Ghost- short for Goustallazephyleer- is a Neptunian Steelframe pilot working as a sellsword, offering his services to whatever cause will pay his asking price. True to his namesake, Ghost tends to be deathly quiet but acutely attentive; he speaks when he needs to, in as few words as it takes to say what he wants to say, but he's always listening, always observing. He pays attention to word choices, little glances, idle gestures and omissions of speech, inferring what's really being said from what is presented and what is left out of a conversation. When you think he's not paying attention, he'll reference a small detail in something you happened to mention far earlier in a conversation, asking for clarity on what you were trying to say. It can be a bit disquieting to be around him, he's not really there to share a drink with you or be your friend, but he's always, always making notes of every subconscious little movement you make. When he does speak up, he's able to infer things he shouldn't reasonably know- secret romances, petty thievery, entrenched smuggling operations and impending acts of treachery within or against his teams; he hardly speaks a word and when he does, he's telling you he knows everything. He's not without hobbies, however: Ghost seems to enjoy building scale model kits of real-world vehicles and machines. Trucks, motorcycles, aircraft, starships; he finds peace in cutting the pieces from their frames and fitting them together, slowly building a very detailed little replica machine for himself. Many a well-meaning teammate have tried to use this hobby as an ice-breaker to get to know the Neptunian better, but they're only ever met with attentive indifference. That's Ghost.
Steelframes are useful in a lot of extremely specific niches, but warfare has never been one of them. The Terran Star Navy has tried deploying military Steelframes as a way to infiltrate defensive positions and disable shields on large battleships, using them to make precision strikes that other vessels can't, but the practical reality of military Steelframes is that for all the training and its washout rate, and all the neural implants with their rejection rates; for all the effort it takes to produce a handful of military Steelframe pilots, you could put bigger weapons on the front of starships, train and equip tenfold that amount of fighter pilots and have far more impact in a naval battle for less money and time. It's been widely agreed that Steelframes are too fragile, too expensive and too much of an investment to field in combat, but the Neptunian Skyguard has found evidence to the contrary. Occupying the outermost rings of the Sol system, Neptune has been defending its space from Andromedan aggressors for the better part of the last century. Andromedans are a difficult adversary to contend with- they're about four meters of sapient centipede who can burrow into very small tunnels and whose technology is utterly inscrutable. They print their own tools from resin-like glands in their mouths, and their weapons can't be captured, reverse-engineered and fired against them. Their ships are capable of faster-than-light travel, and Neptunian space is an incredibly vast orbit of Sol. The Skyguard fleet has done well to repel the attacks that have occurred here or there, but the Andromedans are unconventional fighters, the Neptunians need to meet them with unconventional answers of their own. This, it turns out, is a rare niche where a Steelframe can serve well in a military capacity.
Ghost served in the Neptunian Skyguard under the Red Banner legion, part of an experimental mechanized division aimed at pursuit and sabotage of Andromedan incursions into the Outer Belt. Andromedans are much larger than either kind of Neptunian, and their technology matched their scale, so Vice-Patriarch Leaf had the idea to meet this challenge by deploying "larger Neptunians" to try and put Andromedans on the backfoot instead. Ghost and his team used their Steelframes' speed and precision to move undetected and strike at Andromedan positions from unexpected angles. Circumventing Andromedans' potent ranged defenses, the Red Banner Steelframes engaged Andromedans in close-range combat, staying highly mobile, shredding their lines and rending their resin technology with enormous, razor-sharp claws. Neptunian Steelframes were also able to pursue retreating Andromedans into tight spaces and burrows in their lunar outposts that conventional mechanized weapons could not follow, giving them no quarter in combat and closing up Andromedan lines once they've been pushed back from their footholds on whatever moon they land on. Ghost fought on the Andromedan front for several years, only being discharged from service with full honors after losing his arm in action pushing Andromedans from Pluto. After receiving his prosthetic limb and recovering in his home on Neptune, he found the quiet life didn't suit him, and commissioned the construction of his own Steelframe, patterned after the unit he served in. He chose the callsign Perseverence, and set out into Sol system as a mechanized mercenary, lending his skills to whatever cause has a heavy enough purse.
For as rare as Steelframe pilots are, finding a pilot with a military background and combat experience is orders of magnitude more rare- Ghost knows all of the current active combat pilots, and many of the dead ones. He sells his services to whatever cause needs his particular skillset; he doesn't fight for wealth or glory, fighting is just the thing he knows how to do. He's not discerning about what cause he is fighting for, he just sets an extremely high price to weed out clients he feels aren't serious enough for what they're asking of him. Warfare is grave business, and introducing a Steelframe into your private little war is a steep escalation, if Ghost is going to put his life and limb on the line for you he needs to be sure you know what you're buying. For convenience sake, he lives in a rented warehouse in Titan Garden's north Dockyards, maintaining a small living space in the warehouse's second-floor office, with Perseverence residing in the building's main area. He keeps his favorite models on a set of display shelves, and maintains a broad, sturdy table as his model-building workspace. Ghost doesn't cook for himself, he tends to cycle between a few of Titan's local restaurants, showing up to a wide range of places just infrequently enough that he doesn't become a regular in any one place. Sometimes he'll sit in a booth and look at his commphone while he eats; if the waitstaff try to get too cozy with him, he'll switch to takeout.
He doesn't keep any friends, if his commphone rings he assumes it's someone looking to hire his services. It might also be his cybernetics mechanic, Dr. Kurt. Like any other cybernetic starfarer, Ghost attends his regular appointments to make sure his prosthetics stay in working order. Dr. Kurt and the staff at the Starlight Clinic are the only known people Ghost has treated with attentive warmth, sparing a kind word and making small talk with the front-desk staff and the Doctor himself. Before losing his arm, Ghost wasn't used to receiving the kind of mindful, compassionate attention a long-term medical need required, and while he was quiet and reserved at first, he has opened up to Dr. Kurt. To his credit, Dr. Kurt learned about Ghost's hobby and encouraged him to continue building his scale models, believing the dexterous precision of cutting and assembling them would be good for the neural connections to his prosthetic arm. Ghost's quiet nature isn't inattentive, Dr. Kurt knew his patient was listening, so he made sure to choose his own words and the manner he presented them with care, hoping to earn the Neptunian's trust without trying to force an unwelcome connection with him. It worked; Ghost abides his doctor's orders, and occasionally he will bring a favorite model in to show Dr. Kurt what he'd achieved. His old squadmates, his former employers, anyone who's ever known him would not believe this was the same icy Neptunian they served with, but that speaks to the acute attentiveness of a good medical team. He's not suddenly an open book, however, he's still the same old Ghost when he's not at the Starlight Clinic. It turns out you just need to give him space and let him open up to you on his own terms, a detail that didn't escape his own notice. He's made sure to file that observation away for future interactions.