Charlie Ostrokov

Player Name: Phoebe

Full Name: Charlotte Renee Ostrokov

Nicknames and Pseudonyms: Charlie; Quiet

Age: 33

Birth Date: February 24th, 2281

Blood Type: B-

Role on Ship: Quartermaster

Homeworld: Tenoh-V

Significant Relations and Affiliations: Daniel and Mila Ostrokov (Parents; Father deceased, mother unknown), William “Will” Ostrokov (Fraternal Twin Brother; Missing), Coalition Defense Force (LT in the Defense Security Agency). 

Bonds, Obligations, Debts, and Warrants: Despite her callous attitude and tendencies toward violence, most of her behavior is waived at the behest of the DSA as necessary for her occupation. Even on official business, Charlie is no stranger to running shadier enterprises on the side to earn a little extra or using her position to get a leg up on criminal rivals, which could get her in trouble from both sides. Her one, real concern is her brother, and she has thus far evaded making any other bonds in her personal life. Her current stint on the Hellion, although technically authorized, is not entirely above board, and could get her in hot water with the DSA if discovered.

Appearance: Charlie is a woman who goes from formal to casual dress on a whim, sometimes even mixing the two. For when she needs to be tough and project authority, she’s no stranger to a good suit or button up with optional tie. Otherwise, she’ll wear t-shirts and athletic pants, sweaters, or more casual dress outfits. Whatever fits the situation either tactically for social purposes, or for her own comfort and constant need to be on the move and doing something. A life of undercover work means she knows how to pull off many looks with simple adjustments, and switches things up freely and frequently.

Her features are angular, with a practiced poker face meant to conceal all but what she chooses to reveal. All her more expressive looks are ones practiced over years of work, and all for specific effects. She works out frequently, but maintains a certain size by focusing on cardio, low weight-high rep lifting, martial arts training, and even likes leading a yoga session now and again.

Her favorite self-indulgence outside stimulants is her hair, as it’s the most common thing changed with her many facades in her line of work; various lengths, styles, colors, and accessories. Naturally a brunette, not many get to see her hair in any truly natural state. She prefers to keep it shorter in general, and longer styles are generally wigs of one sort or another.

When skin is visible, it is evident she is a go-getter as a field agent. Numerous scars and scrapes dot her skin, including an old bullet entry and exit wound on her lower left torso. These are only softened by careful application of balms and oils over the years. Her one tattoo is a pair of fish swimming in a circle together, the zodiac Pisces to represent her and Will and their lifelong bond, on her back between her shoulder blades.

Personality: Charlie doesn’t like to beat around the bush or give others second chances. “By the books” is generally for appearances only with her, and she’s grown to embrace the shadier side of her chosen career path as a lifestyle all its own. Without Will to ground her, she might have gone even deeper with it.

Her trust is hard to earn, but she’s learned to recognize and covet true loyalty when found and has even been known to express it herself when another has earned her respect. Years of military service have instilled her with a personal code of honor in how she carries herself and acts, though it can seem vague when she’s in the field and operating independent of any watchful authority. In general, she enjoys being in control (or at least maintaining the appearance that she is) and keeping others on the backfoot.

She does have a sense of humor, just most people don’t get it at first, or feel it’s mean-spirited. Sarcasm when she can get away with it, dry and dark otherwise. She’s easy to ping as ex (or current) military from her tendency to remain calm in a tense situation, even cracking jokes in more dire circumstances.

She is a woman of action, rather than words, and earned her nickname Quiet from the way she prefers to choose her words carefully and listen to others before giving her input (or just throw her fists in place of any words at all.) If she leaves someone in uncomfortable silence after they try to talk to her, it’s more out of careful consideration of her response than anything else. Even for those she speaks freely with, she’s not known for being verbose.

Charlie would never be described as an extrovert, only as open as her job demands she be. Growing up as the sole guardian to her brother and pushing herself through the DSA for over a decade has rendered out any behavior she might see as distracting. Stimulants keep her alert, allow her to blow off steam in a gym or just lifting weights, but she typically avoids things such as alcohol in anything but moderate capacities, as the thought of losing control scares her too much. Watch your smokes though, she’ll burn through your whole supply if you give her time.

Strengths, Talents, Abilities: Charlie has the mutation present in a small percent of the population from Tenoh, giving her conscious control of an enhanced adrenal gland that allows for quick bursts of superhuman strength, reflexes, and speed. These abilities are used to great effect in combination with her extensive training as an agent for the DSA. Recent events have put a damper on her abilities, and she’s unlikely to use them except in dire circumstances, instead more likely to rely on firearms and her training to try and get out of a situation.

Taking to a violent life early and learning to network with everyone around her to get things, her work came naturally to her. The DSA was a jarring but ultimately fitting change for her. Firearms, ground vehicles and even shuttle piloting in a pinch, EVAs, martial arts, tactical training, counterintelligence and counterinsurgency and espionage; Charlie absorbed and excelled at all of it. She even earned the equivalent of a master’s degree in political science.

Weaknesses and Fears: Despite outward appearances, Charlie struggles with some of her darker tendencies in private, and frequently uses her preferred vices to cope, the tamest of which are cigarettes and coffee. Even those now, cut short by her heart attack, she struggles with, having nothing to really scratch that itch with. In her weakened state, serious self-doubts have begun to settle in and make Charlie question her own worth, to herself, her brother, and the crew as her found family.

Seen as the no-nonsense sort, her choice to sacrifice herself to the singular role of protective twin sister has left her isolated emotionally and socially. Additionally, Charlie’s extensive work in undercover operations and the necessity of being another person or forming relationships based on falsehoods for a living has only further skewed her view of herself and her relationship to others. She doesn’t handle situations where she might have to open up to others well as a result of these insecurities, and she’s quick to deflect attempts at closing the gap.

History: Charlotte and William were born as twins to a generally unlucky pair of low-level corporate workers on Tenoh. Daniel and Mila Ostrokov were blue collar, through and through. The former was a crystal miner, the sort with a grudge against the company, anyone who didn’t get their hands dirty for a living and a drinking habit, while the latter was a shift supervisor and technician for mining equipment.

By the time the twins were only 6 years old, their father fell ill, acute liver cancer that he insisted had nothing to do with his frequent boozing, his work with the crystals or life on Tenoh in general. His pride was such that his denial meant he turned down even the pittance that Nakatomi offered him for medical expenses and went untreated. He was dead within a few months, just long enough for their mother to plan to leave the children with a series of long-term babysitters that meant she didn’t have to add the corporate childcare services to her company debt. With no real parental presence, the twins had to quickly adapt and become independent.

Worse yet, while Charlie had been healthy and even athletically inclined from a young age, Will was not quite so lucky. A case of childhood pneumonia left him bedridden for a time, where a bad fungal infection took its opportunity to flourish and left him with permanent nerve damage in his legs before he recovered. This left him crippled and easily fatigued when it came to the sort of labor jobs he could expect to get as an unskilled worker. When they hit adolescence, this problem was compounded when she began to express the coveted mutation that so many on Tenoh wished for as a free ticket out of a life of drudgery. It wasn’t long before the Coalition came knocking and she was dragged kicking and screaming from her brother’s side. Charlie was 17 when she saw Tenoh, and Will, for the last time.

But rather than rebel or escape her military service like most who got the mutation tried to do, she showed loyalty, confidence, and a willingness to perform. She decided she would find a way to get back to her brother no matter what it took, so Charlie embraced the military lifestyle and the easier path to her goals. She became the ‘Yes’ woman the Coalition Defense Force wanted her to be, and, despite her resentment toward them for taking her from Will, she found she belonged with her unit and even looked up to her seniors. Best of all, Charlie showed early aptitude for all the things that would get her in to the DSA, where all the opportunities she sought would present themselves.

The next 15 years were an exercise in discipline and patience for Charlie, all the while sending money home to Will when she could or just trying to keep them connected through messages. She got a taste for blood in a few engagements with pirates and rebellious upstarts. When she could, she pushed and got herself that coveted transfer to the Defense Security Agency to get her first real sample of autonomy in her life. Gangs and rebellions were infiltrated, seconds-in-command bribed to topple their leaders that fell out of Coalition favor, and then their deals with Charlie made under the table for a share of the profitable aftermath. She even managed to get herself a commission as an officer and a degree along the way. Soon, she’d have the funds to fully buy out Will’s contract and rescue him from the hell he must surely be living through without her. But, for all her ambition and ruthlessness, she wasn’t fast enough.

The attack in the Tenoh system would have seen more press were it not for quick efforts on the parts of the Nakatomi Group and the CDF to keep things under wraps. A shipment of mercury crystals destroyed, a missing freighter, all spun as the usual unrest and brushed under the rug by Nakatomi. Meanwhile, the Coalition scrambled for details, eager to catch Nakatomi in a slip-up and capitalize on it. Both sides wanted answers, and neither was willing to lay blame lest they upset the balance in place in the system and the specter of the civil war reared its ugly head. Charlie received a message from Will the evening after the attack, the last she would hear of him. It was cryptic, a declaration of freedom, and a plea not to worry. To Charlie, it felt like a goodbye letter, and it was at that moment she began concocting the plan to get her to her present position.

Since neither side wanted to seem involved or be accused, a covert operation was easy to sell to her superiors. She was from Tenoh and might have insight into those behind this attack and their mindset, another easy sell. She fabricated another life, as she had often done before, and got herself a hired ride on a low-key little ship who’s crew didn’t seem keen on asking her questions. Charlie eagerly took to the assignment, despite the risks involved between her employers and Nakatomi, and vowed to herself that she would find Will and make sure he was safe, no matter the cost.

Charlie’s come a long way since that fateful meeting, but perhaps the biggest change for her was during the incident in which the crew was kidnapped and narrowly escaped the wrath of the Smock family over the loss of their son. That ticking time bomb of her mutation finally bit her in the ass, or the heart, if we’re being direct. Still physically recovering from the massive heart attack, Charlie’s mental and emotional trauma from the event is only just beginning. With her diminished physical state, her careful need to self-regulate to prevent another attack, she finds herself with some serious self-doubt about her future role and usefulness to the crew and to her brother who she still has yet to contact.

Anything Else: The secret of Will’s involvement in her investigation remains with Charlie. As far as the Coalition is concerned, she is a lone agent conducting a covert investigation into the attack and has no personal tie-ins to the events. The Coalition begrudgingly accepts her investigation as their one course of action for now, while legal teams hash out a firmer response between Nakatomi and the Coalition. If anyone were to prod at the Sila’s quartermaster, they’d see she was just a simple woman from Cantra.

Secret’s all out. The crew of the Sila know who Charlie is, what she’s after, and she freely discusses these things with them. At least the crew as it is now.

Model: Kristen Stewart