Gertrude "Five-Star" Juarez

Gertrude "Five-Star" Juarez

Chronically Paranoid Wheelwoman
Don't call her an armchair general
Even if she does shout orders at you
Contact Owner	MSmithVoices
Owner's Discord Name
Connection	1
Public Contact?	Yes
Archetype	Service
Location	Renton, Seattle
Metatype	Elf
Gender	Female
Awakened/Emerged	Mundane
Age	31
Preferred Payment Method	Nuyen, or possibly drek jobs and companionship if you're lucky
Hobbies/Vice	Trashy prank show trids
Personal Life	Just Gals Being Pals
Faction	N/A
Aspects	I'm Not Your Fragging Party Bus Must Be This Tough To Ride Listen To That Engine Purr Step On It In Rear With The Gear Amerindian Rebel

Overview

Gertrude Juarez was born near Las Vegas in the Ute Nation. Her father was Comanche and a staunch traditionalist, while her mother was African American and very much not a staunch traditionalist. That meant spending most of her early life alternating between the worlds of tribal education and time away from the city centers, and long tracts of time spent in the multicultural tourist trap of Las Vegas itself. Unfortunately, after the Crash ended with her mom dead and the Ute Nation absorbed into the far more progressive Pueblo Corporate Council, her father moved them off towards Salish-Shidhe.

Without someone around to balance out her dad's tendency to be a complete and utter hardass, Gertrude began to chafe and grow restless. The constant disapproval, lectures regarding tribal drek she didn't care about, and the growing lack of empathy and compassion since her mother passed led her to rebel - and soon enough, that culminated in something more concrete than just embracing punk styles and counterculture. One night when she was nineteen, after a few weeks of research and planning with a small group of friends, she stole her dad's vintage truck and managed to slip through one of the smuggling routes into Seattle. Suddenly, she had all the freedom she could ever want, and she wasn't going back.

Over the next few years, the newly-dubbed Five-Star slipped into the sprawl's shadows, taking on jobs as a wheelwoman using one of the few skills from her father that she considered useful: Driving. Over time, she learned the value of things like professional discretion, paranoia, and coming prepared - qualities that didn't necessarily make her popular, but kept her alive and thriving despite a long career as a runner. Being known as a woman that rarely, if ever took shit from anyone didn't mean that she lacked a heart, though. On one particular run, an extraction target from Evo managed to gain Five-Star's pity. Against all her better judgement after years of running the shadows, she convinced her team to let the woman go, fronting the bill for their lost payday and taking a nasty hit to her reputation for derailing a high-profile job.

Since then, she's continued to run the occasional job here and there to pay for maintenance and modifications to her customized GMC Bulldog, which she calls The General. Business isn't as plentiful as it used to be, but at least she's got a friend for life to keep her company. It also doesn't hurt that Europa covers any repairs costs if she needs help on a run.

Traits

Five-Star is most often seen in an army green jacket, complete with kevlar lining and a few Neo-A patches as if to mock her runner handle. Her favored weapon is a Nemesis Arms Praetorian purpose-crafted to send a loud and clear "Don't frag with me" message to any gangers that decide her or her van are easy pickings. Speaking of which, The General is a beast beneath the hood, with a number of engine tunings, hidden armor plates, chameleon coating, an armored panic compartment built into the floor, and security systems ripped straight off a BMW Teufelkatze.

The woman herself is generally described as sarcastic at best and a complete slitch at worst. Five-Star very much believes the runner adage "you aren't here to make friends, you're here to get paid", and sticks by those words under most circumstances. It's not impossible to get past her acerbic exterior, but expect some cutting comments here and there at a minimum. If you do manage to get to a point of calling yourself her friend, though, she tends to soften up a bit. Even if she does make the occasional sarcastic jab, she'll still happily watch CyberPunkt with you - and since she doesn't have a ton of chummers to throw around, Five-Star is generally ready to go to the wall for those that can tolerate her.

Aspects Description

Aspect	Description
I'm Not Your Fragging Party Bus	Five-Star isn't especially keen on being used to ferry around a bunch of idiot criminals she doesn't know - at least, not without financial incentive. For every person below Loyalty 4 that she's asked to drive around, she'll charge a minimum of 1000 nuyen. Rates go up if they're known to be infected ("I'm NOT getting ghoul blood on my fraggin' upholstery.") or a rigger ("Fuck you need me for? Get your own ride instead of a bunch of toys.").
Must Be This Tough To Ride	Five-Star is a pretty talented wheelwoman... as long as you're talking about trucks and vans. Motorcycles? Nah. Rotorcraft? Don't make her laugh. Even normal cars are generally too fragile for her liking; she works best with vehicles that can take a licking and keep on kicking. Active checks to deal with vehicles that are not trucks or vans take a -2 penalty, if she deigns to work with them at all.
Listen To That Engine Purr	Gertrude has a certain knack with larger groundcraft. Something about a powerful engine, a curb weight measured in tons next to the plastic and polymer junk churned out today, and a heavy frame that can deflect most small arms fire for days just feels right. Active checks concerning trucks or vans gain a +2.
Step On It	If you need to get out of somewhere in a hurry, you'd be surprised how fast The General can go when that pedal hits the floor. Five-Star gets a +2 to any active checks to act as a getaway driver.
In Rear, With The Gear	Sure, Five-Star can drive like a fraggin' ace when she's getting away from the scene of the crime, but she knows that discretion is half the job when it comes to running. If you need her to hang back and blend in on a busy street while you case the joint, she's more than capable. She gains a +2 to vehicle stealth checks.
Amerindian Rebel	While Five-Star didn't like having to deal with her dad's bullshit 24/7, after enough lectures, she was forced to at least tune in a bit, if only to figure out how best to get the hell out. Knowledge checks concerning the NAN and smuggling routes within it get a +2 bonus.

Dicepools

Dicepools
Knowledge Checks	5 + Loyalty + Aspects - Notoriety
Active Checks	9 + Loyalty + Aspects - Notoriety
Gear Acquisition Checks	1 + Loyalty + Aspects - Notoriety
Networking Checks	-1 + Loyalty + Aspects - Notoriety

Network

Player Characters with this Contact

Name	Loyalty	Chips
Europa	6	Even
Gremlin	4	Even

Narrative Significant Runs

No runs yet. This list will auto-populate when this character is tagged in a run AAR.