Eclaire

"Jack Nebulax is truly a great man. He served the Republic and the Empire with extreme loyalty. You Rebels may think he is evil because he served under Palpatine for so many years, but he isn't. You have your heroes like Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia. We have our heroes, too, and the foremost of them is Nebulax. And I'm proud to have served under him for all these years."

- Jason Xzine to a commander following a cease-fire

Jack Nebulax was a in the   who would eventually promote himself to  and become  of his own empire.

Throughout his life, Nebulax would serve in the and Imperial Navies, in some points rising rapidly through the ranks. It is known that at a few points in his career, he attracted the attention of  for his outstanding performance at battles.

Unknown to everyone but himself and a small amount of others, Nebulax was, but not enough to attract the attention of the. Nonetheless, Nebulax knew from a young age he would become a naval commander, and even after finding out about his -sensitivity, he did not dream of becoming a as most others would have.

The highlight of Nebulax's career came after the when he set up the Nebulax Empire on Had Abbadon with himself as leader. Nebulax would serve as Emperor far into the Legacy era.

Early life (56&mdash;40 BBY)
"Like any other Imperial, I had a childhood, parents, and a home. That may be hard to believe, but it's the truth."

- Jack Nebulax to in 5 ABY

Born in 56 BBY on, a moon of , during the time of the , Jack Nebulax was destined to become a major player in events. Many speculated at Nebulax's origins, but none would come close enough to grasp the truth. Nebulax was Force-sensitive, and for unknown reasons, his Force-sensitivity was never discovered by the Jedi Order until his time in the military.

Jack's father was Zaxdis Nebulax, the of the  in the, and his mother was Sonitha Nebulax, a senatorial  to Zaxdis. Young Jack accompanied his parents on numerous trips to, but even being in such close proximity to the did not alert the Jedi to his Force-sensitivity.

Therefore, Jack's life proceeded uneventfully. His father had wanted him to become a senator when he was old enough, but Jack had his mind set elsewhere. It was on his fifteenth birthday in 41 BBY that he announced he wanted to be enrolled in the.

His parents did not let him go at first. That changed when, during a trip from Zhar to Coruscant, a fleet ambushed the family's. Jack took the controls and successfully piloted the unarmed craft away from the pirates and into.

After that demonstration of their son's skills, Jack's parents allowed him to go the Academy on when he was 16 in 40 BBY.

Time at the academy (40&mdash;34 BBY)
"This new recruit is very promising. I look forward to watching his skills grow."

- instructor Dhas Ghill on Jack

Upon enrolling in the Academy, Jack found himself unable to pick which course he wanted to take as his main course. He was torn between combat and  operations.

His first instinct was to take the starfighter combat course. After all, he had piloted an unarmed shuttle into hyperspace away from pirates with little skill. He could only imagine how good he would be at the controls of an armed fighter.

He enrolled in the starfighter combat course, and he was taught many manuevers. But after two weeks of that course, his instructors recommended that he'd switch to starship operations because his skills would be more beneficial onboard a. Jack took his instructors' advice and changed courses.

Jack felt right at home in the new course. In a starfighter, he was only responsible for himself and those in his. But in a capital ship, he was responsible for his life, the lives of others aboard the ship, and those in starfighter squadrons. In addition, he was also higher up on the command chain.

For four years Jack continued to excel at his studies. Althought not at the top of his class, he was very close to the top, being third highest. At graduation, Jack and the two classmates above him were given awards for their exceptional skills. Jack's long military service was about to begin.

Conflict with the Nova Ring (34&mdash;33 BBY)
"The Nova Ring will pay for what they did to me."

- Jack Nebulax, following his father's death

Jack was stationed aboard the  as a. The Prominence was assigned at the time to hunt down a pirate organization known as the Nova Ring, which had made several threats against senators, in the.

But before Jack could get to them, they got to him in an unexpected way. As the Prominence was in hyperspace, Jack was watching a live holofeed of his father addressing the Senate. Then, in the blink of an eye, Zaxdis Nebulax's malfunctioned and sent him to his death at the bottom of the. To make it even more painful for Jack, s programmed to follow Zaxdis during his speech followed his body down to the bottom of the chamber.

Onboard the Prominence, Jack was too stunned to react. His friends, who had also watched the event, tried to console him at first, but they knew it wouldn't help. The following day, the Prominence returned to Coruscant to pay respect to the late senator during his funeral.

Alongside Jack at the funeral was his mother, who had been sick on the day of her husband's death. Except for when he gave the euology, Jack spent the entire funeral in silence with his mother.

The of the Prominence gave Jack a week's leave, but he refused. He knew that the Nova Ring was behind the death&mdash;no, assassination&mdash;of his father. He had to bring them to justice.

After a week of searching, the Prominence at last found the secret command base of the Nova Ring inside an field. After a battle, the troops stationed aboard the Prominence secured the base and brought back prisoners. They were interrogated on Zaxdis's death, but none of them admitted that the Nova Ring was involved.

Jack offered to interrogate the leader of the terrorists. His offer was refused because they all knew that it was personal for him. Nonetheless, Jack managed to slip past the guards and into the room in which the Nova Ring's leader was being held.

Jack was straight to the point in the interrogation. His anger was apparent, and the terrorist leader made the connection between Jack and "that dead senator from Zhar". That enraged Jack greatly, and he was fully prepared to kill the man in front of him. Unknowingly using a bit of the Force, Jack forced the terrorist to admit to killing his father. Furthermore, Jack found out that the Nova Ring was hired by an opponent of Zaxdis to do the job. The threats against other senators were just random and meaningless.

Before Jack could find out who had contracted the assassination of his father, the guards stepped in and restrained Jack. "I got him to admit it," Jack said. "The karking terrorist admitted killing my father."

The captain of the Prominence let Jack get away with his actions. A day after the interrogation, Jack was almost back to his normal self. But the whole experience left a dark mark on Jack that he would carry with him for years.

The aftermath of the Battle of Naboo (32&mdash;31 BBY)
"Heh. The Neimoidians tried to take over Naboo, and they failed. Well, we're making sure they can't try anything like that again."

- The of the to his crew

Following the 's of the planet, the Prominence was sent to  to observe the disbanding of the Trade Federation's military.

Jack, now second in command of the Dreadnaught cruiser, used this opportunity to observe the s. This experience gave him an opinion on the species that very few non-Neimoidians had&mdash;he respected them. Their attempt at trying to take over a planet was horrible, yes, but for a cowardly species, their tactics were commendable, not condemnable. Their large fleet and greatly impressed Jack.

But he soon noticed that the Neimoidians were not disbanding their army and navy. Instead, they were shipping their forces intact offworld, presumably to their s, and converting the centrispheres of their s into s that were capable of flight on their own. Once again, Jack silently commended the Neimoidians. However, they were not doing as instructed. Rather than inform his superiors of the Neimoidians' actions, he secretly met with the. Jack struck up a bargain: He wouldn't alert the Republic forces if the Neimoidians agreed to set aside a Lucrehulk, complete with a detachable core ship, for his private use in the future. The Trade Monarch agreed.

Jack realized that he was conspiring against the Republic by doing this. But he admired the Neimoidians. After all, they might need their ships and droids for protection against pirates in the future. Perhaps he was doing them a favor after all, he thought. But it wouldn't be until years later that his action with the Neimoidians would come back to haunt him.

The truth behind the assassination of Senator Nebulax (30 BBY)
"I must find the person who killed my father."

- Jack, making a silent vow to himself

A year after overseeing the "disbanding" of the Trade Federation's forces, Jack found himself having nightmares of his father's death. In them, Jack was at his father's side when the senator was killed. The details were always different, though: Sometimes Jack and his father would be walking down a street when an assassin dressed all in black came up and shot Zaxdis. In other versions, they were inside a museum on Coruscant when the same man dressed in black stabbed Zaxdis from behind. Over a countless number of nights, Jack saw him father shot, stabbed, poisoned, blown up, and incinerated. But strangely, none of the assassinations came close to what had actually happened in the Senate rotunda.

But that changed. One night, there he was, outside the entrance to the Senate pod where his father was. He watched it detatch from the wall of the chamber and hover in midair. Jack heard his father recite the very same speech he had said when he was killed. Then, he felt the small explosion under the pod a split second before it happened. When it happened, the pod began its decent to the bottom of the chamber. The gasps of horror resounded throughout the large room as they had on that fateful day four years ago.

And the dream was over.

It occured to him that, unlike all the other dreams, the assassin was not present. Jack tried to replay every moment of the dream, looking in vain for the assassin somewhere. No matter how hard he strained, he could not find the man in black. Even when he tried to picture some of the senators as the assassin, he could not convince himself that the man was there at the time.

If this nightmare portrayed the true version of what had happened that day&mdash;minus Jack being there&mdash;then the assassin would have had to been outside the Senate building, but not too far away. Long-range detonation devices for explosives were hard to find. Unless this was a professional assassin hired by someone with enough money to buy such a device on the black market, the man in black must have waited outside in the Senate plaza to push the button.

But his dreams were not concrete evidence; nor were they evidence at all. Nonetheless, he had a strong feeling that he was close to discovering who had ordered the assassination of his father. A week later, he found out.

Jack had recently returned home to Gall for a festival when his father's replacement in the Senate, Za'deius Chranell, gave a speech where he inferred that the Zhar system had been in much better hands since Zaxdis's death. This made Jack suspicious, and he followed the senator back to his residence&mdash;his family's former residence. Jack managed to elude the guards, and he found himself looking for anything that would implement an involement in his father's death.

Soon, he found what he was looking for&mdash;a secret safe hidden behind a false window. Jack recalled seeing this safe when he was younger. His father had entrusted him with the combination. While Chranell may have changed it, he found no harm in giving it a try. And, it did. Jack found himself looking at a copy of the written contract sent to the Nova Ring for the death of Senator Zaxdis Nebulax. What a fool, Jack thought, for him to keep a written copy of the contract.

Now, with the information in hand, he purposely tripped one of the alarms within the complex. Guards surrounded him, but he simply held out the document. "In my hands," Jack boomed out, "I hold the contract for the death of former Senator Zaxdis Nebulax, my father&mdash;signed by Za'deius Chranell!" There was a mixed reply from the guards, some of them letting out gasps and others believing the document to be a fake. Nonetheless, they escorted Jack to the police station, where Jack handed the document over to a signature anaylist. After carefully examining the signature on the document to Za'deius's signature, he concluded that they were identical. The police let Jack go and arrested Za'deius instead.

Jack was present at the trial for the senator. As a witness, he gave his testimony to the court. They unanimously found Za'deius Chranell guilty and had him sent to Coruscant for sentencing. Justice had been served, and now Jack hoped that he could go on living his military career without further interruptions.

For his deeds, Jack was commended by the himself. From that point on, Palpatine took an interest in Jack's career. Privately, the Supreme Chancellor told Jack that he knew of Jack's actions in letting the Trade Federation keep their fleet. Jack thought the Chancellor would have him imprisoned, but it seemed the he agreed with Jack's assessment. For that, Jack became unquestioningly loyal to Palpatine and counted the Chancellor as one of his best friends.

Becoming captain (27 BBY)
"Well, good ol' Jack got himself elected president." "At least that means we're a democracy."

- Two crewmates joking about Jack

By 27 BBY, Jack had already proven that his career was and would continue to be very successful. The captain of the Prominence was in the process of receiving a new assignment and a higher rank, so the crew of the Dreadnaught cruiser was about to find themselves without a commanding officer.

To the outgoing captain and the crew, Jack was the most obvious choice. The Supreme Chancellor saw this, too, and recommended that Jack become captain. Although the military had a few other candidates in mind, they gave the position to Jack.

Captain Nebulax promised his crew that he would do his best. While the position itself was nothing special, Jack treated it as if it were the most important thing in the galaxy. Some of the crew joked that Jack had been "elected president" of the Prominence.

And Jack was quick to choose his "vice president" and second in command. The job fell to Jason Xzine, one of Jack's newest and most trustworthy friends. Their friendship and chain of command would continue to exist for decades to come.

The Battle of Geonosis (22 BBY)
"Geonosis was a hellhole. But Captain Nebulax kept his calm, directing my men onboard the assault ship. I don't think anyone knows how grateful they are for that."

- CC-32/9735, following the

When news that the had built a massive  on  reached Coruscant, the frantic Republic rushed to assemble what little forces they had. The Jedi Order was to be their lead force in attacking the Separatists on Geonosis, but the navy still had a job to play.

The Prominence was among the first ships in the, escorted by small s with Jedi as their pilots. They all knew that, on their own, they could not possibly survive a space battle against Separatist warships.

But it was not the likelihood of destruction that scared Jack. It was the warships that he saw that scared him the most: Lucrehulk-class battleships, the same ships that were supposed to be disassembled following the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo. And because Jack had secretly allowed the Neimoidians to keep their freighters, he and the outnumbered Republic forces in the system were about to be destroyed. "It's all my fault," Jack whispered.

But suddenly from behind them a fleet of large triangular ships appeared from hyperspace being escorted by more Delta-7s. Evidently, the Republic had just gained a fighting force. The odds of survival had greatly improved. Still, he was aboard a Dreadnaught that could easily be overwhelmed and destroyed.

At that moment, his buzzed, and a Republic officer informed him that he had been re-assigned to one of the s, the Quasar Fire, as its commander. He and his senior staff were to transfer aboard that ship before the engagement began.

Jack and company did as ordered. Onboard the bridge of the Quasar Fire, he saw the crewmembers were dressed in white armor with yellow markings. One of them, in slightly different armor with other yellow markings, walked up to him, salute, and removed his helmet. " CC-thirty-two-slash-nine-seven-three-five reporting for duty," he said.

Jack was curious about the use of "" in the man's sentence. More importantly, "clone commander" intrigued him. Were all these white-armored men clones? Jack got his answer when two others removed their helmets, revealing faces identical to CC-32/9735.

So this was the "" that the Senate had been. Well, as long as they defeated the Separatists, he wouldn't mind serving with s.

As the Grand Army and Jedi the Separatist droid forces on the planet, the Republic Navy in orbit was assigned to harass the enemy capital ships and try to take out the core ships that were making it off-planet. The Quasar Fire succeeded in taking out one core ship before the remaining Separatist warships escaped into hyperspace. The battle was a victory, but the had only begun.

The Battle of Atraken (22 BBY)
"Don't even mention Atraken. We went in there trying to free a world, but we only helped destroy it. I hope nothing like this ever happens again, but that can't begin to console the people who lost everything when their planet was devastated."

- Jack Nebulax, in a documentary on the early years of the

The Battle of Geonosis made Jack respect the clone troopers, but the very next battle that he and the forces under his command participated in&mdash;the &mdash;showed just how mindless the clone troopers could be. When word got in that the Separatists had refused to hand over, the Senate voted that the next battle in the war would be the liberation of Atraken. Captain Nebulax and his forces got the go-ahead to jump to the planet less than an hour later.

Upon arriving at Atraken, the clone forces under CC-32/9735 were deployed to the planet. The Separatist forces, comprised primarily of s, s, and s, were quick to counterattack, however, and soon the casualties were piling up on both sides.

For many days the battle was a stalemate, with the front lines on each sides moving only inches forward and backwards. The Senate, in response to Nebulax's call for reinforcements, had a larger force of clone troopers sent to Atraken. The combined strength of the two clone forces were not enough to end the battle, however. Nebulax and his forces would remain on Atraken for almost a year fighting the droid forces, which too had received reinforcements.

In the eleventh month of the battle, the Separatist forces on the planet had finally been wiped out with their headquarters destroyed and droid forces obliterated. However, before their defeat, the Separatist had unleashed toxins into the water supply, killing approximately ninety percent of the population.

The toxins had nearly killed Nebulax as well, but Darius Chranell&mdash;the son of Za'deius Chranell, the killer of Jack's father&mdash;had saved him. Despite the fact that he had been saved by Chranell, Nebulax was hostile toward the Jedi Master. To make matters worse for Jack, following the battle, Chranell was assigned to Nebulax's forces as their.

By the end of the Clone Wars, the Battle of Atraken was still one of the worst and most costly events in the war. Nebulax would continue to be haunted by the battle well into his reign over the Nebulax Empire.

The Battle of Humbarine (20 BBY)
"The fleet arrived too late to help Humbarine. Jack just looked at the planet and watched it be destroyed. I think everyone onboard the Flame felt just as helpless."

- Jason Xzine, following the

In 21 BBY, Nebulax and his fleet saw little action. Instead, they were assigned to scout the various s in search of Separatist forces. They came into contact with small pockets of enemy ships, but none of those engagements were large enough to be considered major victories. Also in 21 BBY, Jack learned of the destruction of the Prominence at the. In addition, the Quasar Fire was replaced by the Quasar Flame.

In 20 BBY, however, they were pulled from their duty on the hyperlanes and sent to aid in the defense of. By the time they had arrived, the, under the command of  aboard the , had begun their  of the planet's surface. By the time they had arrived, it was too late for them to save Humbarine, but they did manage to cover the escape of the remnants of the.

The Battle of Agamar (20 BBY)
"Why must every battle I participate in be a defeat?"

- Jack Nebulax, following the

Soon after, Jack's fleet was sent to defend from an increasing Separatist threat in the. When Republic forces, comprised of mainly s and clone troopers, landed on-planet, they found themselves having a difficult time in crossing the bridges on the planet.

While the Republic forces did manage to turn the tide one point in the battle by using s to cut the bridges on which battle droids forces were, the tide turned against them when the last of the AT-TEs were destroyed. The Republic forces were forced to retreat.

The space battle, on the other hand, had been going in the Republic's favor the entire time, with the majority of Separatist ships destroyed or inoperable. The crewmembers onboard the Republic s had just begun their victory celebration when the devastating news of the withdrawal on-planet came. The Republic fleet retreated, and Jack now had a series of losses in the war hanging behind him.