Prologue

This is the prologue of An Unraveling Galaxy; I'm just doing this to see how it could go.

Prologue

The machine was never meant to be stable.

Jax knew that the moment he saw it -- a ring of humming pylons, a box-shaped clump of wires sticking out at strange angles, a kyber crystal glowing in the middle. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. Even from the shadows, he could feel the Force twisting around it, bending in ways it shouldn’t.

He moved silently along the catwalk above, cloak brushing the metal grating. Jax wasn’t built for diplomacy or grand speeches. He was built for this -- infiltration, sabotage, and the kind of missions the Jedi Council preferred not to talk about.

His lightdagger flickered to life in his hand, a short, precise blade meant just for him. He slipped behind a console, quickly and quietly slicing wires and overloading circuits with practiced efficiency.

But he wasn’t fast or quiet enough, and the Sith had noticed him.

A robed figure slammed a hand onto the activation panel.

The machine roared.

Energy surged.

The pylons cracked.

The air folded inward like a collapsing star.

Jax dove for cover. Blasters fired. The device exploded in a burst of fractured time. But the cover wasn’t enough. Jax was hurled back, straight through a window. Unfortunately, the blast didn’t just throw bodies through the room -- it tore open the timeline itself.

Clone troopers disappeared in random instants, suddenly materializing on the Death Star, where stormtroopers had been mere moments before.

Stormtroopers materialized in the middle of clone barracks.

Entire centuries colliding in a single instant.

And in the chaos, two soldiers crashed into each other.

A clone trooper in Phase II armor.

A stormtrooper in Imperial white plastoid.

Their helmets flew off, skidding across the floor.

Both men scrambled.

Both grabbed the wrong helmet.

Neither realized.

The clone trooper snapped the stormtrooper helmet onto his head and immediately received a flood of Imperial HUD data -- squad markers, navigation arrows, and a blinking directive pointing him toward a stormtrooper patrol.

He didn’t question it. Why would he? He was a clone trooper. And he knew that good soldiers follow orders.

He sprinted toward the nearest Imperial squad, falling into formation without hesitation. The stormtroopers didn’t notice anything unusual. The helmet told them he was one of theirs.

Across the room, the stormtrooper stared at the clone helmet in confusion.

“This… isn’t standard,” he muttered.

He put it on anyway -- and instantly lost all HUD support. No targeting data. No squad link. No navigation. Just a narrow visor and silence.

He tried to follow the clone trooper.

He made it three steps before two stormtroopers blocked him.

“Halt! Identify yourself faker!”

“That’s not standard. Our standard is much better.”

“You must be a rebel.”

“You’re coming with us!”

The stormtrooper took a step back, opening his mouth to explain -- then tripping over a fallen blaster, crashing into a crate, and vanishing under a pile of ration packs.

Jax struggled to his feet as he watched the scene unfold with a long, exhausted sigh.

The Sith had broken the timeline.

The galaxy was unraveling.

A clone trooper was infiltrating the Empire by accident.

A stormtrooper was failing to do anything but humiliate himself.

And Jax -- Jedi, covert operative, wielder of the lightdagger -- was the only one who understood what had just happened.

Jax checked his gear, thinking everything over.

Time was collapsing.

The Sith was out there somewhere.

The machine was completely shattered.

Great. Perfect. Exactly what I needed.

Someone had to fix this.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Let’s go fix up a galaxy and clean up a timeline.”

Author's Note

A "lightdagger" is a concept that I thought could be cool or unique to see in Star Wars, it's a lightsaber but with a shorter hilt and much shorter blade.