Kayla Lanos

"She joined the Alliance for selfish reasons; she joined the Jedi for selfless reasons."

- Jeden Vesal, talking about Kayla.

Kayla Lanos was a Jedi Knight who rose to prominence as a Force-using soldier of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. While originally lying about being a Jedi to gain a high rank, she became the Padawan of Jedi Master Jeden Vesal, a survivor of Order 66 and one of the Alliance's founding members and Supreme Commanders. Under Jeden's tutelage, Kayla became a Jedi Knight, working alongside Rebel special forces from the Battle of Hoth to the end of the Galactic Civil War, most famously liberating Coruscant at the same time as the Battle of Endor.

Born on Chandrila in 17 BBY, two years after Order 66 and the formation of the Galactic Empire, Kayla was born to a single mother in a bustling Chandrilan suburb. Kayla's mother discovered her daughter was Force-sensitive when she was five-years-old, and fearing a response from the Empire, shunned her daughter's abilities. However, the Empire were still able to track Kayla as a Force-user, and captured her, while executing her mother.

Aged just 7, Kayla was forced to train to become a Dark Adept: Dark-side users who were gravely loyal to the Emperor. Despite her age, Kayla showed remarkable willpower, even into her late teen, resisting the attempts by the Emperor's instructors to either make her use the dark side or the attempts at brainwashing her into serving Palpatine. Just as physical torture was considered, the facility she was training in was attacked by an anti-Imperial resistance cell. It turned out she had been trained on Coruscant, and the sixteen-year-old managed to escape into the chaos of Coruscant.

As she roamed the streets, Kayla came across a merchant selling a Jedi lightsaber crystal, thinking it was a jeweller's item. Kayla stole the crystal, remembering what her mother had told her about the Old Jedi Order, and decided to craft a lightsaber, hoping to join the Rebel Alliance. After stealing metal scraps and anything else she could find, Kayla crafted her own, slimline lightsaber after months of crafting, and after some short, make-shift training, left Coruscant to try and join the Alliance to Restore the Republic. She was instantly greeted by Mon Mothma, a former Republic Senator who was also from Chandrila. Kayla lied to Mothma, saying she was a Jedi, and as such was given a high rank as a Field Commander in the Alliance, before being sent to the intelligence bureau of the Alliance.

From 0 ABY onwards, Kayla became one of the leading members of the Rebel Special Forces, operating on covert missions due to Alliance command thinking she was a Jedi. In 3 ABY, however, things changed. Kayla was introduced to Jeden Vesal, a Jedi Master who had survived Order 66 and was one of the Alliance's overall leaders. Jeden quickly realized that Kayla was no Jedi after she failed to recite the Jedi Code, and the Jedi Master decided to take Kayla under his wing as a Jedi Padawan, hoping to make her a true Jedi Knight, as the young adult had hoped.

For the next year, Jeden and Kayla journeyed the galaxy and undertook covert missions with the Alliance, with Jeden teaching Kayla the whole time. Jeden told Kayla about Jedi history and teachings, his own past and even lightsaber combat, while Kayla told Jeden about her past, being forced to train as a Dark Adept. One year after first taking Kayla as a Padawan, Jeden thought that her time had come, and made Kayla a Jedi Knight, one of the first of the 'New Jedi Order'. Kayla then became a General and one of the commanders of the Alliance's Special Operations Bureau.

In 4 ABY, a second Death Star was discovered to be in construction. The Alliance suspected that if the attack on the station succeeded and both Palpatine and Darth Vader were defeated, the Imperials would collapse galaxy-wide. With this, Kayla was tasked by Jeden with travelling to Coruscant with some of the Alliance's most elite infantry and taking control in the chaos of the Emperor's defeat. Kayla led her men and women in liberating Coruscant, being the first Jedi in years to step inside the Jedi Temple. Kayla then travelled back to Endor to celebrate the downfall of the Empire with the rest of the Alliance, and was one of some Jedi present (Jeden, his lover Gini Reyall, Jeden's former Padawan Koses Lik-Har, Rebel hero Luke Skywalker and Rebel General Rahm Kota) to announce the formation of the New Jedi Order, becoming one of the Order's most active members following it's formation.

Personality and traits
Kayla was stern-faced and stern-worded. Scarred by her experiences at the Dark Adept facility, Kayla was not one for humour and very rarely joked, even in good situations, like the celebration on Endor. Kayla was also very sublte, hiding a lot to herself and rarely sharing her feelings, either because she didn't want her emotions affecting the mission, or because she didn't want anyone to know what she was feeling.

Behind her rough exterior, Kayla was still compassionate. Choosing to fight the Empire mostly on ethical grounds, Kayla was disgusted by the Empire's policies, and following her tutelage under Jeden, became devoted to the Jedi, doing all she could to help innocents and to stop evil at any cost. Kayla also cared deeply for those she did trust, even if she was slow to trust people, especially Jeden, who she saw as the father she never had.

Physical characteristics
Kayla was quite tall, often towering over others, especially other Humans and humanoids. She was also slim, often frightenenly so, which made her very agile and able to react to situations quickly and decisively. This often combined with a lack of muscles, which meant that while she was often quicker and more agile than her opposition, it also meant she had less upper-body strength than most people, and often had difficulty facing people un-armed or lifting heavy objects.

Kayla's equipment and clothing was tailored to her status as an always-active soldier. Wearing a long black hauberk, padded gloves and padded boots, Kayla was rarely seen by anyone in casual wear. She also had black, tight leggings and wore the Alliance insignia on her sleeves and on the half-kama she wore, with the black showing her to be a covert Agent, and the insignia as a reminder of her allegiance.