This is a combination of an author's note and a prologue.

If you don't know already, this story is going to jump around a lot in the Star Wars storyline. This also means that Jalani and Luke will be different ages and at different stages in their friendship throughout the story. I'll try to make it so that the big things (first kisses, weddings, love confessions...etc...) all happen before they occur again.

So, let's say Han and Leia have their first kiss. I'll make sure to tell you that story before they kiss again. See what I mean? I want my readers to be able to see monumental moments happen in the current instead of in a flashback.

I'm also going to come right out and say that I have not explored the Extended Universe a whole lot so, I'm sorry if I mess something up that's from there in advance. I don't know all of the powers that dealing with the Force gives you but I might try something new with Jalani and Luke that I haven't seen as canon. Please correct me if this contradicts anything apart of the original storyline.

For now (and I mean that loosely because I may use these characters later), Rey, Poe, Kylo Ren, Finn and other characters new to the sequel trilogy (TFA, TLJ, and ROS, I think those are the right acronyms) do not exist in this storyline/timeline. I'm not completely closing the door on them yet but I'm trying to focus on characters from the previous two trilogies.

As previously mentioned, there are going to be a decent amount of flashbacks. Some of them will include characters that are not in the current storyline (Anakin, Padmé, Shmi...etc..)and some of them may include OCs. Aaaaannnnnddddd, that's really all I'm going to say about that because if I say too much more, there's going to be spoilers.

So, if we were watching an actual Star Wars film...here's sort of the scrolling text to tell you what's going on. Disclaimer before I get into it: I'm only briefly going to describe the politics of Star Wars because I feel like I'm missing some things from it and I don't want to just leap into it if I don't have all of the pieces put together yet. So, you're scrolling text background info:

The Empire rules the galaxy as news of a Rebellion rising reaches the Emperor's ears. He bans any use of the Force to keep them from getting help from his enemies, who have died according to the events of Order 66, the Jedi, if any of them happen to be still alive. Yearning for absolute power, he wants no one, not even an untrained Force user, to oppose the Empire. Stormtroopers, bounty hunters, and the like are swarming the galaxy looking for any Force users actively using their powers in public.

Jalani Hal'star, the oldest in her family of her and six other sisters, lost her parents at the age of ten. Now responsible for taking care of them, she struggles her hardest until she discovers a disturbing secret. She is Force-sensitive and not only that but, she is strong with the Force. Strong enough to hold potential to become a Jedi. After befriending Luke Skywalker through interesting circumstances, the two of them begin to train together under the guide of Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi who survived Order 66. Kenobi believes that Hal'star and Skywalker are to be the next Jedi and among the most powerful Jedi to venture across the galaxy.

Darth Vader feels an awakening through the force and struggles to find who the opposition to the Empire could be. There are other people in high command who sense this awakening as well but, they have issues of their own to worry about. The only reason Vader is still allowed to display his force abilities and to keep his life is because he works for the Emperor. Vader is also curious about the disappearance of a prominent but hidden figure in the Jedi, who has been missing since Order 66 occurred. Both the Emperor and Vader know that this Jedi is not dead because they can feel her alive through the force from time to time. The issue is that they do not feel her consistently.

Kenobi is aware of this as well and tries to investigate the past as the race to hunt down this missing and apparently alive Jedi is on. Jalani and Luke, as part of their training, join this chase but only find more adventure and secrets at every corner. It is up to them to communicate the whereabouts of this prominent figure in the galaxy to the Rebellion. 

Okay, there's some stuff to get you started about the politics at least. Jalani and Luke you'll definitely learn more about as we go into the story. Events from the movie will take place but, they may not occur in order and this will not follow the movies directly. The storyline may expand beyond these four paragraphs but, I think that the shift in the storyline will be obvious enough that you catch it.

Here's what you need to know about the Hal'stars. Jalani is the oldest. Her parents disappeared when she was 10 and her relationship with them, as you'll discover the more I get into the story, was very good and stable. They really had a happy family. Jalani has not met Luke personally, they have seen each other and other things happen as you'll learn even in the first chapter.

After the first chapter, you can assume that Jalani and Luke grow close together and are best friends. Jalani is often around at the Lars' Moisture Farm and sometimes helps with the work there since Uncle Owen, as he lets Jalani call him which surprises both Luke and Jalani, is always complaining that he needs more help. Luke is often over at the Hal'star's home and Jalani's sisters (especially the younger two since they were fairly young when Luke became a part of their lives) treat Luke as though he is the older brother that they've never had. Luke is a teenager for a lot of the first segment of this, so he doesn't know what to do with the younger girls at first but, he learns to look out for them and be a father/brother figure that they cling to. The older girls see him this way too but they don't cling to him as much as the little ones do as they were a bit older when Luke became a fixture in their lives. When Luke and Jalani become Jedi, Luke becomes more protective over the Hal'star girls and feels that he needs to protect them, not only because they're Jalani's family but because in a way, they're his family too.

Jalani throughout this book, will have a pseudonym to protect her sisters and even though she doesn't believe the Hal'stars are valuable to the Empire, she doesn't want to take that risk that they are. No one knows how her parents disappeared. Jalani picks the name, Lanike (La-neek) Mallix (thanks, Star Wars random name generator). There's a very specific reason that she picked a name with a similar letter arrangement to her real one.

Growing up, as you'll notice even when they're older, Luke calls Jalani, "Lani" all the time. He calls her "Lani" more than he actually calls her Jalani. When she was coming up with the name, she was afraid Luke would slip and call her "Lani" in front of someone that didn't know her real name if she picked one that Lani couldn't be the nickname. So, she picked one that could be shortened to Lani and no one would be the wiser except for Luke, Obi-Wan, that random food standowner we meet in the first chapter who you may or may not learn about, her sisters and an assortment of other characters on Tatoonie. Also know that characters like Han, Leia, Chewie, and other similar people don't know that Lanike Mallix isn't Jalani's real name. So, they're going to call her "Lanike" or "Mallix" for awhile into the book.

You can also safely assume that the events of the movies are still going on, but there's just more conflict added to make it different. Luke and Jalani (ha, I almost put Lani) are going to go on more and different adventures in between the events of the movies that have to do with their training.

Obi-Wan is going to live longer, which yeah I know defeats some of the purpose of A New Hope but, I just watched the prequels and I kind of want him to stick around for a little bit longer. He'll probably die by the same way as in A New Hope, I might just....delay it some or they might meet him earlier. I want him to be physically present as a living Jedi to help Jalani and Luke through the beginning of their training and then the two of them will meet Yoda at some point. Obi-Wan'll probably die by Darth Vader's lightsaber but, I'm going to craft that moment a little differently in this book. You have been warned, I'm tampering with the storyline a lot and hopefully it works.

There's going to be a lot of moments referenced in this book that don't physically happen there (from Obi-Wan, Jalani, and Luke especially.) so, if you want to see read those stories, please let me know! I would be happy to write them for you and they could be anything that gets mentioned. It doesn't have to be about Jalani specifically. There are lots of auxiliary characters who will have plenty of interesting stories of their own to tell. Feel free to ask your questions and request stories as I update this. If it's a spoiler, then I simply will tell you that there's sensitive information to the story there that you're not supposed to know yet.

Another thing you'll want to know about Jalani (and I'm saying this because it's important to her training and I'm not sure how many teenage years shots Luke and Jalani are gonna get so, I don't know if you'll ever get to see it in action) is that she struggles to control her powers...a lot. Her emotions control her powers more than she does and she doesn't even realize it's happening until there's something floating in the air next to her. She figures out to keep that from happening pretty early on because Obi-Wan and Luke help her. Luke's force powers were significantly less....forward in their appearance. Which is part of the reason why he can help her. Jalani internalizes her emotions which is part of why when she bursts, her force powers tend to show themselves....a lot. Until she learns to control them.

I don't think there's anything else you need to know that you won't find out in the book.

One more thing before you head over to the actual story itself, each chapter starts with a little synopsis of what's going to happen. Much like the scrolling text but way shorter. Make sure you read that so you know where that particular story is taking place in the timeline and what has and hasn't happened.

As always, feel free to give me suggestions or correct me if you think something is super wrong with this book canonically (I'm not super worried about the EU right now.) And feel free to ask about moments that get referenced but not entirely told about, I would love to share them with you.

Be prepared for lots of OC random villains too, they'll be popping up more and more as the story progresses.

Enjoy!!! I hope people like and read this book because I think it's pretty different than anything else I've seen on here so...I hope it's good.

-Aisling