Allie

Liz and Alice are a pair of older Terrans who run a small clinic and hostel in Titan Garden's A-District. An inseparable duo, they live a quiet life and try to use their wealth of experience together to help lost, frightened and troubled souls find stability and a path forward out of their hardships. Alice- the woman in blue- has a gentle and sunny disposition, always looking to find the upside of an upside-down situation. Her wife Liz- in orange- is the more assertive of the pair, believing in the innate good in all people but never shying away from setting boundaries or confronting caustic or hostile people head-on. The both of them believe in second chances, and if you find yourself adrift in the Outer Belt, they've got a warm bed and a hot meal for you on Titan, with a welcome invitation to stay as long as you need until you can get back on your feet and feel the wind at your back once again.

The Ambling Alleycat is a small hostel tucked away near a train line crossing the Garden's south sector, looking from the outside like any other residential building. A repurposed home, the Ambling Alleycat serves two main functions: on the ground floor, in the back of the house, it's a walk-in health clinic where Alice offers her medical practice to all starfarers, no questions asked. There's a number of reasons someone might choose to visit the Ambling Alleycat instead of Titan General Hospital, and there's a limit to what Alice can offer without needing to refer a patient to Titan General itself if life-saving care is on the line, but Alice's clinic will always do what it can for a visiting patient with compassion, discretion and dignity in mind. The second function of the Ambling Alleycat is its bed-and-breakfast service, offering warm beds and hot meals to anyone who might need it. Liz manages this aspect of the business, maintaining a comfortable and inviting reading room in the front of the house, stocked with shelves of old books she's collected over her lifetime, accented by the soft glow of an old TV set. Upstairs, she maintains two floors of bedrooms, some arranged with bunk beds for multiple guests and some set aside for private accommodations, for those who would prefer the space. She cooks a big breakfast every morning, diner-style, good and filling. Guests are welcome to take a book and a plate up to their room, it's what they're there for. They operate the Ambling Alleycat on a sliding scale, often allowing their guests their services free of charge- for them, some things are more important than credits.

For those who know about it, the Ambling Alleycat has a reputation for being a safe place for starfarers who need to get back up or get away from something or someone else. It's not uncommon for someone looking to get out from under someone else's thumb to turn up at the Ambling Alleycat, where Liz and Alice will provide for their needs and, importantly, keep nosy pursuers out of their business. Privacy and dignity are important to the pair, and whether it's station security, an unfriendly rival or a controlling spouse, neither Liz nor Alice will compromise the safety of the guests under their care for any reason- they can't be bought and they won't be intimidated out of the way. Alice is a healer, she prefers to avoid confrontation where she can; Liz, on the other hand, is a wall between her charges and whoever might be harboring unkind intentions towards them. Some of those folks will see the grey in their hair and take them for pushovers, and they're quick to learn how far a sixty-year-old woman can throw them, with those who don't take the hint quick to find themselves on the business end of an old mop. Those folks hadn't been clued in to the Ambling Alleycat's reputation yet, but when they test their luck, it's often a swift and firm moment of understanding.

They don't often tell their stories, about where they'd been or who they'd met, but occasionally, if you're staying at the Alleycat and the mood seems right, they'll tell you about how they came to be the way they are. A long time ago, when the pair were young, they were both living in a deep space colony- Station 313, a number familiar to some older starfarers. A self-contained Terran mining outpost, Station 313 served as a living space for workers and their families running mineral extraction operations in the Jovian asteroid cluster. It was also the site of a major viral outbreak which claimed the lives of most of the station's inhabitants, an event that found it a footnote in the news of the time. Alice was stationed in the colony's infirmary, and Liz worked in the mess hall; when the virus outbreak took place, the pair ended up meeting each other, banding together and rallying other residents to combine their efforts and stabilize their situation, ensuring as many people could survive a biological catastrophe until help could finally reach Station 313, tucked away in the cold depths of space- they also kinda, sorta, fell in love with each other in the process. It was a long while before anyone reached 313, but when help arrived they were surprised to have found survivors at all; it was by working together and lifting each other up that Liz and Alice lived through the outbreak on 313, but it's clear that the events had imprinted on them in a way that seemed tenaciously hopeful, that they wanted to be a safe haven for starfarers elsewhere to outlive their own crises, whatever that may be. And so they founded the Ambling Alleycat here on Titan, opening their doors to whoever might need a friend in dark times.

Liz and Alice had lived a long and adventurous life together, they'd found truths about themselves together and they've grown old together, and today they live quietly together, out of the spotlight and news cycles their stories had found them in in the past. There's always a light in the window at the Ambling Alleycat; there's always someone at home when safe harbor is needed. They'll tend to your health, feed you a hot meal and let you retreat safely upstairs to a bed that is yours as long as you need it. You may hear rumblings downstairs but they're always quelled. You might stay a while, taking an old book off one of the bookshelves to read in your bed, opening it to find a folded piece of paper tumble out from between the pages. An old mining company worksheet printed on one side, and on the back, a pen-scrawled poem written in cursive; a picture painted in pretty words for a woman who meant the world to the author, misplaced over the decades. A ray of sunlight piercing the gloom. Hope in hard times.

You feel you're in good company, here. Things will work out just fine.

Every starfarer who runs the currents of Sol's trade routes has heard the legends of Captain Rockford. A Terran whose aura outstrips his stature, Captain Rockford is a starship captain known for leading his cargo hauler through treacherous sectors of space, taking on jobs that other captains would turn down out of self-preservation and somehow seeing those jobs through to completion. He's a very stoic commander, his resolve unwavering even in the face of spiraling calamity, but he's also not an outwardly-compassionate one, sparing no time to tend to crewmembers whose morale may be broken in the heat of the moment- he won't scold you, he won't console you, he'll simply step around you and make the most of what resources he has on hand to see his ship and his crew through the thick of a storm. The way in which he inspires his crew is to simply act and let them follow; the captain isn't scared, why are you? Grab that rope and help out. We're all making it through this.

Captain Rockford commands a large Callistan cargo vessel called The Arrogant Mule, running large shipments long distances through the most expedient possible routes in order to see vital supplies delivered to needy locations in a timely manner. What "the most expedient possible route" entails can occasionally involve electrical storms, bandit activity, xenofauna migration patterns, unstable warp currents or even a history of lost ships and reported hauntings. He doesn't lead his ships into certain peril, mind you, he instead charts risks through sectors where peril is likely but not certain, finding a timing and a course that minimizes tremendous risk for the opportunity to save time on a shipment over traveling the current charted trade routes, regarding warp currents as being "fickle and shifting things, not to be trusted". Thus far in his career The Arrogant Mule has been successful in these ventures, which has earned Captain Rockford and his crew an almost mythical status as a ship that the Void itself wouldn't dare to swallow. How an old Captain learns to tread lightly across these mousetraps is the tale of a lifetime.

As the story goes, Captain Rockford has spent his whole life aboard one starship or another, and knows the crafts and their operations inside and out. He was born inside a cargo hauler forty or so years ago, where his family lived in the unseen little gaps between the walls. Sleeping in a matchbox with an old spool for a nightstand, the young Rockford would spend his days scurrying about his home, watching the crew work and listening to the Captain and his mates give their orders, and seeing where and how their crew carried them out. He learned a lot through observation and occasionally he'd see a job was done poorly, and would dart out from his little spots in the walls to try it himself before scurrying away again to watch the outcome, and if he did the job right. They say a good Captain should be able to perform all roles on a ship, and young Rockford took this to heart, learning from his very earliest days through seeing and doing, sneaking peeks at schematics from Engineering and overhearing the Quartermaster complain about lacking this supply or that before those shortages impacted the crew in the mess hall. When he finally came of age and left the walls of his home, the young Rockford set out to prove himself among a fresh crew, on a new ship, working his way quickly from the very lowest ranks into a position of leadership and trust, pouring the foundation of his own future command. These days he sleeps in a very, very big bed, alone in his Captain's quarters.

Given his short stature it's understandable to think that Captain Rockford has some unique challenges in commanding his crew. The Captain knows to delegate his work, and trusts his First, Second and Third Mates to relay his orders to his crew. To be seen is to be heard, he feels, so Captain Rockford has taken to carrying a large red flag on a baton with him- he uses the baton to pole vault off the floor and onto tables or consoles, and waves the large red flag to help convey visual commands to his crew members. He'll also use this baton to knock open panels, grates and airducts on his ship, allowing him an unprecedented freedom of movement throughout his vessel. His voice is small, but it is gruff and fierce, and where he can he will use The Arrogant Mule's intercom system to broadcast direct commands among his crew, and when this isn't available the echo of the ship's hull will have to suffice. Those who have sailed with Captain Rockford pick up the rhythm of his command and trust his old wisdom, as he always seems to know the way through calamity; he always finds the little gaps in the walls of imminent doom. After a while of sailing under his command, the crew learn the flow and see results, and when they tell tales in port city taverns of what they'd seen and where they'd been, their fellow starfarers almost don't believe them. The ship's logs don't lie, and so the intrepid Captain Rockford and his crew have etched their names into the storied tomes of legend.

The men assure you these tales are tall but they're as true as the Captain's good name. Through a roaring ion storm, Captain Rockford navigated The Arrogant Mule between deadly bolts of energy by reading the pulsing colors of deep space clouds, knowing when and where to weave the ship in order to pass through the unpassable. When the ship was assailed by a shaded whale, the Captain instructed his crew to eject the galley's reserve of Callistan spice out the airlock, knowing the taste of those scattering granules is repellant to this specific subspecies. When a ghastly crew of starfaring ghosts latched onto The Arrogant Mule as it passed through an uncharted graveyard, it was Captain Rockford who talked them into moving on, though no man among the crew knows how or what he said, they all swear that after a fortnight of haunting the ghosts all disembarked in unison. Many a bandit has tried to sack The Arrogant Mule, finding such a cargo hauler outside the major trade routes to be an irresistable prize, but when they board the ship to try and take it Captain Rockford climbs into the walls and activates a series of traps, swinging panels and blasting hot steam at the intruders, sealing them into hallways with shuttering fire doors or shocking them with electrical currents; the men fight hard but the way their Captain fights with them, it is as if the little commander wields the entire ship itself in their defense. He is a ferocious fighter.

The stories always sound outrageous, they certainly have to be embellished, but the men stand before you and attest to their truth, their ship logs confirming departure and arrival times and recording the dreaded routes they charted in the course of their duty. How can such a feat be true, they'll be asked, and no matter the story, the answer is always the same: Captain Rockford always finds a way.

Yu Ming is a former Steelframe pilot and current-day consultant for interplanetary corporations with offices on Titan. She is a deeply empathetic person, taking great care to ensure the safety and well-being of those around her or under her command, but that compassion tends to manifest as a rigid, military code of order. In her line of work she believes that uncompromising commitment to safety and protocol is the strongest guarantee that everyone makes it home alive at the end of the day, and while some may find that sort of icy exterior off-putting or intimidating, those in her company know that there's a core of love beneath the cold. It is personal; she is genuinely trying to keep you around as long as possible in the way she knows best, that's all.

There is a niche that exists between the land and the stars, between all-terrain ground vehicles and sky-splitting starships, and that niche is filled by Steelframes. Tall as a building, Steelframes are large mechanical humanoids equipped with powerful engines and jet boosters, allowing them to navigate remote and forbidding terrain that is inaccessible to tracked or wheeled vehicles as easily as they can maneuver through the weightlessness of space. Piloting a Steelframe affords a team a rare mix of precision and mobility that few other vehicles can match; it's a costly answer to complex problems, however, when speed can be substituted with time and patience the Steelframe's utility tends to vanish. Frame pilots like Yu Ming are few and far between, but if your job calls for a big metal robot, there are no substitutes for the real thing.

Becoming a Frame pilot isn't easy; in addition to the rigorous filter of a pilot aptitude and training program, a Frame pilot must also survive the ordeal of receiving an invasive neural implant. Easy to spot by the rectangular indentation and two contact points on their forehead, a Frame pilot needs this implant in order to pilot a Steelframe at all- due to the towering scale of a Steelframe, a network of gyrostabilizers and micro-adjustment computers are required to keep a bipedal machine standing and ambulatory. To do that, the Steelframe is wired directly into the pilot's brain, taking advantage of their own subconscious sense of balance to feed data into the central stabilization systems that keep a Steelframe upright, where piloting a Steelframe without this neural implant is akin to getting up and walking when your arms and legs are numb; you're going to fall down. It's the sort of limiting factor one never pays much mind to until it's no longer there, but it's absolutely crucial to operating a large-scale mechanical frame. Even under the best conditions, undergoing a neural implant procedure has about a 50% success rate, with a 20% chance of fatal rejection by the recipient. Between the aptitude screening and successful recovery from a very invasive procedure, good Frame pilots are extremely uncommon. Yu Ming is one of the oldest still kicking around today, in the 2380's.

Yu Ming began her career as a starship pilot with the Terran Star Navy where she served aboard a carrier of nimble fighter craft. Between her skill on the yoke and her strong leadership qualities she was invited to join a program exploring the military applications of the industrial Steelframe. After training and recovery, Yu Ming and her unit- the Sparrows- were deployed to serve the Star Navy during the Inner World Terraforming Conflict. The idea was, a squadron of heavily-armed Steelframes would have the maneuverability to evade enemy fire and the precision to breach a forcefield and land aboard the hull of a rogue starship, rendering its defenses inert and exposing it to fire from larger battleships. In practice, the Sparrows saw some small successes and a few injuries, but for combat applications it was simply more practical to train and equip starship pilots than it was to maintain a crew of neural-implanted Steelframe operators, and so the program was quickly retired. Big robots, it turns out, are not any more suited to space combat than a small craft with guns on the front.

Civilian outfits, however, have all kinds of uses for a Steelframe's utility, and so they've found a niche in construction, survey, exploration and maintenance of heavy industry in remote places. In the wake of the Inner World Terraforming Conflict, Yu Ming and her Sparrows found employment with the Venture Out corporation, who needed a team of competent Frame pilots to assist with construction of a habitat on the dark side of Luna. Known as the MoonGate project, the Sparrows were to use their skills to assist in the surveying of Luna for a appropriate site and to assist with the remote construction of a large long-term living space in an environment that does not innately support life. Venture Out wanted to market an answer to the old Horizon CX units by creating and deploying a range of autonomous construction vehicles touted for their ability to build habitats in the uninhabitable without the need for a manned crew. The Sparrows' job was to make sure Venture Out's operation appeared to work as intended, using their Steelframes to keep the unmanned machinery on track. Based out of an orbiting starship, the Sparrows would deploy each day and maintain the illusion that Venture Out's operation was as unmanned as they claimed.

Things didn't go well. Poor funding, limited engineering freedom, executive meddling and a marketing-driven timetable plagued the MoonGate operation, and despite these obstacles the Sparrows were able to deliver the job on time and under budget. They didn't have long to celebrate, however, as shortly after debuting the MoonGate habitat and housing its earliest residents, catastrophic system failure and an ensuing blast stemming from a Venture Out self-maintaining fuel regulation system caused a massive rupture in the East wing of the project, exposing all of the facility's occupants to the indifferent grasp of Luna's vacuum. While the Sparrows did their best to deliver the project, Venture Out intended to saddle them with the blame for the MoonGate's failure. The Sparrows were formally disbanded, their Steelframes were decommissioned and the team went their separate ways. The remains of the MoonGate habitat have sat undisturbed on the dark side of Luna ever since. Chip, an abandoned colony explorer and a respected video journalist, has described the remains of MoonGate as "surprisingly intact but shockingly haunted." No salvage crew will touch it.

These days, Yu Ming works as a consultant for interplanetary corporations whose interests call for the recruitment of Steelframe pilots. Having served under her prior commands, she advocates sternly for best practices in hiring and supporting Steelframe crews, doing what she can to ensure they're given the best chance they can for success. Pilots are a rarity, and each loss is a huge toll on her community, with exploitation and mismanagement presenting constant threats for pilots who are hungry for work. Yu Ming can often be found in Titan Garden, in the B-District, visiting one corporate tower or another, doing what she can to look out for her people. She hasn't wired into a Steelframe herself for a few years.

Yu Ming is a regular patient at the Ironworks Clinic, where the chief cybernetics engineer, Magnus, has taken on maintaining her clockwork prosthetics. She has a good rapport with Magnus, who in turn appreciates her regulated and uncompromising personality- occasionally they'll talk and she'll share stories with him, and he'll always lend an ear to listen. She loves to talk about her Sparrows, about Spider's practical jokes or Sidewinder's miraculous good luck, or Jackal's crazy ideas about using their neural implants to upload themselves to computers. She misses them, and he can tell. She'd heard about the fate of one of her old crew, they'd been working as a starship pilot aboard a ship called the Reef Shark, running transport jobs for credits. She didn't talk about it much, but she trusted Magnus enough to share that story with him. Never heard about it herself until after the fact, so she never got to be there for the funeral.

Magnus is sympathetic, he's quiet for the somber stories and saves his own energy for the right times- he often compares Yu Ming to stories about his other patients, about one in particular who is a real stone in his boot. Yu Ming has seen this one, fleeting, as she's leaving the clinic; there's an Android who sometimes accompanies her, a mediator between doctor and patient. She doesn't know many Androids, but there's always been something about this one, about the way she talks or the way she carries herself, the friendly rapport she has with her companion. Yu Ming's always wondered, but always felt it a breach of decorum to speak up and say something. She's seen enough ghosts in her time, she didn't need them haunting strangers. She often leaves quietly when those two show up, out of sight. It's none of her business, really. It's best not to ask.

One of Terra's most popular exports, the Olympia Solaris has redefined the daily driver for generations of motorists throughout the Sol system. This easy-to-maintain family-sized automobile is both fuel- and space-efficient, capable of serving a wide range of needs without breaking the bank. The main features of the Solaris include its fold-down bench-style seat, an array of top-mounted solar panels and a glare-reduction coated panoramic front windscreen offering a clear view of the boundless natural splendor Terra is known for. Olympia's patented all-weather clear coating is capable of withstanding the tumbling stones of a Mercurian underground, the pelting acid rain of Venus or the blistering sands of the Martian highways, which helps the Solaris find a home throughout the Inner Belt. Upscaled models are also popular on Callisto, where its solar panels ensure the tank is always topped up and the panoramic windshield affords an unobstructed view of approaching megafauna, two major concerns for a discerning Callistan buyer. Whatever your situation, the Olympia Solaris would be a welcome addition to your household.

The heart of the Solaris's design stems from old Terran history, in a time when fuel-efficiency was at odds with monolithic size. Known to old Terrans as a "station wagon", Olympia designed the Solaris to make the most of its modest volume and marry rugged utility to an everyday commute. The rear cargo space can fit anything from groceries to furniture to machinery or even just an additional row of passengers, with the rear bench seats folding neatly to allow even more carry space if it's needed, or provide a comfortable bedding space for travelers on long journeys. The Solaris uses a Sodium-ion battery array to provide a steady, safer power source than other battery technologies; these cells can be refilled using a standard S-2850b Electric Charging Station, but they also accept charge from an array of panels on the rear half of the vehicle's roof. Many drivers assume these solar panels are the Solaris's namesake, but the truth is it was named for the large overhead panel letting all the sun into the cabin. Terra is a beautiful planet, it has a wealth of natural splendor and its people take very good care of it, so it makes sense that a car designed to travel in such a lovely world should afford passengers an opportunity to see as much of it as they can. This overhead panel is made from Neptunian glass, same as your standard starship, so it's as durable as any steel roof, but its glare-resistant coating can be toggled from the cabin to let more or less of the sunlight in, so it does not distract from a driver's vision. At maximum settings the Solaris's windshields can appear as solid glossy gold, affording a traveler a modicum of privacy, should they prefer it.

While the humble Solaris is at home in many lifestyles, it carries a bit of a reputation as a tacked-down family vehicle, so it's a surprise to some that Emily- Timberwolf's ex-bandit security officer- counts herself among Olympia's proud customerbase. Emily enjoys the practical utility of a modern station wagon, it's a car that puts in work and doesn't need to prove itself to anyone. Jack, her crewmate, has teased her that she isn't gonna pull a bad girl rolling up in a Solaris, to which Emily would say she wouldn't want a woman who can't appreciate the practical qualities of her beloved ride. She's over gearhead women, she lies to her best ability. Bryce knows better than to tease her over her Solaris because, like Emily, he too appreciates the practical qualities of a family station wagon. Timberwolf is in the business of discrete transportation of hot merchandise, and what better form of secrecy than to blend into plain sight? The fold-down bench seats of a Solaris give the humble vehicle ample space to move goods that contain very expensive deliveries hidden inside of them from the Ermine's dock to a recipient's location. Large, secure transports can draw unwanted attention, but how could anyone know one Solaris among hundreds is carrying unlicensed Horizon job carts inside the wooden frame of an antique chest of drawers? Tack on that long-lasting fuel efficiency to minimize recharging stops on particularly long delivery routes and you have a proper smuggler's dream car. It pays to blend in.

From the tundra to the tropics, the Olympia Solaris can be found wherever starfarers set foot. Take in the beauty of your surroundings through its broad, open windows; leave no ecological footprints with its long-lasting electric battery. The cargo space you need in a neighborhood-friendly size, whatever it is you're hauling, trust Olympia to light the way.