Nothing about her childhood. She had a brother, that's all we know.  But Vanzina ended up like her brother, as a bandit, a space pirate.  She became leader of a small fleet of renegade space vessels. Space has much to offer, both for the honest people as for the crooks. Pursuit of ships is difficult, distances are large and there are numerous races on the planets surfaces that think alike and provide safe hiding places. Many races in the universe were united against her kind, and they formed an Alliance. And the biggest treasure, or secret as you might call it, that the alliance had, was a The Golden Pearl, the holder of the Myth of Terradoes. As soon as Vanzina heard of this secret, from a traitor called Fladeief, she changed all her raiding schedules, dropped all other plans and set her evil mind to think of one ting only. The Golden Pearl.  
During a space battle the alliance ship Maïka, carrying the pearl, disappeared with her valuable cargo and Vanzina grabbed her chance. She followed the big ship, jumping through numerous hyperspace holes and entered it. She murdered the whole crew of the Maïka but left, outraged but not broken, without the pearl. It had been either hidden too well or it had never been on board.  
Ten years went by, their small pirate fleet was being constantly attacked by policeband alliance war vessels, but the pearl never escaped her mind. And then, by change, as a result of the war between the alliance and the pirates, she discovered the planet where the Maïka had crash landed. To her surprise she found out she had been not very thorough in her killing the whole crew, and that there were survivors who now lived in a small small colony. She suddenly was sure she had not only overlooked some men, ten years ago, but the pearl too. And she was right. She never laid hands on the treasure though. Vanzina died on the very moment she was to obtain the desired pearl. Shot in the back by a wounded marine, on the frozen height of this desolated planet