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| Stev Bora
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3 BBY (age 47)
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Falleen
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Falleen
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Male
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180 cms
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70 Kgs
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Black
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Blue
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- Pilot
- Captain
- Logistics Director
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Prosper
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26575
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Stev Bora is a Falleen pilot, ship captain, and logistics specialist in the employ of Alaris Jinn. A career spacer who spent much of his adult life moving between ships and employers, Stev eventually became one of Alaris's closest associates and the captain of his personal yacht, Prosper. In addition to transporting Alaris and his household, Stev handles logistics for a number of Alaris's less public operations.
Character History
Leaving Falleen
Stev Bora was born on Falleen and had an otherwise unremarkable childhood. There was no tragedy that drove him away from his homeworld. He simply wanted to see what was beyond it.
He found work aboard freighters and passenger ships as soon as he was able, taking whatever jobs would keep him moving. He learned to fly along the way, picking up experience from other pilots as well as mechanics, navigators, and anyone else willing to teach him something useful. It quickly became apparent that he had a talent for it.
Stev rarely stayed with one employer for long. He flew cargo, passengers, private charters, and the occasional shipment whose contents were better left unquestioned. Some of his employers were reputable and others considerably less so. Stev cared little about their politics or allegiances. He judged the people he worked with individually and expected them to do the same.
Intergalactic Drifter
Years aboard freighters taught Stev that getting a ship from one planet to another was only part of the job. He learned cargo handling, manifests, customs procedures, warehousing, scheduling, and the peculiarities of ports across the galaxy. By necessity, he also became good at dealing with delays, inspections, broken equipment, missing paperwork, and clients who changed their minds after a ship was already underway.
Stev developed a reputation for finding ways around problems. He was not especially interested in breaking laws for the sake of it, but he saw little reason to let a badly written regulation ruin a perfectly good plan. When possible, he preferred loopholes to outright criminality. More than one questionable decision was defended on the grounds that nobody had specifically said he could not do it.
His work took him across much of the galaxy and through a long succession of ships. He became comfortable making decisions without waiting for instructions, particularly when waiting was likely to make matters worse. By the time he met Alaris Jinn, Stev had been working that way for years.
Alaris Jinn
Stev first worked for Alaris as a hired pilot. It was supposed to be a temporary job.
During one of their early flights, circumstances changed enough that Alaris's original instructions no longer made sense. Stev ignored them and made the call himself. Whatever Alaris had originally intended, Stev's solution got them where they needed to go.
Alaris asked why he had changed the plan. Stev explained.
Alaris hired him again.
The arrangement continued from there. Stev liked working for someone who paid well and generally stayed out of his cockpit. Alaris liked having a pilot who did not need to be told what to do when something went wrong. Stev was also perfectly willing to tell him when a flight plan was bad, conditions were unsafe, or an idea that looked reasonable from an office became considerably less reasonable from the pilot's seat.
It was not long before Alaris began making use of Stev's logistics experience as well. At first this meant arranging transportation and moving ordinary cargo. Later, the shipments became less ordinary.
Stev began handling goods connected to some of Alaris's clandestine operations. Equipment, weapons, supplies, currency, and occasionally people needed to move between worlds without drawing attention to where they had come from or where they were going. Stev arranged carriers, warehouses, manifests, transfers, and routes, often moving a shipment through several hands before it reached its destination.
His years as a drifter had also left him with contacts scattered across the galaxy. He knew independent captains, freight operators, mechanics, warehouse managers, and people at spaceports who could solve the right problem for the right price. Just as importantly, he knew which ones could keep their mouths shut.
Eventually, Stev stopped being someone Alaris hired and became someone Alaris relied on.
Captain of the Prosper
Stev later became captain of the Prosper, Alaris's personal Minstrel-class space yacht. Along with flying the vessel, he took responsibility for its crew, provisioning, flight planning, and day-to-day operation.
Alaris owns the Prosper, but Stev commands it. He has broad authority over flight operations and will delay or refuse a departure if he believes the ship or its passengers would be put at unnecessary risk. When Alaris is not aboard, there is no ambiguity over who is in charge.
Stev continues to handle logistics for Alaris when needed, particularly when a shipment requires more discretion than one of his legitimate businesses can provide. He remains happier aboard a ship than behind a desk and still spends much of his life moving between worlds.
He just tends to come back now.
Personality and Philosophy
Stev has little interest in governments, factions, or ideology for their own sake. He judges people largely on what they do and whether they are any good at doing it. He can work comfortably with people whose politics he dislikes and has little patience for someone who expects a title, uniform, or reputation to substitute for competence.
He is practical under pressure and rarely becomes visibly rattled when a plan starts falling apart. Stev prefers to work with the situation in front of him rather than waste time complaining about how it was supposed to go. This can make him appear reckless, particularly when he changes plans without consulting anyone else, but most of his improvisation comes from years of experience rather than a disregard for risk.
Stev has a dark and frequently ill-timed sense of humor. The worse a situation becomes, the more likely he is to find something funny about it. He is particularly fond of understatement and has been known to describe catastrophic failures in terms more appropriate to minor inconveniences.
Rules are useful to Stev until they stop being useful. He generally avoids breaking the law when he can accomplish the same thing without technically violating it, and he takes a certain amount of satisfaction in finding solutions that are questionable but defensible. He is considerably less amused when someone else uses the same reasoning against him.
Stev is unusually comfortable disagreeing with Alaris. Their relationship has never depended on rank or intimidation, and Stev will tell him when he thinks an idea is bad. He also knows when the decision is no longer his to make. Alaris, in turn, trusts Stev's judgment enough to listen when the objection concerns a ship, a route, or a logistics problem Stev understands better than he does.
Despite years as a drifter, Stev is loyal to individuals once they have earned it. His attachment to Alaris and the rest of the household developed gradually and with little ceremony. He still disappears into the galaxy regularly and sees nothing unusual about being gone for extended periods. He simply no longer considers leaving and moving on to be the same thing.