Kea Moll

Kea Moll was a Human female member of an anti-Imperial resistance cell on the Outer Rim planet Annoo during the early years of the Galactic Empire. Born on Annoo around 32 BBY, Moll followed her parents into the resistance at the age of fifteen after she witnessed the atrocities committed by the Empire on her homeworld and other planets. In 15 BBY, Moll's mother, Demma, sent her to the planet Ingo to destroy the Trigon One, a powerful starship under construction by the Fromm Gang criminal organization as part of a power play against their rival gangs. After she witnessed the kidnapping of Ingoian speeder racer Jord Dusat by the Fromm Gang, Moll helped Dusat's racing partner, Thall Joben, and the pair's droids, C-3PO and R2-D2, rescue Dusat from the secret base operated by gang leader Sise Fromm's son, Tig.

Moll agreed to transport her new friends to the Boonta Speeder Race, but a hyperdrive malfunction forced them to seek repairs on Annoo. After they learned of Moll's mission, Joben and Dusat agreed to help her. Moll, Joben and the droids hid aboard Sise Fromm's starship as it headed for Tig Fromm's base, from where they stole the Trigon One. The Fromms later captured Dusat and Demma Moll, and used them to force Joben to reveal where he had hidden the stolen starship. However, Joben had sabotaged the vessel; when Tig Fromm returned it to Annoo, the guidance systems malfunctioned, and it was sent on a collision course with Sise Fromm's stronghold. Moll and Joben rescued Dusat and Demma from the base moments before it was destroyed.

Despite the Fromm Gang's attempts to exact revenge, Moll and her friends finally reached the planet Boonta, where Joben raced to victory in the Boonta Speeder Race. His win attracted the attention of Zebulon Dak, owner of Zebulon Dak Speeder Corporation, who offered the group jobs in his organization. Unknown to her friends, Dak was himself a resistance operative and had recruited Moll to spy on manufacturing plants loyal to the Empire. Moll later joined the Alliance to Restore the Republic and, after the Alliance evolved into the New Republic, became a founding member of the New Republic Intelligence Service.

Early life
A native of Annoo, a planet in the Outer Rim Territories, the Human female Kea Moll was born around 32 BBY and was raised by her mother, Demma, and her father on the family farm on her homeworld. The young Moll spent many hours working with her father on his ship, a Corellian Engineering Corporation Starrunner-class starship called the Sand Sloth, until she was fully acquainted with its systems. She took up piloting at an early age, using the spare time that farm life left her to practice her flying, and eventually became an accomplished pilot.

In 19 BBY, when Moll was around thirteen years old, Galactic Republic Supreme Chancellor Palpatine declared himself Emperor of a new Galactic Empire. Moll's parents were among those opposed to Imperial rule and subsequently joined a local resistance cell &mdash;setting up a base of operations in a concealed room with a hidden entrance from the farm's sand sloth stables &mdash;but they kept their involvement with the resistance a secret from Moll in order to protect her. However, her father was killed in a failed mission against an Imperial target and, when Moll was fifteen years old, her mother revealed the truth to her. Having witnessed for herself many of the atrocities committed by the Empire both on Annoo and other worlds, Moll decided to join her mother's organization and assist in their fight against the Empire.

Mission to Ingo
"My Starrunner landed on the salt flats—engine trouble. I need a mechanic, saw you racing, thought maybe you could help me. But I see you've got your own problems."

- Kea Moll meets Thall Joben

The Empire was not the only group to which the Annoo resistance was opposed. The criminal syndicate known as the Fromm Gang was based on Annoo, and its leader, Sise Fromm, used fear to maintain control over a number of planets near the Annoo system. The Fromm Gang also sought to take possession of the Moll family farm. In 15 BBY, the resistance discovered that the Fromm Gang was constructing a powerful weapons satellite, the Trigon One, in the secret base maintained by Sise Fromm's son, Tig, on the planet Ingo. The Fromms planned to use the new weapon to take over their rival gangs, and the resistance feared that the Trigon One would pose a threat to the galaxy in the wrong hands. Aged only seventeen, Moll was sent on her first solo mission: to travel to Ingo and destroy the Trigon One.

Taking the Sand Sloth&mdash;her ship of choice following her father's death&mdash;Moll made her way to Tig Fromm's base in the Vaj Desert on Ingo. While she surveilled the facility, Moll saw two landspeeders, piloted by the local racing team of Thall Joben and Jord Dusat, accompanied by their droids C-3PO and R2-D2, pass into the base's restricted security zone. The automated defenses launched seeker probes after the intruders, and Moll realized that the racers would be killed if she did not intervene. Joben was able to evade his pursuers, although C-3PO was thrown clear of his speeder during the chase. As Joben raced to help Dusat, who had been forced to abandon his speeder as the seeker probes destroyed it, a sentry droid approached C-3PO and prepared to fire a seeker probe at the droid. Moll quickly equipped her sawed-off blaster cannon and destroyed the sentry droid before it could fire. The two racers soon returned in Joben's speeder to retrieve C-3PO, and the entire group left before more droids arrived, unaware of Moll's help. Tig Fromm was concerned that the two racers knew the location of his secret base and would lead one of the rival gangs to the Trigon One, so he dispatched muscle droids to capture them at their speeder shop. Moll also followed the young racers and watched the speeder shop as Fromm's droids arrived, soon after Joben, C-3PO, and R2-D2 left for the evening. Unable to help Dusat, Moll saw his capture by Fromm's droids, emerging only when Joben and the droids, having realized that they were being followed by more of Fromm's droids, returned too late to warn Dusat. Claiming that her ship had been grounded on the salt flats due to engine failure and that she had gone to the speeder shop seeking a mechanic, Moll told Joben about Dusat's capture. R2-D2 soon detected the approach of more muscle droids, and Joben left the shop to retrieve his waiting speeder from outside only to discover that it had been sabotaged. The muscle droids began to close in on Joben, but Moll spotted another speeder, the White Witch, inside the garage and flew it outside to rescue the young racer by ramming the approaching droids.

The following day, Moll accompanied Joben and the droids in the White Witch to rescue Dusat from Tig Fromm's base. After R2-D2 infiltrated the base, the droid accessed its computer system and located the detention area where Dusat was being held. The astromech droid returned to the others and the group took the White Witch to a nearby cave which R2-D2 had determined led into the base's network of service tubes. While Joben and R2-D2 proceeded towards the detention area in the speeder, Moll and C-3PO remained in one of the control stations in the service tubes, using the systems to redirect elevator and freight traffic out of the White Witch path. Before long, the two were confronted by a Boiler Droid, which inquired as to their identity. C-3PO claimed that they were the maintenance crew and that they were attempting to repair the automatic service systems. When the other droid stated that it was the maintenance crew, C-3PO claimed that he and Moll were from security and that the control systems had been sabotaged. Their lie was exposed when a real security droid entered, and the maintenance droid attempted to activate the alarm. Moll fought the security droid, but she was quickly overpowered. However, when the maintenance droid charged C-3PO, the protocol droid moved out of the way and the maintenance unit crashed into the security droid, both of which were destroyed.

Moll returned to the controls and noticed that Dusat was being moved, so she instructed Joben to fly up a nearby elevator shaft to his location. Joben rescued Dusat, and the pair headed back to Moll, but security was alerted to their presence. Moll and C-3PO redirected the security droids to clear a path for the White Witch, but as the pair left the control room to rendezvous with the others, they encountered two security droids outside. C-3PO grabbed Moll and pretended to have captured her, then directed the other droids to pursue her accomplices down the service tube. They were led right into the path of the White Witch, which collided with and destroyed both. The group proceeded to the sentry droid hangar, and discovered that the droids within were deactivated. When they opened the hangar door, however, they found a group of droid cruisers waiting for them. C-3PO used the override controls for the sentinel droids to reactivate them, causing them to head outside to engage the droid cruisers. With the ensuing battle as a diversion, Joben flew the White Witch out of the base, and the group escaped.

Return to Annoo
"Now we can use the Trigon against the other gangs.''" "Uh-uh, it's too dangerous for either side to have, Kea. We have to finish what we started—we've got to destroy it." "''You're right, Thall. Sise's gang's finished. That's what we wanted."

- Kea Moll and Thall Joben

Moll agreed to give Joben and Dusat a lift to the planet Boonta, where they intended to enter the White Witch in the local speeder race. However, a hyperdrive malfunction en route left them stranded, so Moll instead headed back to Annoo to pick up a new hyperdrive. News of their arrival soon reached Sise Fromm, and his agents attempted to apprehend them at the spaceport. Pretending to malfunction, R2-D2 caused a diversion which allowed the group to slip away and take refuge at Demma Moll's farm.

The party arrived while Demma Moll was away from the farm, and her daughter advised the others to get some rest until the elder Moll returned. That night, a Fromm assassin droid infiltrated the farm and attempted to gas Joben while he slept. The young mechanic caught only a partial dose before the assassin was interrupted by C-3PO and R2-D2. The droids rushed to their master's aid but proved no match for the assassin, which turned its attention back to Joben. However, the commotion caught Moll's attention; as the assassin droid prepared to throw Joben into the wall, Moll entered and shot it with her paralyser disc. When Demma returned, Moll and her mother told Joben and Dusat the truth about Moll's mission to Ingo. Moll intended to return to Ingo to destroy the Trigon One before it left for Sise Fromm's stronghold on Annoo.

The next morning, while Joben slept off the gas attack, Moll and Dusat set off early in the White Witch to sneak aboard Sise Fromm's starship disguised as spaceport workers while he prepared to travel to Ingo to inspect the Trigon One. After they arrived on Ingo, Moll intended to use a thermal detonator to destroy the weapons satellite. Upon reaching the spaceport, however, they were captured by one of Fromm's guards, only to be saved by the arrival of Joben and the droids, who took the guard by surprise and incapacitated him. Joben soon devised a plan to sneak aboard Fromm's ship. Moll entrusted the thermal detonator to C-3PO, while she and Joben hid inside a pair of cargo containers. Dusat was left behind to watch over Moll's mother, while the droids loaded their "cargo" aboard Fromm's ship.

During the trip to Annoo, the ship was struck by a meteor storm, causing the cargo containers to rip free and become scattered, and leaving Moll and Joben with minor bruises. After arriving on Ingo, the droids found the containers with the two Humans. Claiming that they contained parts for the Trigon One, the droids arranged security clearance from Tig Fromm's bodyguard, Vlix Oncard, and proceeded to the hangar where the weapons satellite underwent the final stages of construction. Along the way, they were confronted by two guards. Unaware that the cylinder C-3PO carried was a thermal detonator, the guards took it and began to throw it around. The jostling activated the detonator's timer and, by the time the droids reached the hangar, there were only five minutes until detonation.

As Moll and Joben emerged from the cargo containers, security was alerted to their presence. With no other way to escape, Moll provided covering fire while Joben affixed the thermal detonator to the hangar door. The group boarded the Trigon One and flew the ship out of the hangar and into space, using its laser cannons to destroy Fromm's pursuing droid starfighters. Moll hoped to use the captured vessel against the other gangs, but Joben persuaded her that it was too dangerous for anybody to control and that it had to be destroyed. Content that the threat of the Fromm Gang had been eliminated, Moll agreed.

The fall of the Fromm Gang
Concerned that the Fromm Gang would attempt to recapture their weapons satellite, Moll wanted to accompany Joben while he and R2-D2 hid the vessel until it could be destroyed. Joben, however, felt that it would be safer if only he knew of the ship's location and dropped Moll and C-3PO at the speeder shop on Ingo before he left to hide the Trigon One. While the pair watched R2-D2's favorite program on an old subspace receiver, C-3PO attempted to adjust the antenna and accidentally tuned in to Tig Fromm's private frequency, learning that Vlix Oncard had the speeder shop surrounded. As the Fromm Gang's Annoo-dat Blue gangsters opened fire, Joben and R2-D2 returned and picked up Moll and C-3PO in Joben's landspeeder. The group sped away but the Fromms pursued and channeled them into a dead end. Oncard's troops captured Moll and the others and took them back to the speeder shop, where Tig Fromm awaited them.

Joben initially refused to co-operate, but Fromm revealed that Demma and Dusat had been captured and were being held at Sise's base on Annoo. Moll broke free from her guard and charged at Fromm, but with her hands bound only succeeded in knocking him to the floor. Joben eventually agreed to reveal the Trigon One location in exchange for Demma and Dusat's release, but only to Sise Fromm himself. The prisoners were subsequently loaded aboard a Lambda-class shuttle for the journey to Annoo. While in transit, Moll attempted to find a way to escape from captivity and get back to the Trigon One, so that they could use it to rescue her mother and Dusat, but Joben assured her that he already had a plan.

After they arrived on Annoo, Moll and the other prisoners were taken before Sise Fromm, who refused to release Demma and Dusat until he had the Trigon One in his possession. To Moll's surprise, Joben revealed that the weapons satellite was hidden in the Jarl forest on Ingo. While Oncard and the younger Fromm left to retrieve the ship, Moll asked about her mother, but Sise Fromm refused to release her and ordered them locked up while he worked out what Joben was up to. They were taken to a detention area, where Dusat was also held, and placed in restraints. As Dusat explained that Demma had been taken away for interrogation, R2-D2 and C-3PO devised an escape plan. Luring their jailer into the cell, the droids incapacitated him with a spray of foam from R2-D2. The astromech droid then used his fusioncutter to free Joben from his restraints, before Joben freed Moll and Dusat.

As the group made their escape, Joben explained his plan. He and R2-D2 had sabotaged the guidance system on the Trigon One; when Tig Fromm returned, the vessel would be locked on a collision course which would destroy Sise Fromm's stronghold. Having less than an hour until the Trigon One arrived, R2-D2 accessed the base's computer to locate the interrogation cells and Joben instructed the others to steal a fast ship while he rescued Demma. Moll, however, refused to leave her mother and insisted on accompanying him. The pair soon reached the interrogation cells but were confronted by a pair of boiler droids. At that moment, C-3PO and R2-D2 arrived aboard a hoversled&mdash;having been sent to help after Dusat found a suitable ship&mdash;and crashed their transport into the two droids as Moll and Joben leaped to safety. Finding Demma in one of the interrogation cells, Moll and her mother had an emotional reunion, before the whole group set off to rendezvous with Dusat in the hangar.

Along the way, Joben set off the evacuation alarm, causing a mass panic among base personnel that allowed the rebels to escape detection. They soon arrived at the hangar to find Dusat attempting to hot-wire a starship. Using C-3PO's servomotors to complete the circuit, the group escaped the hangar moments before the Trigon One collided with the base, destroying both and effectively putting an end to the Fromm Gang.

Showdown on Boonta
"You guys never know when to quit."

- Kea Moll, to Sise and Tig Fromm

With the Trigon One destroyed, Moll and the others resumed their journey to Boonta for the upcoming Boonta Speeder Race. Aside from help lent to friends, Moll sought to make contact with Zebulon Dak, owner of Zebulon Dak Speeder Corporation and a resistance operative who used his business as a cover for his operations. While C-3PO and R2-D2 secured the White Witch to the Sand Sloth hull in preparation to enter hyperspace, the vessel came under attack by Tig Fromm's shuttle, the Voor Viper. Moll attempted to activate the hyperdrive but found it unresponsive, and the Fromms inflicted damage to one of the Sand Sloth engines before R2-D2 engaged the hyperdrive using the exterior controls. Coming out of hyperspace near Boonta, Moll took the ship down into the atmosphere, but the damage sustained during the earlier attack had left it handling badly and knocked out the landing gear, forcing her to make a crash landing in a junkyard.

After they emerged from the ship, the group encountered Proto One, the junkyard's droid proprietor, who offered to repair the Sand Sloth. Moll agreed, before she left with the others for a nearby medical unit to seek treatment for Dusat's arm, which had been injured during the Fromm attack. The injury was sufficient to keep him in the medical unit overnight and rule him out of the race. Although Joben could take over piloting in the race, the White Witch had sustained damage during the landing and was in need of repairs. While they waited at the medical unit, C-3PO met a droid named BL-17. Hearing of the group's problem, BL-17 informed C-3PO that his master, who was out of town, owned a garage which they could use to conduct repairs to the White Witch. Unaware that BL-17 belonged to the bounty hunter Boba Fett, who had been hired by Sise Fromm to hunt the rebels, Joben and Moll accepted the droid's offer.

While Joben was out, Moll and R2-D2 began to repair the landspeeder, but BL-17 triggered a gas leak from a welding tank which caused Moll to lose consciousness. Unable to open the garage door, R2-D2 used a machine lifter to break through the door and pulled Moll to safety. Joben returned soon after and took Moll to the medical unit. By the time the two returned, they learned from R2-D2 that C-3PO and BL-17 had moved the White Witch to a nearby processing plant. The astromech droid led them to the White Witch, and the trio arrived to find BL-17 pointing a blaster at C-3PO and Proto One. With BL-17 distracted by the new arrivals, C-3PO pushed him into a pile of scrap machinery, which collapsed and destroyed the droid. Moments later, Boba Fett opened fire on Moll and Joben from an overlooking walkway. Telling Moll and the droids to take cover, Joben dashed for the White Witch in an attempt to draw Fett away. Fett pursued in his own Silver Speeder as Joben headed to the race track before the start of the Boonta Speeder Race.

After Joben left, Proto One revealed that he had seen Tig Fromm plant a thermal detonator, timed to explode after the tenth and final lap of the Boonta Speeder Race, on the White Witch. Moll and the droids raced to warn Joben but arrived with only three laps remaining. However, Fett had followed Joben into the race, and his attempts to destroy the White Witch shook the detonator loose. Fett's own landspeeder was destroyed in the ensuing explosion, while Joben went on to win the race. As Moll celebrated with Joben and the others, they were approached by Zebulon Dak, who offered Joben and Dusat jobs designing and engineering landspeeders.

As Moll and the others prepared to leave Boonta, they were confronted once more by Sise Fromm, Tig Fromm and Vlix Oncard. The intervention of an armed Proto One caused the Annoo-dat Blue gangsters to flee, but they were quickly caught by Boba Fett, who decided to turn them over to rival crime lord Jabba the Hutt as compensation for the loss of his droid and landspeeder. After he left Boonta in the Sand Sloth, Joben voiced his concerns that Dak's company policy would necessitate memory wipes for C-3PO and R2-D2. The Humans all agreed to decline the job offers rather than see their friends reprogrammed. However, the droids overheard the conversation and opted to leave in an escape pod so as not to stand in the way.

With the droids gone, Joben and Dusat were able to take up their roles with Zebulon Dak Speeder Corporation. Moll too was offered a job by Dak, although neither of her friends knew her true function; she was tasked with spying on manufacturing plants loyal to the Empire, including Balmorran Arms and Millennium Engineering. She later joined the Alliance to Restore the Republic, which united the scattered resistance groups against the Empire. After the death of Emperor Palpatine at the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, the Rebel Alliance became the New Republic. Moll continued to serve the new government and was one of the founding members of the New Republic Intelligence Service.

Personality and traits
"I should know better than to ask two mechanical maniacs to try and fix a little malfunction.''" "Easy, Kea, Artoo and Threepio will find the problem." "''I didn't mean the droids, Jord."

- Kea Moll and Jord Dusat

As a young woman, Kea Moll was athletic and, with fair skin, blue eyes and brown hair with a white streak, was considered beautiful. While working on the Sand Sloth with her father, she learned how the ship's systems operated and spent much of her time in practice flight, during which she became skilled in handling both spacecraft and landspeeders. Following her father's death, the Sand Sloth became her ship of choice. Moll was still young when the Empire came to power, but witnessed its actions on Annoo and other worlds and came to oppose Imperial rule. When her mother told her about the Annoo resistance when she was only fifteen, Moll agreed to join and help her mother's fight.

Moll was determined to stop the Fromm Gang's rise to power and was only seventeen when she undertook her mission to destroy the Trigon One. When she was able to capture the ship, with the help of Joben and the droids, she hoped to use it against the other gangs until Joben persuaded her that it was too dangerous to be controlled by anybody. Moll was loyal to those she cared for. She put her mission on hold to help Joben rescue Dusat from Tig Fromm's base and was willing to turn down the chance to work with Zebulon Dak rather than see C-3PO and R2-D2 reprogrammed.

Along with her piloting and astrogation skills, Moll was capable of using a variety of weapons, including her sawed-off blaster cannon and paralyser disc. She was skilled in computer use and agricultural farming and could speak Dat-an in addition to Galactic Basic Standard.

Equipment
Moll typically wore a utility belt, which she used to carry a variety of small equipment, including electrobinoculars, a hold-out blaster or a paralyser disc. Moll was well equipped for her work with the resistance and had access to heavier weaponry when required, including fragmentation grenades, thermal detonators and a sawed-off blaster cannon.

Sand Sloth
The Sand Sloth was a Corellian Engineering Corporation Starrunner-class starship that served as the Moll family transport. The ship was thirty-one meters long, armed with both laser and ion cannons and featured a Class 2 hyperdrive with a Class 12 backup hyperdrive. In addition to a single pilot, the ship could carry six passengers, twenty tons of cargo and consumables for three months. Moll spent much of her youth learning about the Sand Sloth while working on it with her father. After his death, she inherited the vessel and used it on her mission to Ingo.

Behind the scenes
Kea Moll was created for Nelvana's 1985 animated series Star Wars: Droids and was one of the main characters throughout its first story arc, consisting of the episodes "The White Witch," "Escape Into Terror," "The Trigon Unleashed" and "A Race to the Finish." Moll also appeared in a series of picture book adaptations of the Droids episodes published by Dragon Picture Books in 1987 and The White Witch: A Droid Adventure, a 1986 adaptation of the series' opening episode, written by Emily James and published by Random House. The character has since been mentioned in several reference works, including entries in A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, Second Edition (1994), the Star Wars Encyclopedia (1998), A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, Third Edition (2000) and The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia (2008). Moll's back-story was expanded in the 2004 article "Star Wars Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO", written by Rich Handley and Abel G. Peña and published in Polyhedron 170. A Kea Moll action figure was released as part of Kenner's 1985 Star Wars: Droids toy line.

Moll has blue eyes in the animated series and its adaptations, but is depicted with brown eyes in Jeff Carlisle's illustrations for the Polyhedron 170 article. Moll's ship was given the name Star Runner in the second edition of A Guide to the Star Wars Universe and both the Star Wars Encyclopedia and The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. The Polyhedron 170 article, however, identifies it as the Starrunner-class starship Sand Sloth. When illustrating the article, Carlisle took inspiration from a promotional image for Star Wars: Droids which appeared in Starlog magazine and depicted what Carlisle has speculated was an early design for Moll.

The White Witch: A Droid Adventure presents an abbreviated version of events to "The White Witch." In the book, Moll only observes as Joben and Dusat escape the initial attack near Tig Fromm's base. She later introduces herself to Joben and the droids as they walk down a dark alley after leaving the speeder shop, and the group see Fromm and Oncard enter the speeder shop and abduct Dusat. As Moll joins Joben in going to rescue Dusat, she tells him about the Trigon One before leading him into Fromm's base through the service tunnel. After R2-D2 uses the base computer to locate Dusat, the entire group proceeds to his cell, where the astromech droid cuts the bars with a laser beam before they escape.

Appearances

 * The White Witch: A Droid Adventure
 * The White Witch
 * Escape Into Terror
 * The Trigon Unleashed
 * A Race to the Finish
 * The Trigon Unleashed
 * A Race to the Finish
 * A Race to the Finish
 * A Race to the Finish