Kryska Stares

Young 1st Lieutenant of the Solar Alliance Fleet, Kryska is the Alliance liaison officer aboard the Sunrider. As an Alliance citizen and military official, Kryska's presence was generally not welcomed aboard the Sunrider. Raised from childhood to be an Alliance officer, Kryska is fiercely proud of the Alliance and considers it the greatest nation in the galaxy. Strict and focused, yet also optimistic and tomboyish, Kryska is highly idealistic about Alliance doctrines, eager to share the Alliance's democratic ideals and technical know-how with the galaxy's "lesser" nations. The rest of the crew initially viewed her with suspicion, but the captain generally values ​​Kryska and the Alliance's support, and gradually the rest of the crew warmed to her. She pilots the "Paladin", a limited-production/prototype heavy tank-like Ryder specialized in anti-ship combat.

She firmly believes in virtue, duty, modesty, and honesty.

At twenty-two years old by the standard Solar Alliance calendar and taller than most women, Kryska's appearance is both neat and somewhat boyish at the same time. Her short, wavy indigo-blue hair is styled in a somewhat boyish bob cut, and her fair skin, honey-golden eyes, and youthful facial features do not distract from her athletic build. She has a modest figure and a well-built body, and while she doesn't look as feminine as, say, Claude Trillo, she is arguably much more physically fit. She tends to have a serious or stoic expression when on duty, although she is capable of more lighthearted moments and easily empathizes with those in need. She is also prone to instances of dry sarcasm, during which a slight smirk can be seen on her face.

Kryska's flight uniform is a standard jade-green Ryder armored flight suit. Upon arriving on the Sunrider, she refuses to wear the more common "sailor girl" uniform preferred by most other women on the ship, instead opting to wear the uniform of a Ceran Space Force officer—a black naval jacket with gold trim and a matching belt, a black knee-length business skirt, black leggings, and black flat-soled shoes.

Kryska's homeworld was located in the independent and, at that time, largely fragmented Neutral Ring, which was then locked in a state of chaos and turmoil following the collapse of the New Empire. Born into poverty, Kryska spent most of her early years living in constant fear alongside her parents under their despotic and corrupt planetary government, as her world was outside the borders and safety of Alliance laws. Even when forced to give up all their means of subsistence to survive under their rulers, they were still not guaranteed protection from pirates, thugs, and bandits. Although the government is certainly invested in secret police and surveillance drones to terrorize and intimidate the population at every turn, they did nothing to protect that population from criminal extortion or raids.

However, Kryska, eventually lived her early years in despair and poverty, found her salvation in the form of the Solar Alliance, which expanded into the Neutral Ring, liberating her homeworld from its original government and rebuilding it according to more humane living standards. Having done this, an awesome and overjoyed Kryska was filled with admiration, happiness, and two more things that were completely new to her—hope and an overwhelming sense of freedom. Following this, Kryska decided she wanted to spread what she had discovered to other worlds like her own—a desire that ultimately led her to leave her world and family to enlist in the Alliance military.

After joining the Alliance fleet, Kryska's strong values, dogged dedication to duty, and desire to spread Alliance doctrine helped her quickly rise through the ranks, spending much of her remaining teenage years in military training. Her record eventually caught the attention of Admiral Harold Grey, one of the highest-ranking naval officers in the Solar Alliance, and she became part of his force, presumably giving her something few in the Alliance had experienced at that point—real, full-fledged combat experience against armed opponents, likely pirates and raiders. Under Admiral Grey's command, Kryska rose even higher in the ranks, eventually reaching the rank of 1st lieutenant by the time she was twenty-two, possibly becoming the Alliance's temporary CAG.

At some point during this, she is presumed to have been inducted into the Alliance's Black Operations division, founded by the admiral to protect the Alliance from behind the scenes—something for which a dedicated and loyal soldier like Cryska would have been ideal. She not only received advanced training in Ryder piloting, but also in wetwork and infiltration, likely in preparation for the looming war against the vast Neutral Rim superpower PACT. When the official war between PACT and the Alliance finally erupted, Cryska was assigned an experimental, limited-production Ryder heavy attack craft, the Paladin, designed to match and destroy battleships single-handedly. She was also chosen by Admiral Grey to serve as the official liaison to an independent vessel that played key roles in numerous battles against PACT—the assault carrier Sunrider, the last ship of the now-defunct Cera Space Force. She was ordered to both advise Sunirder on Alliance interests and missions and, if necessary, gather information on the vessel and its crew.

Kryska arrived aboard the Sunrider just before the PACT's impending attack on the world of Far Port, which would become the first battle of the Alliance-PACT war. Greeted by Captain Kayto Shields and First Officer Ava Crescentia, she immediately stands at attention before her new direct superior after exiting her new Ryder. In the Sunrider novel, she is shown to have instantly developed a mutual respect with Ava due to their shared professionalism and sense of military discipline, before explaining the advantages of her Ryder to Captain Shields after a brief self-introduction and reporting the details of her assignment. Kryska quickly provides her service record, confirming she is from New Seattle on the Moon and is formally the Commander of the Air Group (CAG) of the Alliance carrier Montesquieu. Finishing the formalities, Kryska is accompanied by Ava to the crew quarters to settle in.

However, Kryska's introduction to the other crew members does not go as smoothly as her first meeting with the captain and first officer. After reviewing her comrades' Ryder statistics to familiarize herself with her new allies' capabilities, she discovered a number of illegal modifications on seemingly most of them, but the modifications to Ikari Izumold's Ryder, the Phoenix, which violated over fourteen Alliance safety regulations, stood out to her the most. Kryska immediately confronts Ikari about this, sparking an argument as the two proud pilots debate the safety concerns and potential benefits of the Phoenix's modifications. Eventually, the captain is called due to the disturbance, and Kryska claims that the Phoenix poses a safety risk to the crew and other Ryders in combat, while Ikari simply states that the only issue Kryska has with him is a personal one for bypassing Alliance "bureaucracy".