Zoya Gabbro

Zoyenka (by Dora Tourmaline)

Tanja "TT" Tuff (friend)

**Zoya Gabbro** is a Nadezhdan akakafe farmer and logistics consultant in the People's Republic of Aureate. Formerly, she was an infiltrator and mech combatant as part of Spearbreak, and before that, a smuggler with Peschinka Logistics. She owns a Legato Biotech chime called the Mimic, which was originally used for combat and infiltration, but has been repurposed for farming use.

## Appearance

800–801: A Nadezhdan woman, Zoya is fairly small and squat, with the head and body shape of a wolverine, and the eyes and intermittent feathers of a snowy owl. When she pilots the Mimic, she wears a specialised suit with a hydrophobic outer layer and a breathing mask equipped with lots of tubes meant for interfacing with the Mimic.

816: Zoya now wears her hair longer, although still perpetually in a bun. Her fur is more grey, especially her muzzle. She's often found in simple work clothes such as button-down shirts and overalls.

## Family

* Skoryy Feldspar (she/her): Girlfriend (801) / Wife (816)
* Dora Tourmaline (she/her): Girlfriend (~790-793), ex-girlfriend (793-801), girlfriend (801) / Wife (816)
* Izmail Gabbro (he/him): Father. Alive in 783, current status unknown.
* Valery Gabbro (they/them): Parent. Alive in 783, current status unknown.
* (Unnamed third parent, absent or deceased)
* Ivan Gabbro (he/him): Younger brother. Alive in 783, current status unknown.

## History

### Upbringing

Zoya was born in 765, and grew up in a pastoral farming community on the Universal Choir planet Hymn. Her father, Izmail Gabbro, was an R&D specialist for Legato Biotech, which operates primarily on Madrigal, an oceanic Choir planet. He often spent long stretches of time away from home, but would also frequently bring Zoya and the rest of her family on trips there through Singing Deep travel. Zoya resented these trips and his absence in equal parts.

Growing up, Zoya and her brother Ivan were expected to formally join the chorist faith together with their parents, but Zoya, at odds with her father over his frequent absence, refused. As she grew older, the friction only escalated, until she moved out at age 16 (in 781). Her disdain for authority led her to fall in with a group of misfits and petty thieves. It was at this point that she also began to transition as a woman, and took her new (and current) name.

In a desperate bid to win Zoya over to his faith, her father once again attempted to bring her into the fold when she was 18 (in 783), attempting to lure her into another test to "save her" from her "rebellious lifestyle". Outraged, Zoya refused, and took off with the prototype Manifold vehicle her father had brought home for research and development. Though controlling it during her escape proved exceptionally difficult (and nauseating), she made her escape thank to its camouflage, and was smuggled onto Aureate shortly thereafter.

For about 5 years, Zoya lived on her own out of the Mimic in the vicinity of Pesok Line as a petty criminal.

### As a Pilot

Starting in roughly 788, at the age of 23, Zoya got her first big break as a mech pilot by acting as the lookout and reconnaissance for a smuggler crew known as Peschinka Logistics, on Aureate. When the crew was sold out to the Dodonan government in 793 by its Commanding Officer Pasha Marble at the behest of the Toporik Syndicate, Zoya took the fall in order to let some of her other crewmates (including her then-girlfriend of X years, Dora Tourmaline) escape, and was sentenced to prison. After 7 years, in 800, she was released on the condition that she would be a pilot for Dodeka Graft.

During her time as a pilot, Zoya has been present for all missions of the Gilded Sands campaign. Over the months after being released from prison, she reunited with two of her former Peschinka squadmates, Egon Shale and Dora Tourmaline—both on good terms—and spent much of her time away from missions attempting to get in touch with Pasha for answers.

### Tehoma Poisoning

In GS07 – BASTILLE DAY, Zoya suffered a stress-induced breakdown after attempting to save Skoryy Feldspar from potential catastrophic harm as a result of putting herself in the firing line of the Kyklops Root Seleukeias. In their escape, Skoryy shoved Zoya the Mimic's cockpit, and the two shared the Mimic's breathing system on the ride back to base. This left Zoya partially exposed to unfiltered tehoma, and coupled with her extreme levels of stress, allowed the tehoma to amplify her traumatic memories and enter her circulation in a semi-permanent capacity. In GS08 – MESSIDOR, Zoya discovered (with the help of Stem Tromara) that this tehoma poisoning lets her hear the song of the Deep, and allows her to pick up on the emotions of those around her. Soon after, she began to struggle with a crisis of faith, now being inundated with the song she had spent decades of her life running from.

In GS09 – GOLD RUSH, Zoya abandoned the Mimic in favour of piloting a Lowborn Mechanist's Guild Mole unit, for fear of getting back in the Mimic. However, this resulted in the almost immediate and total destruction of the Mole, and she eventually made peace with continuing to pilot the Mimic. At this point, she was also beginning to utilise the Mimic as a farming tool on Vedro, as she began to take part in the agricultural community.

### Killing of Pasha Marble

When she finally tracked Pasha down to Vow, she put herself on the waiting list to see them—and was soon fast-tracked by Pasha to the front of the queue. In GS10 – MOTHERLODE, she met with them in Second Mother (the brothel run by Skoryy's mother-figure), where, after a short meeting, she shot and killed Pasha despite their threat to have Egon Shale killed in retribution.

Since then, Zoya set her sights on ending her involvement in armed conflict once and for all—after helping Skoryy exact revenge on Toporik Jet. In GS13 – FINAL BELL, during the Dodonan razing of Vow, she accompanied Skoryy as she killed Toporik Jet in his crumbling office.

### After Gilded Sands

Once she'd completed her final mission as part of Spearbreak, Zoya officially retired from all military matters, and settled down to focus on farming. She began experimenting in her small own personal lot on Vedro, and soon found a passion for cultivating—and eventually roasting—akakafe beans. As of 816, she has her own akakafe company operating in the PRA, and occasionally consults on "clandestine logistics operations", but has not broken her vow to stay home.

Although she has not converted to the chorist faith, Zoya regularly takes part in chorist rituals and gatherings, and considers herself to follow her own personal exegetical variant of the faith.

## Special Abilities (Beam Saber)

* ***Ambush:*** When you attack from hiding or spring a trap, you get +1d.
* ***Bodyguard (Soldier):*** When you protect someone, take +1d to your resistance roll (or exhaust 1 fewer Quirk for vehicle resistance). When you gather info to anticipate possible threats in the current situation, you get +1 effect.
* ***Carry That Weight (Empath)*:** You can push yourself after you see the result of an Action Roll, or Assist after an ally’s Action Roll if no one else Assisted them. When you have a personal moment with someone, you can take any amount of stress (up to your max stress) to heal that person the same amount of stress.

## Beliefs (Beam Saber)

* Iskra Garomedon (2/4)
	+ Iskra may not be nobility anymore, but she probably thinks she's above me anyway.
	+ If Iskra keeps looking to others for absolution, she'll never find it.
* Kladi Demos (1/4)
	+ Kladi would've been happy to keep me under Dodona's heel until I stopped being useful.
* Nandi Tin (2/4)
	+ Nandi is my eyes, and I'd be lost without her.
	+ Nandi looks out for us, but not for herself.
* Skoryy Feldspar (2/4)
	+ ~~Skoryy is going to put us all in danger.~~
	+ ~~Skoryy's pain is much deeper than she lets on.~~
	+ ~~Skoryy is going to get herself killed if I'm not there for her.~~
		- Tested (**true**) in GS08 – MESSIDOR.
	+ I need to stay safe for Skoryy's sake.
	+ Skoryy's better cut out for this than me.
* Zbinya Cinnabar (1/4)
	+ Zbinya doesn't trust my instincts, and he may be right not to.