Huoba Neva

The daughter of an Executive Board member at the SoroSuub Corporation was Huoba Neva. She demonstrated exceptional skill in team sports and games, and her academic achievements, coupled with her parent's influential position within SoroSuub, secured her admission into the Imperial Academy. Despite appreciating SoroSuub's backing, she sought to succeed on her own merits, viewing the Academy as both a challenge and a chance to assess her abilities. Understanding that her non-Human identity and female gender would make it difficult to advance in the largely Human male Imperial Navy, Neva, like all Sullustans, believed that diligence and deservingness led to reward. She was confident that her dedication would lead to the fulfillment of her career goals.

Neva chose command school and weapons systems as her major at the Academy, pursuing her studies with unwavering determination. She graduated fourth in her class and received a commission as a naval officer. However, her fellow officers perceived her as a "token non-Human," disregarding her aptitude, skill, and training. Despite an impeccable record and demonstrated political reliability, Neva never achieved her ambition of commanding a starship. Initially aiming for a scout ship or another combat vessel, she witnessed less qualified officers being promoted ahead of her as the years passed. Finally, after three years without advancement, she realized she had reached her limit. The Empire did not operate as a meritocracy. Her experiences in the Imperial Navy revealed that not everyone or every organization shared the beliefs held by her and her fellow Sullustans, leading her to question whether her and SoroSuub's loyalty to the Empire was misplaced.

Neva's growing discontent did not go unnoticed. Sian Tevv, a prominent Sullustan diplomat and key figure in the Sullustan resistance movement, had been closely monitoring her career. When it became clear that her allegiance to the Empire was wavering, he instructed his aides to approach her. They offered her the opportunity to defect and join the Rebel Alliance. Initially hesitant, Neva was not a revolutionary and had little interest in politics. However, she was a soldier who believed that the Alliance would provide her with the chance to fully utilize her training and abilities, something the Empire had denied her. At the height of the Galactic Civil War, she defected to the Alliance, even though SoroSuub remained a pro-Imperial corporation at that time.

Neva served the Alliance and later, the New Republic, which emerged after the Alliance's victory at Endor in 4 ABY and the death of Emperor Palpatine. She proved to be a skilled naval commander, as well as an accomplished special forces operative and commander of ground forces. At some point, she spearheaded a mission to suppress an Imperial-backed insurgency in the Illoud system, earning her numerous commendations and solidifying her belief that her transition from the Empire to the Republic had been worthwhile. Subsequently, she was promoted to command the EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate Rebel Star, becoming the youngest Sullustan captain of a warship in the New Republic fleet.

In 10 ABY, a revived Galactic Empire, under the command of Emperor Palpatine—resurrected through a fusion of the dark side of the Force and cloning technology—seized the New Republic's capital of Coruscant, compelling the Republic to retreat. The Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Liberator, under the command of General Lando Calrissian and Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, was tasked with spying on Imperial movements in the Coruscant system. During this mission, the vessel was caught in the crossfire of a battle between two Imperial factions, who had engaged in civil war after their conquest of Coruscant. The Liberator sustained heavy damage and crashed onto the surface of the planet.

A rescue operation was launched to retrieve the surviving crew. The Millennium Falcon, piloted by Han Solo, and Captain Syub Snunb's Antares Six joined Captain Neva's Rebel Star in the endeavor. As the small fleet accelerated through hyperspace, the Falcon's navicomputer detected spatial disturbances at their re-entry point, caused by a large amount of wrecked ships and battle debris from the recent conquest of Coruscant, and warned Neva and Snunb accordingly. Upon exiting hyperspace, Solo realized that the density of wreckage would be too much for the frigates following him to handle; his wife, Leia Organa Solo, subsequently ordered the ships to change vector and go through a larger gap in the debris. Neva, believing that the Rebel Star could navigate the wreckage behind the Falcon, maintained her course. However, she had miscalculated. The Rebel Star collided with the wreckage of a Star Destroyer, exploding in a ball of fire. Neva perished in the collision. Despite the loss of the Rebel Star, the Falcon and Antares Six successfully completed their mission, rescuing the surviving crew of the Liberator.

Huoba Neva was a perfectionist, driven to excel in any endeavor she undertook. She held firmly to the Sullustan belief that hard work, strong desire, and deservingness inevitably lead to success. Despite having influential connections, Neva preferred to succeed—or even fail—based on her own abilities and never relied on favors from others. She valued her family greatly and always carried a holocrystal of them with her.

Neva entered the Imperial Academy, viewing the military as a challenge, and aspired to become a distinguished officer with a command of her own. However, due to her status as a female non-Human, she was constantly passed over for promotion in favor of less-talented officers. The situation vexed her, calling into doubt her belief in her Sullustan outlook, until she joined the Rebel Alliance, and subsequently, the New Republic, despite having no prior taste for rebellion or politics. She reasoned that if the Empire refused to use her talents as a soldier, then the Alliance would. Neva's decision to defect was justified by her experiences within an organization that recognized and rewarded her skills and talents with a command of her own.

A capable soldier, Neva was comfortable in command of both naval and ground units, and had experience as a special forces operative in addition to her training in starship command systems. She was trained with both blasters and blaster artillery, and in melee combat. Neva specialized in fleet tactics, and was able to pilot both space transports and capital ships, and was trained in the use of their weapons and shield systems. Her technical training included the programming and repair of computers, the programming of droids, and the use of security systems. Neva was known to gamble, and she had knowledge of alien species, other cultures, planetary systems and the workings of a bureaucracy.

Despite being an officer in the New Republic Defense Fleet, Houba Neva wore a Rebel Alliance uniform while on duty. She carried a hold-out blaster and a comlink.

Huoba Neva was both introduced and killed in the first issue of Star Wars: Dark Empire in 1991, penned by Tom Veitch and illustrated by Cam Kennedy. Her character was further developed in an entry within the Dark Empire Sourcebook, published by West End Games in 1993, which established her as a Sullustan female. The character also appeared in the opening scene of the audio adaptation of Dark Empire in 1994, where Neva was given a masculine, Human-sounding voice.

Neva was also among the Rebel Alliance characters featured in the video game Star Wars: Rebellion, and received a mention in the strategy guide for the game. In the latter publication, Huoba Neva is referred to as a male. To date, Rebellion remains the only source that has provided a physical depiction of Neva.

In 2001, Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds included a list of character names that AI players could be assigned. Huoba Neva was included on the list, and an AI player using the Rebel Alliance could be randomly assigned the name.

In Sullustese, "Huoba" is a male name meaning "powerful" and "Neva" means "legal council."