Shonn Volta

Shonn Volta was a Force-sensitive female [captain]], sniper, and assassin of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. During the Clone Wars, she was captured by Jedi Master Kit Fisto and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and imprisoned within the Prism. After the rise of the Galactic Empire and the subsequent Gentis coup, Volta was one of the few prisoners who survived a test and joined the New Order.

Early life
Shonn Volta was a Force-sensitive female from an icy planet. Her father was a freighter pilot and her mother was a sculptor, and after discovering her Force-sensitivity, the pair decided to hide Volta within the hold of a starship, for fear that she would be discovered by the Jedi Order and taken away. She lived inside the cargo hold until she was ten years old, past the age when the Order would consider accepting younglings as initiates. After this, she studied to be a hyperspace engineer, hoping to plot new space lanes so that people like her father could travel more safely.

The Clone Wars
"Do the records admit that the Republic cut off supply lines to my homeworld? Do they describe my mother's face collapsing as she starved to death? Do they show you my simple wedding on the ice floes? Or how bright my husbands blood was against the snow when the fighting spilled out of the cities?"

- Shonn Volta

When the Clone Wars broke out, engulfing the galaxy, Volta's father was killed by clone troopers from the Galactic Republic who wanted to commandeer his ship. The Republic then cut off supply lines to the Voltas' homeworld, which caused Volta's mother to starve to death. Around this time, Volta was married upon the ice floes of her world, but her husband was killed shortly after as violence erupted within the cities and spread outward.

Volta then joined the Confederacy of Independent Systems as a captain, and at some point was given an artificial heart by Count Dooku. As a sniper, she learned to use the Force and was able to guide blaster bolts into her targets. At some point, she was sent to assassinate Senator Riyo Chuchi, but was arrested by Jedi Master Kit Fisto and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker before she could complete her mission. Volta was then sent to the Prism, where she was imprisoned with other highly dangerous individuals.

Service to the Empire
"Those are the details that tell you why I hate the Republic and the Jedi. And they should tell you that I would give my life fo the man who overthrew my enemies."

- Shonn Volta

In 19 BBY, the Republic and the Jedi Order both fell beneath the machinations of the newly-crowned Emperor Palpatine, who created the Galactic Empire in their place. Shortly after this, however, Headmaster Gentis orchestrated a coup, hoping to kill the Emperor and end the Empire's warmongering ways. Palpatine was indeed wounded in the attacks, and was rushed from Coruscant by Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader, Moff Trachta, and Lieutenant Laurita Tohm. The trio brought Palpatine to the Prism, knowing it to be one location where Gentis's men would never find them. While the Emperor was attended to by the facility's medical droids, Tohm devised a plan to take back Coruscant: if Vader would allow it, they could release the prisoners in order to create a small army. Vader appreciated Tohm's plan, but altered it to suit his needs, and instead had 207 of the prisoners released into the prison yard with orders to kill anyone they could, Tohm and Vader included.

The fighting that erupted was brutal, with bodies accumulating quickly. Tohm was attacked by another Separatist, General Ur'Loach. The general had wrapped his long tongue around Tohm's neck and was attempting to draw him into his large maw, a move that he was known for&mdash;beheading his enemies with his own teeth. As Ur'Loach knocked the blaster from Tohm's hand and prepared to kill him, Volta pulled the blaster toward herself and shot Ur'Loach through the mouth, killing him and saving Tohm's life. Tohm thanked her, but she told him that it was a self-serving act, and that if they worked together, they'd both live and he could pardon her sentence.

In the end, only thirty-three prisoners survived in fighting condition, and Vader ordered Trachta to tell the survivors what it meant to serve the Empire. He told Volta and the others that their crimes were now forgotten, but their reasons for committing them were not&mdash;they would now serve an institution not beholden to the "selfish" senators of the Republic, nor the Jedi Order. The prisoners knelt before Trachta and the others, yet Volta remained standing. Vader commanded her to kneel as well, but she instead asked why the prisoners were needed. Vader took his lightsaber from his belt, but Tohm stepped in front of the Dark Lord, telling Volta that they had been betrayed, and that with her service she may become an Imperial or even go free. Volta accepted, and knelt before the pair. Trachta then told the survivors that their training would begin that night.

Volta later met up with Tohm again, standing on a platform outside the prison. There she expertly shot the heads off of five 2-1B surgical droids while talking with Tohm, who was reading her prison files for the mission records he was compiling. Volta angrily informed him that the prison's records were not complete, and told him of the terrible things the Republic and the Jedi had done to her and her loved ones. Tohm then told her that he wanted to be a pilot too, like Volta's father, but that he no longer could. He then realized that Volta's experience with hyperspace study may allow them to save Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, who was soon to fall into a trap laid by Gentis.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison 4