The dead speak The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast a threat of REVENGE in the sinister voice of the late EMPEROR PALPATINE GENERAL LEIA ORGANA dispatches secret agents to gather intelligence while REY the last hope of the Jedi trains for battle against the diabolical FIRST ORDER Meanwhile Supreme Leader KYLO REN rages in search of the phantom Emperor determined to destroy any threat to his power
PROLOGUE ONCE THERE WAS a woman who was born to lead Orphaned as a child she was adopted by royalty and became a princess of a peaceful planet She began a life of public service as an outspoken Imperial senator later becoming a commander in the Rebel Alliance a politician in the New Republic and then the head of the Resistance in the fight against the First Order When she was a young rebel she discovered the dark truth about her heritage Her name was Leia and by birth she was a Skywalker But she never took that name for her own In the galaxy she was always known as an Organa Once there was an old man who wanted never to die He came from the nobility of an affluent world and was elected to lead the Old Republic through its gravest crisis as its chancellor His name was Palpatine and he was often described as a thin kindly gentleman who harbored no ambition other than to bring stability to a war torn galaxy But another ambition he did have one so cunning and sinister sinister that few realized it until after he had turned the Republic into an Empire and declared himself Emperor By this title
alone he became known as his own name slipped into the recesses of the past along with knowledge of the Republic's most stalwart guardians the Jedi Knights whose extermination extermination he engineered With no one to oppose him he held the entire galaxy under his command Only mortality stood in the way of eternal rule though even that might be overcome if he discovered the ancient secrets It was at the height of his power when all seemed secure that the unforeseen happened happened His own apprentice turned against him throwing him to his death and thereby helping topple his Empire Once there was a boy who was born with an extraordinary extraordinary gift He could hear things see things and do things others could not His mother shared a similar gift as did his uncle but not his father What was special about the boy's gift was that he heard voices from time to time The voices told him secret things and warned him when he was in danger He did as the voices instructed and told no one else about them not his parents or his uncle who trained him to join a new order of Jedi Knights As the boy grew older the voices faded from his dreams until he forgot about them altogether But their influence remained He eventually eventually spurned his uncle's teachings and used his gift not for good but for evil His parents had named him Ben but the name he took for himself was Kylo Ren Once there was a girl who had many dreams One of them was to become a pilot and see the stars In preparation preparation she practiced endlessly on flight simulators and built her own speeders from scavenged parts She also dreamed
of the past She read watched and listened to everything she could about the Jedi of old who had mythic powers that defied belief But as much as she imagined herself flying starships and learned stories of mystical warriors from mysterious mysterious worlds she could not explore the universe beyond the desert planet where she'd been orphaned She had to wait until her parents returned Her name was Rey born of a family she did not know One day events beyond her control forced the girl to leave her desert home She copiloted a famous starship under its celebrated captain who told her that the Jedi and their powers were more than a myth She also discovered discovered that she had the gift to become one of their number if she received the proper training When the last of the Jedi failed to teach her what she needed she turned to another a woman who had received the training but followed a different different vocation So under Leia Organa's tutelage Rey learned the ways of the Jedi
