over shelves of black stone into narrow basins before disappearing beneath the floor again. The constant whisper of running water mingled with the low crackle of the strange blue fire, lending the sanctuary a quality that was at once intimate and unsettling; something ancient and almost mythical, as though it belonged beneath the roots of some enchanted forest rather than within a Temple surrounded by a trillion inhabitants.

The statues were not arranged as trophies, nor were the names beneath them intended as condemnation. These were the Lost Masters: Jedi who had departed the Order, disappeared beyond its reach or otherwise fallen from the path they had once sworn to follow. The old Jedi Order had famously preserved the memory of those who left as a monument to its own perceived failures. The Reborn Jedi had inverted the lesson. Here, secluded from the public galleries and the ceremonial grandeur of the Temple, the failures of the Masters themselves were remembered. Their victories were recorded alongside their mistakes, their wisdom beside their arrogance, their years of service beside whatever final act had brought their likeness into this room. Knights and Padawans came here to contemplate what became of Jedi who ceased to question themselves.

Today, four Jedi had gathered beneath one face in particular.

"The Proselyte" Wiseld looked no more agreeable in stone than he had in life.

The sculptor had captured the severe line of his mouth and the heavy-set brow above his eyes, although no carving could reproduce the molten yellow that Thane remembered glaring through the ruined Cathedral on Ord Yutani. Blue fire danced across the old Master's features as though lending some last animation to them, whilst the inscription beneath had recently been amended. For twenty-nine years, it had recorded only the date on which Wiseld had vanished from the Order. Now, beneath that old notation, fresh Aurebesh had been cut into the stone.

FATE ASCERTAINED, ORD YUTANI, 1213 ABY.

Master Hale Dunrar stood immediately before it, long hands folded together within the sleeves of his brown robes as he regarded the amended inscription. Beside him, Archivist Ven Kel Farr appeared almost oversized within the confines of the little sanctuary, his broad Human frame and scarred features given a harder edge by the blue flames. Thane and Bomoor stood opposite the two senior Jedi, their wounds largely treated during the fortnight since Ord Yutani, although a narrow line of newly-healed flesh still ran from Thane's right eyebrow and passed the edge of the socket beneath. It was not a dramatic injury now that the swelling and burns had settled, but neither was it likely to disappear entirely.

"The final Glarist positions surrendered four days ago," Dunrar explained, his attention remaining upon Wiseld's likeness. "Those forces beyond Ord Yutani appear to have fragmented once word spread of the Cathedral's capture. Several vessels escaped the system before the Judicial cordon was completed and there are reports of smaller congregations abandoning their temples elsewhere in the sector, so I doubt the Nea Glarist faith has vanished entirely. As an organised political and military movement, however, the uprising is over."

"Or dispersed," Farr corrected in his low voice. "Which is not necessarily the same thing."

"No," Dunrar conceded. "But it will suffice for the moment. The Judicial Forces have secured the major settlements and Senator Rakhesh has been formally removed from office pending investigation by the Senate. Civil administration remains suspended and Ord Yutani is presently under martial law, although the Chancellor's office insists this will be reviewed once the immediate humanitarian situation has stabilised."

Thane's expression shifted slightly at that, but he did not interrupt. The Jedi had returned to Coruscant only days earlier, after remaining long enough to assist with the first stages of the occupation and give their accounts to the Judicial command. Much of what followed had reached them piecemeal through reports, Council briefings and the endless stream of requests for clarification that seemed to accompany every successful Jedi mission.

"And the Archprelate?" Farr asked, although his tone suggested he already knew the answer.

"Still in Judicial custody. We have finally confirmed his identity as Yonee Scariot, although he appears to have abandoned that name more than twenty years ago. He has been considerably less forthcoming concerning the intervening period." Dunrar paused, one long finger emerging from his sleeve to indicate several lines upon the datapad he carried. "The preliminary charges include sedition, unlawful imprisonment, systematic coercion, crimes against sentient rights and numerous offences arising from the attempted destruction of Ord Yutani. There are also questions surrounding the disappearances of political opponents during the years preceding the uprising. The Republic prosecutors appear confident that Scariot will spend what remains of his life in confinement."

Farr's eyes settled briefly upon Thane. "Which may prove useful. Whatever his beliefs, he remains one of the few senior members of the movement still alive."

The implication was plain enough that Thane's mouth tightened, although Dunrar continued before he could respond.

"The immediate concern is Ord Yutani itself. Preliminary estimates suggest the damage is severe but survivable. The Old Empire war machine stripped several hundred kilometres of surface material around the primary extraction zones and destabilised portions of the crust, but the shutdown prevented the process reaching the planetary mantle. Had it continued much longer, I am told we would be discussing evacuation rather than reconstruction."

A thin stream of water spilled down the wall beside Wiseld's monument, catching the blue light as it fell.

"GalactaWerks has offered to lead that reconstruction," Farr said.

There was something about the way the Archivist spoke the Company's name that drew Thane's attention.

Dunrar nodded. "Terraforming equipment, atmospheric processors, geological stabilisation teams and substantial quantities of construction material. The Senate accepted the offer yesterday. Their engineers are already arriving in-system alongside Republic relief vessels."

"They moved quickly."

"They usually do."

Farr folded his thick arms across his chest. "They have also requested access to the Cathedral."

This time Thane did react.

"Why?"

"Because the Republic has very few engineers capable of safely examining a so-called World Devastator," Farr answered. "GalactaWerks has several thousand."

"Convenient."

"Perhaps," Dunrar said, finally turning from Wiseld's bust. "Although in this instance convenience may save a great many lives. The Cathedral remains structurally unstable and nobody yet knows how much of its industrial machinery is still active. Judicial technicians will remain present throughout the assessment and ownership of the vessel has passed to the Republic. There are, at present, more immediate concerns than who receives the salvage contract."

Thane gave the Neimoidian a look which suggested he was not entirely convinced, but he allowed the point to pass. His gaze moved instead towards Wiseld's stone face and remained there whilst the two Masters exchanged a few quieter words concerning the relief operation. The old man seemed almost diminished here. On Ord Yutani he had filled the Cathedral with his presence, reaching into minds and bending hundreds of people towards his will until the entire vessel had seemed an extension of him. Reduced to stone and inscription, he was simply another face amongst the failures of the Order.

Eventually, Dunrar allowed the official matters to fall away.

"Which brings us to the two of you."

His red eyes moved between the young Knights. There was no reprimand waiting in them. If anything, the Neimoidian appeared quietly pleased.

"You were brought to Ord Yutani because I believed the situation there required Jedi who could operate without the assumptions already shaping the Republic's response. What you discovered exceeded anything I anticipated. A planetary government so deeply compromised by religious extremists, an ancient superweapon concealed within the desert and, most significantly, a former Jedi Master exercising influence over both."

Farr glanced towards Wiseld.

"A very capable former Jedi Master."

Thane followed his gaze.

That much was difficult to dispute.

"The Council has reviewed both of your reports," Dunrar continued. "As have the Judicial commanders involved in the battle. There is broad agreement that the Cathedral would not have been captured when it was without your intervention, and that Ord Yutani itself may not have survived the additional time required for a conventional assault. Your actions also exposed the nature of Wiseld's influence over the Nea Glarists and allowed the Judicial Forces to break the remaining resistance with considerably fewer casualties than had been anticipated."

The Neimoidian's attention moved towards Bomoor for a moment.

"Your encounter with Wiseld has attracted particular interest. His aptitude for influencing and dominating sentient minds was well documented during his years within the Order. Very few Jedi ever succeeded in resisting him once he had established a foothold, and fewer still managed to turn that intrusion against him."

Farr's weathered features remained difficult to read, although there was unmistakable interest behind his stare.

"Improvised, from what I understand."

Thane finally spoke. "That's usually when Bomoor is at his best, although he might not always think it."

The remark carried the easy familiarity of years spent beside the Ithorian, and perhaps just enough humour to break some of the solemnity that had accumulated beneath Wiseld's stone gaze. Thane shifted his weight and looked up at the bust again, studying the severe features with considerably less reverence than the sanctuary ordinarily encouraged.

"He saved us," he added, more seriously. "Wiseld had already got into my head before we properly understood what he was doing. If Bomoor hadn't worked out how to turn it back on him, I don't know that either of us would have got out of that Cathedral." Thane's fingers brushed unconsciously against the newly-healed line beside his eye. "He was stronger than me. More experienced. Better with a blade than I expected, and he knew exactly how to make me doubt what we were doing." His expression hardened faintly as he remembered the old man's voice moving through his thoughts. "But he underestimated Bomoor."

The Ithorian Knight, who had been examining the strong profile of Wiseld from the side, suddenly turned his attention back towards Thane, acknowledging his kindness with a gentle incline of his broad head.

"Sometimes it pays to be unassuming. I like to give people a surprise now and then," he hummed, before his eyes drifted to Thane's scar, a permanent mark on his own Human profile from their time aboard the Cathedral, "I am only sorry it came too late to prevent more harm."

Turning then to Farr, Bomoor added, "Wiseld's mental domination was near absolute; that much was clear even without knowing his reputation. There was no way I could have breached his mind, but I could allow him to become trapped in my own. It was unpleasant and certainly something I would have rather resisted. Perhaps I can devote some time to studying mental shielding techniques now we are finally back at the temple."

Farr regarded Bomoor for several moments, his scarred features made sterner still beneath the shifting blue light.

"Perhaps you should," he said eventually. "Although I would advise against making a habit of learning by inviting powerful Dark Jedi into your mind."

There was the faintest suggestion of humour beneath the Archivist's gravelled delivery, but it disappeared quickly enough. Farr moved nearer to Wiseld's bust, studying the severe stone features whilst one of the little waterfalls whispered into its basin nearby.

"What you did was extraordinarily dangerous, Bomoor. Mental shielding is ordinarily concerned with preventing intrusion, not deliberately permitting it and attempting to control what the intruder encounters once inside. Had Wiseld recognised what you were doing sooner, or understood your mind better than he did, the consequences might have been considerably worse than a few unpleasant memories."

"But he did not understand it," Thane observed.

"No." Farr glanced towards him. "And that is what interests me." The Human Jedi Master looked back towards Bomoor. "Wiseld spent much of his life believing that strength of will was sufficient to overcome any sentient mind. In fairness to him, experience gave him considerable reason to believe it. What you encountered aboard the Cathedral was not some ability he discovered after leaving the Order. He possessed an exceptional aptitude for influencing others even as a Reborn Knight, and by the time he attained Mastery there were few within the Order capable of matching him in that field."

Dunrar's long features tightened slightly. "He once ended a siege on Ijol without a shot being fired. Four hundred hostages, if I remember correctly."

"Four hundred and twelve," Farr corrected.

The Neimoidian offered him a sideways glance.

"Of course."

A faint smile touched Thane's lips.

Dunrar continued. "The militia commander had barricaded himself inside a municipal complex with his followers and threatened to execute the hostages if Republic forces entered the district. Wiseld walked through the front entrance alone. Twenty minutes later, every weapon in the building had been laid upon the floor."

Bomoor appeared to grow a little uncomfortable, rubbing his arm as he imagined the extent of the power wielded by the man who had so recently breached his mind.

"Alone? Against multiple adversaries?" the Ithorian's breath caught slightly, eyes drifting back to the bust, "I thought you could only influence one mind at a time?"

"He compelled them?" Thane asked.

"Some," Farr answered. "Others he persuaded. That distinction became increasingly difficult to establish where Master Wiseld was concerned." The Archivist stepped closer to the monument, raising one hand towards the inscription without quite touching it. "You should understand something about the man you fought. It would be convenient to look upon what he became and imagine that all the signs were obvious. They were not. Olr-Ohm Wiseld was severe, arrogant and frequently unpleasant, but he was also brilliant. There are worlds whose populations survived because he reached them when nobody else could. Epidemics contained, wars ended, evacuations organised under circumstances in which lesser Jedi would have failed. He could demonstrate extraordinary kindness when he believed kindness was what circumstances required."

"And extraordinary cruelty when he did not," Dunrar added.

Farr inclined his head. "His Padawans suffered particularly." The blue flames shifted as though stirred by a wind that did not exist within the sealed sanctuary. "Wiseld trained seven," Farr continued. "Three became Knights. Two were reassigned after failing to meet his expectations. One left the Order altogether. The last died whilst still under his instruction."

Thane's humour had disappeared. "That's quite a record."

"At the time, Wiseld considered it evidence that the Order had become too indulgent towards failure."

"Naturally," Thane said, fairly coldly.

Dunrar looked towards Thane at the bitterness in his response. "He was not universally disliked. Some Knights adored him. Others considered him amongst the greatest Jedi of his generation. His successes were difficult to argue with, and Wiseld made certain nobody forgot them."

"He expected a place upon the Council," Farr said, as his gaze remained fixed upon the statue.

"And didn't get one," Thane said.

"No."

"Why?"

This time, Dunrar answered.

"Because being correct often is not the same as possessing wisdom."

The simplicity of the statement seemed to settle into the chamber alongside the sound of falling water.

"Wiseld believed otherwise," Farr continued after a moment. "He had spent decades entering impossible situations and emerging vindicated. Governments ignored his warnings and collapsed. Commanders rejected his strategies and lost battles. Jedi questioned his methods and subsequently required his assistance. Eventually, he ceased regarding disagreement as disagreement."

Thane looked towards the statue. "He started seeing it as proof that everyone else was beneath him," he observed quietly.

"More or less."

Thane moved a little nearer to the bust, looking up into the sculpted face that had seemed so much older aboard the Cathedral. He could still remember Wiseld's voice within his mind, stripping away comforting assumptions one after another. Even now, safe within the Temple and separated from Ord Yutani by half a galaxy, some of the questions remained.

"He wasn't wrong about everything."

Dunrar's eyes shifted towards him.

Thane noticed. "I didn't say he was right," he added.

"No," the Jedi Master replied quietly and slowly. "You did not."

Thane folded his arms, although the movement seemed more defensive than casual.

"The Republic does fail people. We know that. We wouldn't have been sent to Ord Yutani if it didn't. Rakhesh sat in the Senate whilst extremists took control of his own system. The Judicials ignored what was happening until ships started disappearing. Everyone knew something was wrong, but nobody wanted responsibility for doing anything about it." His eyes moved towards the Proselyte's bust again. "And then we arrive and discover that the madman underneath all of it had understood some of those weaknesses perfectly."

"He understood them," Farr agreed. "He simply concluded that understanding a weakness entitled him to rule those afflicted by it."

That answer seemed to interest the young Knight more than any rebuke might have done. Before he could respond, another voice emerged from one of the darker recesses of the sanctuary.

"I cannot decide whether it is reassuring or profoundly irritating that you two are apparently being congratulated for this."

All four Jedi turned. A purple-skinned Mikkian emerged from between two of the alcoves with a datapad tucked beneath one arm and several slim archival wafers held carefully against her robes. Illyvar had evidently been present for some time, although precisely how much of the conversation she had overheard was impossible to determine. Her expression, however, suggested that she had heard quite enough.

"Illyvar."

"Thane. Bomoor."

Delayed momentarily as he adjusted his position to see the familiar young woman, still slightly concealed in the alcove, Bomoor added:

"Hello Illyvar. What brings you all the way down here?"

Her eyes travelled deliberately towards the fresh scar beside Thane's eye, then across to Bomoor, before finally settling upon Wiseld's bust.

"I have spent the last six days researching Master Wiseld's surviving mission reports, Council censures and pedagogical records." She adjusted the datapad beneath her arm. "You two apparently flew to Ord Yutani, discovered that he was alive, allowed him to invade both of your minds, fought him inside an ancient superweapon whilst it attempted to dismantle a planet, and somehow returned to Coruscant to be told how impressive you are."

Thane considered that summary. "That sounds about right," he said with a crooked half-smile.

"You make it sound like we weren't asked to go," Bomoor added, gesturing to his side, "Master Dunrar did request our 'unique perspective' on the situation."

Illyvar's expression tightened.

Dunrar lowered his head slightly, concealing what might otherwise have become a smile.

Farr was less indulgent. "If you have finished listening to conversations which do not concern you, Knight Illyvar, I believe the eastern archives contain several thousand years of material unlikely to irritate you."

"They concern my research," Illyvar replied immediately.

"Everything concerns your research," Thane mocked.

"That is generally how research works," she retorted.

Something approaching genuine amusement crossed Thane's face, but Illyvar ignored him with considerable effort and inclined her head respectfully towards the two senior Jedi before retreating towards the alcove from which she had emerged. As she passed Bomoor, however, she paused.

"For what it is worth, deliberately exploiting the incompatibility between Human and Ithorian cognitive architecture was clever."

Bomoor cocked his head, a little confused at the break in the frostiness for a moment of sincerety.

"Well, thank you Illyvar," he rubbed his broad neck gently, "I suppose that was the unique perspective I offered."

Illyvar gave him one final withering look and disappeared amongst the monuments.

The sanctuary became quiet again, save for the gentle fall of water and the crackle of blue flame.

Farr's attention returned to Bomoor.

"She is correct about one thing. There is something worth studying in what happened between you and Wiseld. Not merely as a defence against mental intrusion, but as a lesson in why his abilities ultimately failed him." He gestured towards the stone likeness above them. "He possessed extraordinary understanding of the minds of others, yet gradually became incapable of imagining that a mind unlike his own might contain something he could not master."

Dunrar nodded slowly. "Perhaps that is the more useful lesson to take from this place."

Thane said nothing. His gaze remained upon Wiseld. The newly carved words beneath the bust caught the blue light. For reasons he could not entirely explain, Thane found his eyes lingering upon them.

Bomoor's voice continued, although sightly muted as Thane gazed at the bust of the lost Jedi.

"...Perhaps the darkness that overtook him narrowed his mind..."

Those intense chiselled eyes held a deadly intelligence...

"...but I think, at his core, he had become the final victim of his own persuasion — so convinced I was lesser that he could not see what was right in front of him..."

Steady, powerful cheekbones carved a face of resilience...

"...that power comes in all shapes and forms."

As the voices faded into the background, the trickling of water also stopped.

The stone memory of Olr-Ohm Wiseld now sat in silence with the other lost figures of the Order.

For a few moments, Farr said nothing. His eyes remained on Wiseld's likeness, then shifted towards Thane with the same careful scrutiny he habitually reserved for some newly-uncovered fragment of history whose meaning had not yet settled into place.

"Knight Thane," the Archivist said at last, his gravelled voice breaking gently across Bomoor's final observation. "Walk with me for a moment."

Thane looked first towards Bomoor and then back to Farr, one brow lifting slightly, although the movement pulled uncomfortably at the healing line beside his right eye.

"Should I be worried?"

Farr did not dignify that with an answer. He simply turned and began deeper into the sanctuary, passing between the blue-lit alcoves whilst Thane fell into step beside him. Dunrar remained with Bomoor beneath Wiseld's bust, their voices gradually disappearing beneath the gentle trickle of the little waterfalls as distance grew between them.

---

They did not travel far. Farr stopped where the Hall narrowed into a short passage between two rows of Lost Masters, although his attention was no longer upon any of the figures surrounding them. Thane waited beside him in silence, increasingly aware that the Archivist had brought him away deliberately rather than merely sought privacy for some mundane observation.

"You listened to Wiseld," Farr said.

Thane's expression tightened. "I fought him," he tried to correct.

"You did both," Farr amended himself.

There was no accusation in the older Jedi's voice. Farr folded his arms across his broad chest and regarded the younger Knight steadily.

"You recognised truth in some of what he said. That troubles you more than the fact he entered your mind."

Thane looked away, his gaze wandering amongst the dark stone and blue flame.

"I fear he was still right about some things," the younger Jedi Guardian admitted.

"Yes," the Jedi Master acceded.

That answer drew Thane's attention sharply back towards him.

Farr continued before the younger Jedi could speak. "Wiseld's failure was not that he recognised weakness in the Republic, nor that he believed the Jedi capable of more than they sometimes achieve. His failure was eventually believing that recognising those things made every conclusion he reached correct."

Thane's fingers moved absently across the healing scar beside his eye. "So what am I meant to do with the parts he was right about?"

"Study better men." Farr's scarred features remained unreadable for a moment. "Come with me."

---

Master Ven Kel Farr led Thane into one of the older secured archive chambers beneath the Temple. Unlike the public repositories above, there were no rows of modern holobooks or conversational terminals here. The chamber had been built around preservation rather than convenience. Old data cores, recovered memory crystals and painstakingly reconstructed holorecords sat within shielded recesses behind transparisteel, many of them bearing tiny annotations recording not merely where they had been found, but who had restored them and how much of the original material remained.

Farr stopped before one such collection.

"These survived badly," he explained. "Fragments, at first. Corrupted recordings, partial mission logs, damaged Temple records, references preserved in later histories. The New Jedi Order spent generations reconstructing what it could. Grand Master Waay made some of the final recoveries personally, as he forged the Reborn Jedi."

Thane glanced towards him, scowling. His view of the cabled Whiphid was more sceptical than many of their peers. "Junun Waay?"

Farr nodded as he reached towards the archive controls and a figure appeared in pale blue light. Broad-shouldered, bald and stern-faced, wrapped in the robes of an Order dead for more than a millennium but still familiar.

The visage itself felt familiar to Thane, as if he had seen this dark-skinned Human before. His hand slipped to the electrum of his lightsaber hilt.

"Mace Windu. Jedi Master and High Council member of the Old Order. General of the Grand Army of the First Republic. One of the most formidable swordsmen the old Jedi ever produced, it is believed."

Farr said no more and the hologram shifted as another restored fragment loaded. This time, Windu stood with a lightsaber in his hand and the blade ignited. Amethyst light flooded the old recording.

Thane became very still. His eyes dropped instinctively towards the weapon hanging at his own side that his hand had brushed a moment before, then returned to the ancient Jedi standing before him with that same uncommon colour burning in his grasp.

Farr watched him for a moment before turning away. "I will leave you with the record."

The Archivist departed without another word, leaving Thane alone in the restored glow of a Jedi who had been dead for more than twelve centuries. The image of Mace Windu remained before him, silent and severe, his amethyst blade held ready in one hand.

And, for a long while, Thane simply watched.

---

EPILOGUE
Jon Shurley sat alone, occupying himself with the only worthwhile thing in the room: its faults. The overhead glow was uneven, the transparisteel band near the ceiling poorly seated and the door’s locking circuit produced a faint, low level whine that any competent installer could have easily corrected if they gave a damn about their work. He could have corrected all of it quickly, but the Judicial Forces had stripped him of every tool he owned, leaving his utility belt hanging useless and light at his hip.

Still, he kept a part of his mind busy constructing potential design alterations that would improve the functionality of the room, without spending more than a few credits on materials. The rest of his mind was allowed to ponder the greater puzzle: analysing and correcting the flawed philosophy of the Nea Glarists.

Contispex had promised a world shaped by merit: a place where competence would finally be unburdened by the masses who mistook existence for entitlement and where the chosen would ascend beyond them. He had recognised the outline of that dream and allowed Contispex to wrap it in theology, to convince him that ingenuity required divine sanction. The Cathedral had responded to his labour, not to prayer. When two young Jedi dismantled the entire edifice in hours, they had done it through skill; through the very qualities he believed the Glarists existed to elevate.

However, he did not feel foolish. He felt corrected.

The Republic would surely feel the need to apply some punitive measure upon him, even though he had already learned the lesson he required. He only hoped they would at least choose a facility with systems worth improving. Most were an insult to engineering. A challenge would be preferable to boredom.

He shifted slightly in the chair, eyes returning to the door mechanism and the faint, unmistakable hum of disorder that lay within it.

The door eventually opened. The man who entered was thoroughly unremarkable. Human, middle-aged, clean-shaven and dressed in a charcoal suit cut well enough to betray considerable expense without drawing attention to itself. There was no military insignia, no Judicial badge and nothing identifying a government ministry. Even his shoes seemed chosen precisely because nobody would remember them. He carried a thin folio beneath one arm and allowed the door to close quietly behind him before approaching the table.

"Jon Shurley." It was not a question. The stranger pulled out the opposite chair but did not immediately sit. "I have been reading about you." He opened the folio. "Not especially much to begin with."

Several sheets of flimsiplast were laid carefully upon the table. Employment records. Academic assessments. Engineering certifications. A handful of grainy images from workshops and excavation sites, tracing a career that had begun with considerably less grandeur than the Cathedral of the Firmament.

"Modest education. No prestigious academy and no family connections worth mentioning. An engineer who seems to have spent much of his career being employed because someone needed an impossible machine repaired cheaply." The stranger's mouth twitched with the beginnings of a smile. "And yet, somehow, when presented with an Old Empire World Devastator that had spent centuries buried beneath a desert, you made it work."

Another sheet landed upon the table. The Cathedral, image captured from high above Ord Yutani after the battle, enormous even at that distance, its brutal industrial mass casting a shadow across the ruined landscape beneath it.

"I have spoken to several people who insist that what you accomplished should not have been possible." The man finally sat. "I find that recommendation considerably more useful than any academic qualification."

More flimsiplast followed. This time the images were older - much older. A skeletal sphere suspended above a world, the incomplete superstructure unmistakable despite the antiquity of the schematic. Another showed a completed battlestation of similar design. Then came vast shipyards, planetary-scale industrial engines, orbital habitats and ancient theoretical designs whose dimensions were marked not in metres, but kilometres.

The stranger spread them across the table without hurry.

"History has an unfortunate tendency to remember these things only as weapons." His finger rested lightly upon one of the schematics. "I prefer to think of them as demonstrations. Proof that scale is usually a problem of imagination before it becomes one of engineering."

A final document remained within the folio. The man did not reveal it yet. Instead, he leaned back slightly, allowing Shurley a moment to take in the impossible constructions scattered before him.

"GalactaWerks has been granted extensive access to the machine you restored. Our Board has also reviewed your work." At last, the stranger slid the final sheet across the table, face-down. "We think you have been wasting your talents, Mister Shurley."

Shurley did not react at first. He continued examining the flimsiplast spread before him, eyes moving beneath his heavy grey brow with the same slow, deliberate assessment he applied to machinery. Ancient battlestations, planetary engines, orbital foundries: proofs of what minds unburdened by superstition could accomplish. He traced the lines of the skeletal sphere, the unfinished superstructure, the impossible scale.

Shurley looked up.

The man was younger than he expected, though not young enough to be naïve. His uniform was a precise blend of grey and gold: corporate, not governmental. Not Judicial, not Intelligence, not military. Executives wore colours like that: subtle enough to avoid ostentation, expensive enough to signal that they didn’t need to prove anything.

“GalactaWerks,” Shurley murmured, tasting the name as he studied the man. He knew the company, of course, but only what he had needed to know from recruitment drives and glossy promises. It was the kind of corporate culture that rewarded committees more than creators. He had always left them alone. Never enough challenge. Never enough ownership. The reward was always someone else’s.

But the man’s eyes were bright. Not with zeal, not with salesmanship, but with calculated respect. The same glint Contispex had carried when he first approached Shurley on that freighter years ago, before the theology, before the robes, before the mistake.

He felt no temptation this time. He had learned that lesson.

Still, the man was not here to preach. He was here with schematics of impossible machines and a tone that suggested he understood exactly what Shurley had done.

What, precisely, was he offering?

Shurley leaned back, rolling one shoulder until the stiff joint cracked. “Seems you might be right,” he said at last, “But that’s the way of the galaxy, isn’t it? Men like me build the impossible and someone else hangs their banner on it.”

He tapped one of the ancient schematics with a blunt finger.

“I’ve spent too long letting other people enjoy the results of my labour. I think I’m done with that. From this moment on, I reap what I sow. Not gods, nor executives...”

His gaze sharpened.

“Only me.”

The stranger did not seem offended. If anything, Shurley's answer appeared to satisfy him. His gaze dropped briefly towards the engineer's hand where it rested beside the scattered schematics, then returned to his face.

"Good." The word was quiet. "We have no particular use for men who want applause." He leaned back slightly, one arm settling against the chair with an ease that remained carefully controlled. "Nor for men who require permission to be exceptional." The final dossier remained beneath his fingertips. "GalactaWerks was not built out of the Dark Age to preserve mediocrity, Mister Shurley. There are already enough institutions devoted to that purpose. Governments distribute responsibility until nobody can be blamed. Corporations promote obedience until competence becomes inconvenient. Religions sanctify suffering, as you well know."

His tone never rose. That made the contempt within it sharper.

"We prefer results, and you restored an ancient machine that entire teams of Republic engineers would have spent decades classifying as impossible. You did not have the finest academies behind you. You did not have a Senate committee. You did not have a thousand specialists explaining why the work could not be done. You had intellect, labour and the willingness to continue after lesser people would have stopped."

The stranger regarded him for a long moment.

"Those qualities are rarer than governments like to admit." His eyes moved towards the array of ancient constructions spread across the table. "There are people scattered across this galaxy who understand that. Engineers, physicians, architects, strategists, biologists, even artists and musicians. Sentients who spend their lives carrying civilisations that barely understand what they contribute, while bureaucrats, financiers and politicians argue over how much of their achievement may safely be permitted." A faint smile returned. "We find them."

The stranger slid one of the superweapon schematics aside, exposing the image of an immense orbital habitat beneath it.

"We give them resources." Another sheet moved. A planetary engine. "Time." Another - a colossal shipyard. "Freedom." He looked back to Shurley. "And, where possible, distance from the noise. Imagine what could be built if the most capable people in the galaxy were no longer required to spend half their lives compensating for the least capable. Imagine laboratories where research was not delayed because a senator feared an election. Shipyards where design was not mutilated by procurement boards, or cities planned by architects rather than committees. A civilisation in which excellence was not merely tolerated until somebody found it politically inconvenient." He paused. "Not a paradise." There was almost amusement in that. "Only somewhere competence might finally be allowed to breathe." The stranger's fingers finally settled upon the face-down dossier. "We are building towards something. Building better worlds, as it were."

He turned the document over. The stranger tapped the page once.

"Tell me, Mister Shurley..." His eyes remained fixed upon him. "...did you ever study the philosopher Sistros?"

ENGINES OF HEAVEN END

 

RSS Feed