Engines of Heaven: Valley of the Shadow of Death

Posted on Sat Jan 3rd, 2026 @ 6:06pm by Bomoor Thort & Thane

2,967 words; about a 15 minute read

Chapter: Additional Stories
Location: Desert, Ord Yutani
Timeline: 1,213 ABY

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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.

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"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil beneath Her Terrible Glare; for Thou art with me in the wastes, and Thy presence steadies my step."

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Heat rose in slow sheets from the sand, in waves and in pressure. It was a weight that pressed against the lungs and stayed there. Thane felt it first in his calves, then behind his eyes, a dull, spreading ache that no amount of blinking displaced. Each breath tasted of iron and dust, dry enough that swallowing felt like effort rather than reflex. Thane, in spite of the Force, was suffering heavily under the onslaught - especially as his homeworld was a damp, temperate and dark world. His eyes were burning.

They moved quickly anyway.

Not at a run - that would have burned them out in minutes - but in a long, punishing stride, pace held by will and rhythm rather than mere urgency. Thane regulated his breathing carefully, four in, four out, forcing the air deep despite the heat. The Force rode beneath it, tightening muscles, easing joints, leeching off the beginnings of tremors or cramps before they could take hold.

Having hastily bandaged up his scratched and bruised leg, determining that his tough tibia bone had not broken under the weight of the console or the strain of wrenching it out, Bomoor managed to limp at a reasonable pace just behind his friend. The hot, dry air did not mix well with the smoke he had inhaled while trapped in the damaged cockpit and this increased his fatigue as he forced himself onward.

A short distance into their journey, he had seen a dead tree, whose roots had once stretched deep into the earth to gather water but even this hardy organism had found the fight to survive too great in this wilderness. With a silent thanks to the once proud tree, Bomoor snapped off a sturdy branch to use as a staff before carrying on.

They had rationed from the moment they had hit the ground - a strip of compressed nutrient paste each, being little more than a measured swallow from their belt canisters. It was barely enough to wet the mouth. Anything more would have been indulgence, and indulgence would cost them distance or their lives, even with the power of the Force behind them.

Ahead, the structure loomed.

It did not grow larger so much as clearer. It was a jagged silhouette against the pale sky, its geometry wrong in a way Thane could not immediately articulate - it was a bulky form that had additional spires and shapes built atop and aside it, which was becoming more obvious the more distance was closed between them and their goal, and the air shimmered around it.

The ground shuddered again, as if on cue.

A low vibration passed through the soles of Thane’s boots, through bone and muscle alike, the thrum of machinery waking after a long sleep.

Overhead, contrails stitched the upper atmosphere. Distant flashes bloomed and died far above the desert, muted by altitude and distance. The battle was still there, but it might as well have been another world. Nothing fell and nothing burned. Whatever was happening in orbit, it was not coming down to meet them.

They trudged rapidly on in silence for a time. Thane could feel the beginnings of heat fatigue creeping in more obviously now - a fuzziness at the edges of his awareness, the temptation to push harder rather than smarter. He resisted it, drawing instead on the slow, grinding steadiness the Force offered when treated not as a weapon, but as breath and balance.

The Force, he mused.

The Force had guided them here regardless - and Thane did not like that thought. Supposed destinies and the guidance of the Force were increasingly bedfellows the young Jedi Guardian was less comfortable with. But, he had felt it at the moment of impact. It was not a hand nor a voice, but a bias of some sort, but the true interpretation evaded him, no matter how much he always ruminated on it. A subtle insistence in the chaos, bending debris and trajectory just enough that they had come down intact, alive - and close. Too close for coincidence.

He slowed slightly, enough that Bomoor drew level, and groaned at the conclusion he had drawn. “Do you feel it?” The younger Human asked, keeping his voice low despite the empty expanse and the dryness in his throat. “The Nea Glarists draw on old language,” he added, remembering the old lessons at the Jedi Temple. “Older than their current doctrine admits... The Pius Dea were anti-Jedi long before they were anything else. Monotheistic, absolutist - but not this.” He looked to the distance. “Fools. Corrupt, misguided fools... but not the dark side.”

To be honest," Bomoor's dry voice had lost most of its echoic property as he spoke primarily just from one un-swollen side, "I have been trying not to stare at the place this whole time. There is definitely something unnerving about it."

He leaned on the staff and wearily gestured at the peaks of the structure with his free hand.

"Those sharp spires and dark grooves," he continued between deep breaths, "They look like great teeth biting into the ground and draining it of it's lifeforce. But you're right, there's something darker inside: something hateful."

He chuckled dryly: "I should have known you would sense it too. You're more than just a sharp dualist."

Thane let the half-smile linger for a breath longer than it deserved.

It pulled unevenly at his mouth — lopsided, self-aware, a habit carried over from sparring halls and quieter days. “I do a good line in self-deprecation,” he said, voice roughened by dust and heat. “Nihilism, if I’m tired.”

He dragged a sleeve across his brow, blinking hard as sweat stung his eyes. The desert punished hesitation as much as excess, and humour, he knew, counted as neither relief nor fuel.

The smile faded as quickly as it had appeared.

“But this isn’t philosophy,” he went on, gaze fixed ahead. “It isn’t belief drifting too far, or some post-war flexing by a frightened world trying to matter again.” His jaw set. “Whatever’s been happening on Ord Yutani… whatever they’ve been working on to give them this leverage and confidence-”

He broke off as the ground pulsed again, deeper this time. Not a quake. A rhythm.

They pressed on without Thane concluding the thought aloud, sand sliding treacherously underfoot as the Force carried just enough of the burden to keep them upright. Thane could feel his body protesting now despite the discipline. His calves burning, breath tight, a dull nausea beginning to coil low in his gut. He did not push it away. He managed it, parcelled it out, let the Force brace what flesh could no longer do alone.

“The Pius Dea were dangerous,” he continued, quieter, recalling old lessons from years passed. “Master Farr said they hated us because we represented plurality. The idea that power could be shared, interpreted.” He shook his head. “They denied the Force, at least as we understand it.”

Another tremor passed through the ground, stronger still, raising a fine cascade of sand from the slope ahead of them.

“This doesn’t,” Thane finished. “Whatever this is… it feeds.”

The air seemed heavier now, not with heat alone but with intent - a pressure behind the sternum, like standing too close to a vast engine as it began to turn. Thane became acutely aware of the way the crash had unfolded in his memory: the improbable angle, the debris that should have killed them but did not.

Guidance. Or something that wore the shape of it.

He grimaced internally, mind once again drawn to the supposed machinations of the Force. I think we were meant to arrive here, the young Caanan concluded.

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They crested the last rise just as the light began to thin toward late afternoon and they stopped.

The structure dominated the desert, now.

Not merely large - it was immense - a bulk of ancient industrial mass fused with new construction, its base sunk deep into the earth as if anchoring itself against the planet’s own resistance. Great spines and buttresses jutted outward and upward, angular and severe, their shadows cutting long, dark lines across the sand. The air around it shimmered, and not with heat alone, but something denser and disturbed within its ancient metal. New adornments and replacement modern parts were welded across huge sections, giving its seemingly original uniform form something more sinister and angular.

Small vessels moved constantly around its flanks; shuttles, lifters, angular transports of different designs darted in careful patterns, disgorging people and cargo alike. The sky hummed faintly with repulsorlift traffic, a ceaseless murmur of arrival. Along the lower reaches of the structure, figures moved in disciplined lines. It was more bustling than the city of Marathon - the true size of the population it could hold would be notable, and its size far outstripped that of a Judicial Star Defender.

Nea Glarists were everywhere.

Their armour was more refined here, even more so than those that had surrounded the turncoat senator - polished plates in pale gold and deep crimson, inscribed with sigils of the faith. Some bore tools, others weapons, and many both. They moved with purpose but not haste, as though time itself bent toward the moment they were preparing for. Great tapestries hung from the structure’s sides, vast swathes of fabric depicting stylised stars, radiant eyes, and angular halos rendered in thread and metallic ink. They rippled faintly in the hot wind, transforming bare machinery into something closer to a shrine.

Transports continued to arrive.

Pilgrims, they realised and other devout from across Ord Yutani and beyond that had heard the call of the reborn religion, disembarking in clusters, shepherded toward gathering points by armoured figures who spoke in calm, rehearsed tones.

There was no panic.

No fear.

Only anticipation.

Thane and Bomoor stood well back, half-hidden by the broken folds of the land, unnoticed for now. From this distance, the structure’s true nature remained elusive - it was too vast to comprehend all at once, too alien to easily categorise.

But the Force told a different story, as it gathered here in slow, terrible concentration, drawn inward rather than flowing free. Not wild or chaotic, but contained and focused.

Thane felt it settle into his bones like a held breath.

Whatever this thing was, it was not merely being restored - it was being consecrated.

"So many of them... so large," the Human muttered to Bomoor, even this brief reprieve bringing much-needed comfort to his sore body. "It must be a vessel," he added, blue eyes eagerly scanning its form in a hope to find some manner of identifying mark. "I refuse to believe the Glarists built this - but I can't see any Alliance, Republic or Company markings, either." He looked over to the Ithorian, hoping he would have an answer or insight.

Bomoor stared at the old metal behemoth a moment and let the silence settle between them, the dry wind tugging at his robes, the distant hum of repulsors vibrating faintly through the sand. His orb-like eyes narrowed as he studied the monstrous silhouette ahead; not with sight alone, but with the deeper, older sense that had guided him through his journey towards knighthood within the Reborn Jedi Order.

“I have read a little on the original Pius Dea from what records remain,” he said at last, voice low and roughened by heat and smoke. “It is believed that they crafted grand cathedrals that sailed the stars: great spires of metal sculpted with the iconography of their religion. Whatever this thing is, they seem to be trying to turn it into one of those Cathedral ships.”

He shifted his weight on the staff, the wood creaking softly under his grip.

“But the vessel at the heart of it... Well, it is certainly not of this world.”

The Ithorian cleared his throats as the dry air continued to diminish the full resonance of his usual speech, leaving but a strained echo of it, as though the air itself resisted the sound.

“I can feel where it has been,” he continued, “The scars it left behind. Somehow, it consumes, it feeds...”

His gaze hardened. “I'm not sure quite how, but it is a tool of much suffering.”

A tremor rolled through the ground again, deeper, more deliberate. Bomoor steadied himself, eyes half‑closing as he reached further into the Force.

“And there is something else,” he murmured. “Someone else: that darkness within we sensed. It seems focussed on a person.”

He swallowed, the motion slow and uneasy.

“All these people here are bound to their dark will, like a parasite to a host. Their devotion feeds into them and strengthens them. They are helplessly drawn to it.”

He opened his eyes fully now, turning to the younger Jedi with a gravity that felt older than either of them.

“I think you can feel that pull too," Bomoor's voice carried a low unease, "Surviving that crash and ending up here; that power is drawing us here too.”

For his part, Thane remained crouched slightly forward, hands resting on his knees, breath still carefully measured as the ache in his legs slowly eased back from sharp pain to something duller and manageable. His eyes never left the vast, bladed silhouette ahead - the great tapestries shifting against ancient metal like ceremonial bandages over a wound that refused to close.

“I hadn’t… sensed it that way,” he admitted. There was no embarrassment in the confession, only unease. “Not a person. Not clearly.” He shook his head, a faint frown pulling at his brow. “I thought it was the machine itself. Or the weight of what it’s done. Suffering leaves impressions - echoes. I assumed that was what we were feeling.”

He glanced sidelong at Bomoor then, expression tightened by a dawning realisation. “But what you’re describing-” He exhaled slowly. “That makes more sense than I like.”

The Force pressed at him again as he considered it. It was not sharper, but clearer, with a focus point emerging from the background hum, like suddenly realising a sound had rhythm rather than noise.

“It would explain the speed,” Thane continued. “The cohesion.” His gaze drifted to the steady stream of pilgrims disembarking below, to the way they moved without hesitation, without doubt. “The Pius Dea took centuries to metastasise... Hundreds of years of doctrine, purges, politics. A slow poisoning of the Republic that only became absolute with time.” He swallowed, throat dry. “This, though…” His jaw set. “This has moved far too quickly.”

Another tremor rippled through the ground, deeper now, almost patient. Thane felt it in his teeth, in the base of his skull.

“If there is someone at the centre of this, aside from that senator or those stone-throwers on the streets,” he went on, voice lower still, “someone actively shaping belief - feeding on it, even - then we’re not dealing with a faith that’s grown feral.” He looked back to the structure, to the spires biting into the planet like hooked talons.

The word lingered unpleasantly.

“I just thought the Nea Glarists were dangerous because they were angry,” Thane said. “Because Ord Yutani was humiliated, frightened, searching for certainty after the Second Conflict.” His eyes narrowed. “Using old armaments and scraps they could seize or buy cheaply.” He straightened slightly, discomfort forgotten for the moment, and finally met Bomoor’s gaze fully. “If you’re right, Bomoor - and I think you are...” Thane looked back toward the gathering crowd, the banners, the calm efficiency of it all. “We need to get inside and stop it - soon. It's not even this... this machine we need to end. It's this dark figure within, warping this whole thing.”

Bomoor drew in a long, steadying breath, allowing the heat sting his lungs before releasing it again. Then, with a quiet resolve, he lifted the staff that had eased his journey here and drove its end into the sand. The wood sank deep, quivering once before settling: a small, symbolic surrender to what lay ahead.

“I would sooner keep leaning on that,” he admitted, voice rough but steady, “But we don’t have the luxury of crutches today.”

He straightened fully, bruised frame protesting but holding firm. His gaze swept the vast, consecrated machine below, observing the pilgrims, the banners, the terrible quaking power gathering at its heart.

“We are battered,” he said, “And we are far from ready. But we are Jedi; we stand for the Republic and its many worlds, for the species the Glarists persecute and to save the people of Ord Yutani from themselves.”

He stepped forward, leaving the staff behind him like a marker of the point of no return.

Bomoor turned to Thane, adding, “…and if that sounded a little too much like a sermon, it’s only because I’m trying to convince myself as much as you.”

A faint, weary huff escaped him as he looked back at the menacing ship, “Force help us, Thane… how do we always end up in these messes?”

TBC

 

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