Kanna Deltic, known among her fellow crew as Lieutenant Strangechild (a nickname bestowed by Commander Nibiru Chamas), was a lieutenant in the Imperial Navy who belonged to the human species. During the Imperial Star Destroyer Ultimatum's mission to the Gorse system in 11 BBY, she served as the planetary science specialist. She furnished Count Denetrius Vidian, an industrialist, and Captain Rae Sloane with a report detailing the feasibility of obliterating the moon Cynda using explosives; this report prompted Vidian to initiate such a scheme to more effectively harvest the mineral thorilide.
Subsequently, Deltic accompanied Sloane and the Ultimatum to Calcoraan Depot with the objective of procuring the explosive substance Baradium-357, intended for the destruction of Cynda. However, a band of rebels, spearheaded by Kanan Jarrus and Hera Syndulla, successfully thwarted Vidian's designs to demolish the moon, and the count's status as a traitor to the Empire was exposed. Regardless, Deltic found great enjoyment in her work on the unsuccessful endeavor to eradicate Cynda, participating in a betting pool to predict the extent of damage that would be inflicted upon the surface of the planet Gorse.
Years later, Deltic and Sloane embarked together on an inspection tour, lasting multiple weeks, to evaluate novel shuttle technologies. However, in 3 ABY, they received orders to return to the Ultimatum in order to contribute to the search for the Millennium Falcon, a rebel vessel concealed within the Hoth asteroid belt. Traveling aboard the Lambda-class T-4a shuttle Bastinade, the pair became disoriented within the asteroid field as they attempted to locate the Star Destroyer.
Ultimately discovering that the Ultimatum had met its end in an asteroid collision, Sloane noticed a collection of mynock corpses, which they proceeded to gather. They eventually succeeded in reaching the Executor-class Star Dreadnought Executor, where Sloane and Deltic informed Darth Vader, the Sith Lord, and Admiral Firmus Piett that the presence of dead mynocks indicated the presence of exogorths within the asteroid belt. Furthermore, they presented a mynock killed by a blaster as evidence that the Falcon was likely seeking refuge inside an exogorth.
During the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Ultimatum's mission to the Gorse system in 11 BBY, the human female Lieutenant Kanna Deltic held the position of planetary science specialist within the Imperial Navy. Under the command of Captain Rae Sloane, the ship and its complement were assigned to assist industrialist Count Denetrius Vidian, who had been dispatched to the system to optimize the efficiency of thorilide mining operations on Cynda, a moon orbiting the planet Gorse. Following the presentation of a report by demolitionist Skelly to Vidian, which outlined the perils of employing explosives for mining on Cynda, Vidian instructed Deltic to formulate projections based on Skelly's assertions that excessive explosive mining would result in the moon's destruction.
Deltic concluded that Skelly's assessment was partially accurate, as Cynda could indeed be destroyed by explosives. However, such a detonation would necessitate a higher grade and greater volume of explosives than Gorse possessed in its combined inventory. She affirmed to the count that, subsequent to the moon's fragmentation, substantial quantities of thorilide would persist within the system and could therefore be harvested. She did, however, caution that a portion of the mineral would be expelled from the system entirely, while another portion would settle on the surface of Gorse. Vidian exhibited disinterest in the fate of Gorse's inhabitants, but Sloane insisted on knowing the predicted outcomes according to Deltic's findings. The lieutenant elucidated that fragments of the moon would descend as meteors, with the quantity contingent upon Cynda's position in its lunar cycle at the time of destruction.
She further speculated that the meteors would trigger catastrophic seismic activity on the planet and potentially induce it to resume spinning, given that it was held stationary by Cynda's gravitational influence in its orbit. Deltic posited that the destruction of Cynda might either produce no discernible changes to Gorse or potentially obliterate the planet's entire biome within the ensuing decade. Deltic also cautioned about the possibility that Cynda's destruction could precipitate the disintegration of significant quantities of thorilide located there, thereby precluding their extraction. She advocated for the execution of a test to ascertain that the moon's destruction would not be in vain.
Vidian opted to proceed with the destruction of Cynda based on Deltic's report. Following a test that demonstrated the thorilide's resilience to disintegration after the moon's destruction, he commanded a fleet of mining vessels to be dispatched from Gorse to his space station, Calcoraan Depot, where they were to acquire the explosive isotope Baradium-357, possessing sufficient potency to obliterate Cynda in the quantities held by Vidian. Aboard the Ultimatum, Deltic joined several other members of the Planetary Sciences department in a betting pool centered around the extent of damage that Cynda's destruction would inflict upon Gorse. She placed a wager that the World Window Plaza building would be demolished by debris within a year of Cynda's fragmentation. When the Ultimatum also journeyed to the Calcoraan system, where the depot was situated, Sloane brought Deltic with her to the station to elucidate the process Vidian was undertaking, commencing with an explanation of the vessel Forager's functionality, as the count intended to utilize it for the extraction of thorilide remaining in the Gorse system.
Vidian succeeded in transporting the explosives back to the Gorse system, but his scheme to destroy Cynda was ultimately foiled by a group of rebels comprising Skelly, the apprentice Jedi Kanan Jarrus, the pilot Hera Syndulla, and the Sullustan Zaluna Myder. Sloane and her crew ultimately turned against Vidian upon discovering his intention to betray the Empire. In recognition of her role in Vidian's downfall, Sloane was honored at a ceremony on Gorse and granted a permanent appointment as captain of the Ultimatum. Deltic and other members of the Star Destroyer's crew were present at the ceremony but were subsequently dispatched back to the ship while Sloane attended a celebratory gathering.
Deltic and Sloane participated in an industrial support mission to an asteroid field near the planet Taris, where they encountered an exogorth and learned that when the creature opened its maw, mynocks that lived inside its gullet were expelled and died due to the lack of atmosphere in space. She later accompanied Sloane, now a commodore, as her only companion on a weeks long inspection tour of new shuttle technology, leaving the Ultimatum while still owing credits to Ensign Cauley, one of her crewmates. Several weeks into the tour in 3 ABY, Sloane was at the Fondor Shipyards discussing upgrades to her Lambda-class T-4a shuttle Bastinade when the commodore received a message from Admiral Firmus Piett, ordering her to return to command aboard the Ultimatum, which was hunting the Millennium Falcon, a rebel vessel that had hidden amongst the Hoth asteroid belt following the Battle of Hoth.
Sloane and Deltic flew aboard the Bastinade on their return journey, but were unable to locate the Star Destroyer amongst the asteroids. The shuttle's transmitter became damaged by the debris, preventing them from sending out a clear transmission and the scanners also became fouled up. Several hours after the Bastinade had entered the asteroid field, Deltic returned to the shuttle's cockpit after attempting to reroute the power feed to fix the transmitter with a hydrospanner, despite the fact that Sloane had already previously attempted a reroute. After Sloane reported that the transmitter was still not functioning, the lieutenant clambered under the starboard console, but soon began complaining about the onboard computer system. Sloane cut the lieutenant off and commanded her to switch off the computer system so that she could fly the ship in manual. Deltic initially argued against the dangerous plan, but Sloane had her switch on the near-range scanner so she could detect rocks and then began to fly.
Hours later, the pair had still failed to locate the Ultimatum, but spotted a group of TIE/sa bombers bombarding an asteroid. Sloane had Deltic try to signal them, but an asteroid struck the Bastinade's sublight engines and halved its traveling speed. With the transmitter still not working, Deltic and Sloane were only able to listen into the bomber's transmissions, and learned that the Ultimatum had been destroyed in an asteroid collision. After several moments of silence, Deltic made a quip about not needing to pay back credits she owed to Ensign Cauley, but Sloane silenced her and pointed out a cluster of unusual objects on the near range scanner.
Deltic examined the monitor and assumed the system was malfunctioning when it identified them as organic, but upon approach in the ship they discovered the objects to be a trail of mynock corpses. Recognizing what they were seeing from their encounter with the exogorth near Taris, Sloane realized that the presence of an exogorth meant that some of the Hoth asteroid belt's asteroids would contain tunnels that were too deep for scanners to penetrate, explaining why the Empire had been unable to find the Falcon.
Using the forward cargo collector mounted under the Bastinade's cockpit, the pair brought one of the corpses onboard, but were then struck by another asteroid. Sloane executed an emergency separation of the cockpit from the rest of the shuttle and began piloting it so that they could reach the squadron and inform them of their discovery. Moving at only a crawl, Deltic and Sloane collected and froze further mynocks and indexed the nearest asteroids to find which ones contained exogorths, hoping to identify where the mynocks had come from. Amongst the mynocks they collected, Sloane noticed one that she suspected had been killed by a blaster.
Deltic and Sloane eventually reached the Imperial fleet, landing aboard the Executor-class Star Dreadnought Executor rather than the wreck of the Ultimatum. Sloane was taken captive and brought to the chambers of the Sith Lord Darth Vader to explain her slow return to him and Piett. While Sloane was interviewed, Deltic searched through the mynocks they had collected and found the one killed by the blaster, which she nicknamed Smiley. Deltic then used the Executor's forensic analysis tools to confirm that the mynock had indeed been killed by a medium-weight blaster pistol.
After hearing Sloane speak about the mynocks in her interview, Vader sent an order to his guards to unseal his chamber door and send for Deltic. Covering Smiley's corpse with a tarp, the lieutenant brought it into the Sith Lord's chambers on top of a hovercart moments later. Piett, who was unaware Deltic had been summoned, questioned how she had entered the sealed door, but after explaining that Vader had sent for her she revealed the mynock, which she and Sloane then tipped onto the floor. After the pair explained their discovery, Sloane nodded to Deltic in thanks, then dismissed her; however, before leaving, Deltic asked about Darth Vader's meditation chamber, but left after being promptly dismissed again by both Sloane and Piett. Vader, who had been inside the meditation chamber, then ordered Sloane to report to Kuat Drive Yards to take command of the Star Destroyer Vigilance.
Deltic possessed a notably apathetic nature, displaying minimal concern for the devastation and suffering that Denetrius Vidian's schemes concerning Cynda would inflict upon the inhabitants of Gorse. She exhibited considerable enthusiasm while compiling the report for Vidian regarding the destruction of Cynda, even grinning as she presented it to him and Captain Rae Sloane, and chuckling as she revealed the extent of the damage that would be inflicted upon Gorse. When contemplating the potential damage to the planet, Deltic speculated that it might be worthwhile to destroy the moon solely to observe the ensuing consequences, as she remained uncertain about the precise effects. She subsequently proposed that tests be conducted to ensure the harvestability of thorilide following Cynda's destruction, lest Vidian's plan result in a "waste of a good moon."
Deltic participated in a betting ring concerning the damage that Cynda's destruction would wreak on Gorse, intending to utilize her winnings for shore leave on the planet Alderaan should she emerge victorious. During Sloane's visit to Calcoraan Depot, Deltic expressed profound admiration for the starship Forager, providing Sloane with a comprehensive explanation of its operational mechanisms, albeit employing informal terminology in an unprofessional manner, such as "goodies" when alluding to thorilide particles. Deltic deeply irritated Sloane, who entertained the notion of ejecting the lieutenant from an airlock after she disclosed her involvement in the betting ring. Sloane expressed relief that Deltic was dispatched home following her award ceremony, fearing that Deltic might subject her to embarrassment. Commander Nibiru Chamas, also a member of the Ultimatum's crew, referred to Deltic as "Lieutenant Strangechild."
By 3 ABY, Sloane regarded Deltic as the most competent scientist aboard the Ultimatum, yet simultaneously her least favored individual. Perceiving her as both peculiar and precocious, the commodore believed that the lieutenant had consistently exhibited excessive familiarity, and Deltic frequently interjected jokes during conversations with her superior. These included likening the Hoth asteroid belt to the "Alderaan Welcome Center" and lamenting that Vidian had been reincarnated as the problematic computer system of the Bastinade, despite her disbelief in reincarnation. Upon learning of the Ultimatum's destruction, Deltic remained silent for several moments, her eyes widening and her mouth moving as if engaged in some calculation, before ultimately surmising that she would be absolved of her debt to Cauley, presuming his demise.
Kanna Deltic made her debut appearance in the novel A New Dawn, authored by John Jackson Miller and published in 2014. Miller noted that Deltic's line, "It's almost worth doing just to see what would happen," was a close runner-up for his favorite line of dialogue in the entire novel. The character's first name was revealed in Miller's short story "Lord Vader Will See You Now," which was published in 2020 as part of the From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back anthology.