Keira is a Player Character played by MissingNo and is planned for the independent Horizon's Key plotship.

Build and Skin Colour: A little thick around the legs, but an overall svelt build with pale skin from spending more time between planets than on them.

Facial Features and Eye Colour: Rounded features on an open face that highlight friendly muddy-brown eyes that can turn tundra-cold in an instant.

Hair Colour and Style: Onyx-black hair cut in a tapered style near the back with cheek-length bangs in the front that are usually held back by a couple clips.

Distinguishing Features: The lack of external cybernetics might not be the first thing to be noticed, but she does have augmentations on her heart and lungs to prevent explosive decompression and an auto-restart if something shuts them down. The restarters are normally off and activated by a passive sensor, to prevent destruction by EMP or electric shock. She is also missing the tip of her right pinky from the cuticle upwards.

Personality: Keira has the sort of dual personality that is on a hair-trigger switch. The moment she sees something she doesn't like, she'll go from being friendly as a freshwater lake to the frigid sharpness of an arctic sea, then back again. Partly because of this, she's also not afraid to admit she might be wrong and is open to giving people second chances (but third chances are out of the question). Her childhood was sheltered, her parents showed her too little of the outside world so, when she left, reality threw a bucket of ice at her. She took that ice and made it into a shield, giving her the ability to be steely when she needs to be, a necessity with her job at times. Knowing that a crew looks up to their commanders, sometimes she puts too much pressure on herself to make the right choices. But the strength given to her by her upbringing keeps her steady in tough times.

Likes: Her friends, piloting, competition, teriyaki-flavored Jerky, star-gazing, and sharing a good story with a good meal. Dislikes: Charismatic blow-hards who don't know when to shut up, life on Nepleslia, cloudy days, violet pirates (violent ones too, but the nice ones are okay). Goals: To make life better for, if not everyone, than at least those close to her: Her mother, her former captain, her current crew, and any of her friends that are still alive.

Keira grew up on a ship, something that wasn't all very different from a lot of space-borne races. Her father was second-in-command and chief engineer of a commercial transport with a five-person crew, her mother was the ship's cook and doctor, as well as an assistant engineer (which was a combination that made her, as she put it, “the Ship-Mom”), leading some to say she had more power than the captain.

Keira was somewhat of an unplanned child. Her parents, Ramada and Jaban, fell in love during a supply run to a fringe system. Ramada was the ship newbie, coming on as a replacement for the previous cook which had nearly poisoned (and subsequently starved) the crew to death on a short three-day voyage, and her cooking nearly caused mutiny to break out when the captain announced that she was getting off at their next stop because “we can't afford to pay someone just so we can have good meals.”

The crew grumbled. Then the ship grumbled, nearly blowing a hole in the hull when a part finally gave out. Ramada showed she knew more than just ingredients when she fixed up the injured Chief Engineer and then proceeded to aid Jaban in patching the damaged engines. After spending hours of conversation in close quarters together, they were only slightly surprised when they arrived at their destination and Ramada returned to the ship from shore leave and a visit to the planet's only physician and told Jaban she was pregnant.

The marriage was quickly conducted by the Captain and Keira arrived eight months and two weeks later. Keira was essentially homeschooled by her parents, gaining additional childhood training in command, business, engineering, cooking, and medical care, as well as anything else the close-knit crew could teach her.

When Keira was eighteen, Jaban was killed in a drive-by bombing on Nepleslia while making a delivery. Ramada left the shipping business after the funeral with a promise to keep her taken care of by the captain and settled on Kennewes until the Nepleslian Civil War turned its aim toward the planet. Then she returned to the transport ship until it passed.

Keira stayed with her mother until she turned twenty, then she set out to find a place of employment so they would not have to rely on the graces of her mother's former captain to survive. She went to Nepleslia and got a job running goods as an airbike courier, working her way up to making deliveries by shuttle to other continents on Nepleslia. She got lucky at her start, having enough piloting skill to avoid being jacked when she started, but luck and skill only last so long. Keira turned to the firearms and combat training given in her childhood, and practiced, which gave her additional infamy as someone to stay away from. Someone made her a logo so the gangs knew which airbike (and later, which vessel) not to attack. She also made many friends among the other couriers, some of which were recruited by gangs and mobs when they left their employers, giving Keira some shallow links to the Nepleslian underworld and minor “protection”, without the fees.

Achieving minor notoriety as a pilot gave Keira the option of moving up to captaining a trans-planetary transport ship. She requested time off instead, returning to visit her mother and considering going into business for herself.

See Horizon's Key mission logs for further history.

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(Template for future missions)

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Keira can give and receive orders as well as communicate via radio or other remote comm device with adequate skill. She is fluent in Trade, and writes and speaks passable Yamataian and Qel'noran.

Her father taught her all he knew about civilian systems and engineering techniques, as well as the improvised techniques he had invented and discovered over the years. Keira has been around machines since she was born and helped her father since she learned how to crawl. Needless to say, she knows her stuff.

Her mother also used Keira's help in the galley, and ingrained the importance of order, especially in space, where every inch of volume in a vessel is valuable. This translated to Keira's preference for ordered (and well-thought-out) arrangements and a distaste for excess.

A crack shot at medium and close range, she hasn't had need for much more than making herself a credible threat. Close-range shoot-outs with her, however, are always a bad idea, and in vehicles she's a good enough pilot to maneuver close enough to get those shots. She knows how to assemble, disassemble, and clean common civilian pistols and rifles. Military weapons aren't different enough to cause her problems, but she doesn't trust them. Keira also learned self-defense from her mother and a brawling style of combat from the chief security officer on her parents' ship that she adapted to fit her lack of mass and honed to keep her goods (cargo and otherwise) out of the grasping hands of roving gangs.

Keira's mother also taught her field medicine applicable to a starship, such as dealing with burns, severed limbs, and gushing gashes with gore. Accidents happen aboard a vessel, and she can deal with them well enough to get to a place equipped to perform more complete repairs.

The mathematics of spaceflight and piloting are known to her, but most of the time she lets a computer deal with the precision calculations and only making on-the-fly adjustments as needed. She also can operate civilian computers with skill and make moderate programming changes, as well as access and navigate the interNEP and civilian-level PANTHEON, whichever is available. Keira also knows chemistry as applied to space travel, starship engineering, and common cargo contents.

She learned the basics of ship-handling on a cargo vessel, but didn't really get into it until she was hired as a courier on Nepleslia where reaction times earned you special perks when flying an airbike. As she rose through the ranks, she also mastered other ground vehicles like trucks, cars, and bikes before topping off at orbital shuttlecraft. She's one of the best, but there are always people who can be better.

7 shirts 7 pants 1 jacket, 1 coat 1 dress (rarely worn) 1 skirt-blouse combo (never worn) As many belts, boots, shoes, sock, and other necessities as necessary. Assume replacement if lost or destroyed.

1 EVA suit 1 set of rain gear 1 set of basic cold gear (arctic-level coat, hat, pants, Socks, and boots)

Assume she has undergarments. 1 sweatshirt-sweatpants set.

1 set of basic hygiene materials (brush, comb, tooth-care products, hair- and body-care products).

• Electronic Money Card
• Data Access Pad (DAP)

Keira is currently a commander (self-assigned) of the independent vessel Horizon's Key. She receives a weekly salary of 2000 KS per week (calculated by assuming steady business and by averaging the income from those jobs, of which she receives 50%).

NPC use with written permission from MissingNo and for the duration specified only.