Akanah Norand Goss Pell, a female Fallanassi adept, practiced the White Current. Separated from her parents early on, she later married Andras Pell, who passed away not long after. She later encountered Jedi Master Luke Skywalker around the time of the Black Fleet Crisis. Akanah informed the Jedi that she possessed knowledge of his Fallanassi mother and offered to guide him to her people in exchange for assistance in locating her own, a fabrication intended to advance her own agenda. After returning to the Fallanassi with the Jedi Master's help, she confessed her deception to Skywalker following the Battle of N'zoth, leading to their separation.
Subsequently, Pell instructed Skywalker's nephew, Jedi Knight Jacen Solo, after the Yuuzhan Vong War, teaching him acceptance of the galaxy's inherent nature rather than constant attempts to save it. Following Solo's departure, Pell remained with the Fallanassi on the moon of Pydyr.
In 44 ABY, the dark side entity Abeloth absorbed Pell, assuming her physical form. Pell greeted Skywalker, but upon his discovery that the woman was actually Abeloth, he killed her during the subsequent conflict. Briefly regaining consciousness, Pell pleaded for Skywalker's forgiveness as she died.
Akanah was born to Joreb Goss and Isela Talsava Norand on the Expansion Region planet [Gavens]. Later, her family relocated from her homeworld to the city of Ialtra on Lucazec. Akanah inherited her Fallanassi potential from her mother. When she was a young girl, her father, Joreb Goss, departed to seek fortune to provide for his family, but he never came back. Years later, the Galactic Empire appeared on Lucazec, Akanah was only twelve years old. Akanah and her mother fled to Carratos to evade death at the hands of Emperor Palpatine's Inquisitors.
Concealed and isolated from the Fallanassi, Akanah's mother employed her Fallanassi abilities to shield Akanah and herself from the numerous criminals infesting Carratos. While on Carratos, Talsava sought the assistance of Nashira, a fellow Fallanassi, to instruct Akanah. After Akanah received a solid introduction to the practices of the White Current, she was formally accepted into the Fallanassi circle. Nashira departed soon after, entrusting Akanah's training to her mother. However, this was not to be. Three years after arriving on Carratos, Talsava used all their savings to purchase passage off-world, abandoning Akanah.
Left alone, Akanah was compelled to rely on her limited abilities to conceal herself using Force illusions. Devastated by her abandonment, Akanah vowed to leave the planet and uncover the reason for her mother's departure. She encountered and married Andras Pell, a wealthy businessman thirty-six years her senior. Pell deeply loved Akanah, but she was more interested in Pell's prized possession, a Verpine star freighter that Luke Skywalker later named Mud Sloth. Andras Pell died a year after their marriage.
Inheriting the Mud Sloth was a significant advantage for Akanah. Starships were scarce on Carratos, and owning her own ship meant she could finally leave the planet. With her new ship, Akanah was eager to reunite with her mother and the Fallanassi. However, she was not a spacer, and while her Force skills had improved, she doubted she could find her family without help.
Later, Akanah Norand Goss Pell sensed the powerful Force presence of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker through the White Current. Recognizing him as the ideal pilot and assistant in locating the hidden Fallanassi, she journeyed to Coruscant, the capital of the New Republic, to meet him. Haunted by the fear of abandonment due to her parents' departure, Pell devised a plan to ensure Skywalker's cooperation and devotion to the quest. Upon meeting Skywalker, Pell claimed that her former teacher, Nashira, was Luke's long-lost mother, a fabrication intended to deceive Skywalker.
Skywalker, desperate for any information, was completely fooled. He had been meditating on his role in the Force, hidden in a reconstructed residence of his father on Coruscant. Akanah's arrival and offer to help him find his mother helped shake Skywalker from his existential ponderings. Traveling in Pell's ancient Verpine Adventurer, Mud Sloth, the pair left in secret to locate the Fallanassi and, as Akanah claimed, Skywalker's mother. Their journey first led them to Lucazec, the previous home of the Fallanassi before Akanah and her mother had fled to Carratos. Searching through the abandoned city, Akanah was able to find evidence that several of her Fallanassi family had fled to Teyr.
Upon arriving on Teyr, Pell and Skywalker traveled to the small town of Sodonna, where the Fallanassi had once owned a group of communal lowhouses. Searching the abandoned houses, Pell found where the Fallanassi had fled to, the small world of J't'p'tan. However, on her way back to the Mud Sloth, Pell came upon another piece of information, the location of her long-lost father. After Pell crafted the lie that the Fallanassi were actually on Atzerri, Pell and Skywalker made their way off Teyr.
Upon arriving on Atzerri, Pell quickly fabricated a story and left Luke to search for her father. Using several Force tricks, Pell made her way to Atrium 41, the decrepit home of her estranged father. Unfortunately, a happy reunion was not to be. Joreb Goss had become strongly addicted to the drug Rokna blue, which had severely damaged his brain. He had no recollection of his wife, the Fallanassi, or of even having a daughter.
A tearful Pell returned to the ship and revealed the true location of the Fallanassi hideout on J't'p'tan. Along the way, Luke comforted the grieving Pell, and she began to open up. The pair engaged in debates over the Force and the White Current and grew close, even making love one night. Pell now had a horrible dilemma of continuing a love affair based on deception or revealing her subterfuge to the Jedi Master.
Once at J't'p'tan, Pell led Skywalker to the hideout of the Fallanassi under a Force illusion on the far side of the planet. Once there, Luke tried to question the Fallanassi leader, Wialu, about information on his supposed mother, Nashira. Because Luke was not a Fallanassi, Wialu refused to give any information on the sought-after woman. However, Pell managed to convince Wialu and the rest of the Fallanassi to aid the New Republic in defeating the Yevetha. During the Battle of N'zoth, she used her White Current abilities to help create illusions of a large fleet that made it difficult for the Yevethan warships to target the real New Republic vessels.
After the battle, Pell questioned Wialu about her mother and was upset to hear the truth of her mother's disappearance—that she had in fact been the one who had betrayed the Fallanassi to the Imperials many years before. When the Fallanassi learned of the treachery, they exiled Talsava but offered to provide training for her young daughter should she develop any Force abilities. Greed had gotten the better of Talsava again on Carratos, and she had stolen their funds out of selfishness.
Pell then revealed to Luke that she had misled the Jedi Master and knew nothing of his mother. Shocked by this revelation, Luke was heavily disappointed in her. However, he managed to forgive her, knowing she was full of guilt, and the two said good-bye after the battle. Two decades later, Skywalker would finally learn that his mother had actually been Padmé Amidala, the Queen of Naboo around the time of the Clone Wars.
Devastated by the revealed betrayal of her mother and by Luke's refusal to forgive her deception, Pell completely devoted herself into the workings of the Fallanassi. On the star liner, Star Morning, Pell, along with the rest of the Fallanassi, relocated to the moon Pydyr to renew their immersion in the White Current.
Some time later, Wialu died, and Pell became the leader of the Fallanassi. Several years after the conclusion of the Yuuzhan Vong War, Skywalker's nephew, Jedi Knight Jacen Solo, visited Pell and the Fallanassi during a galaxy-wide odyssey to gain a wider understanding of the Force outside the teachings of the Jedi Order. Solo spent a period studying with Pell to understand the White Current. While Jacen believed that he was obligated to fix a fractured galaxy, Pell instead taught him to accept the nature of the galaxy as it was. Solo respected Pell but disagreed with her opinions, so he left Pell and Pydyr. Pell later sent a recording to Luke Skywalker about her concerns over the Potentium view of the Force which was now practiced amongst the Jedi.
Despite their parting, Skywalker and Pell were destined to encounter each other again. In 44 ABY, Skywalker, temporarily working with a group of Sith to defeat the dark side entity Abeloth, tracked Abeloth to Pydyr after she had escaped their previous encounter. At some point, however, Abeloth consumed Pell and took over her body. Pell greeted Skywalker after he arrived in the village where the Fallanassi now lived, and after exchanging greetings, the two discussed the fate of the Jedi. Pell revealed to Skywalker that when she had trained Solo, he had shown a vehement desire to save the galaxy, which had caused him to cause serious death and destruction during the recent Second Galactic Civil War. Pell then told Skywalker that the principal issue with the Jedi was that numerous Jedi, including Solo, Raynar Thul, and Tenel Ka Djo, planned to save the galaxy but instead ended up causing severe damage to it. The two then parted ways, and Skywalker left the village.
When Skywalker, along with his son, Ben, and a group of Sith, returned to the village, they were greeted by an angry Pell, who menacingly told them that they should not have come back. Luke then asked Pell about Abeloth's whereabouts, after which she said that the Fallanassi were in fact hiding Abeloth because she was one of them. When several Sith took a group of Fallanassi hostage, Pell conjured an illusion of phantoms attacking the Sith, driving them insane. After witnessing this act, Skywalker was definitely convinced that Abeloth had taken over Pell's body. As the Jedi and the Sith battled Abeloth, Skywalker was finally able to kill the body of Abeloth, who then took the form of Callista Ming, another former lover of Skywalker. Pell regained control of her body for a very short time before dying, then asked Skywalker to forgive her for everything that she had done to him.
Akanah Norand Goss Pell possessed a kind nature. She disliked violence, and frequently asked Luke why he had killed and continued to kill, as well as why various Jedi acted in what they believed to be in the general interest of the galaxy but ended up destroying what they had vowed to protect. Pell was very concerned with finding her family and the Fallanassi. When she discovered the truth about her parents, she was shocked and deeply saddened. When Pell first met Skywalker, she was fascinated with him but also feared him, knowing his power rivaled that of the late Emperor Palpatine. While she was not above tricking Skywalker into believing she knew his mother, she disliked having to lie to him. When she eventually revealed the deception to Skywalker, she apologized to him, begging for his forgiveness. Almost three deceades later, when her body was consumed by Abeloth, Pell implored Skywalker to forgive her.
Akanah was created for the The Black Fleet Crisis novel series by author Michael P. Kube-McDowell. Later, she appeared in Troy Denning's The Joiner King as part of Jacen Solo's attempt to better understand the Force and learn about different aspects of it, such as the White Current. She later reappeared in Denning's Fate of the Jedi: Vortex, which told of her consumption by Abeloth and her death.