Sana Tripathi

"Don't let the dimples fool you; that is a woman who knows how to get the job done." - Arkady to Violet Liu, about Sana, Episode 3

Sana Tripathi is the captain of the Iris II, and before its demise was captain of the Rumor, a ship she built herself out of scraps. She is a mechanic, and is skilled at hot-wiring spaceships; she can also "build a working fuel system out of anything", according to Arkady Patel.

Personality-wise, Sana is compassionate and caring, and never hesitates to have conversations with the crew about their feelings. However, she is also willing to go to any lengths to protect her crew, which makes her very dangerous when their safety is threatened. She has a strong code of honour and a tendency to assume the same of others; she also doesn't have a very good poker face, and bluffing is not one of her strengths.

Early Life
Sana most likely was born and grew up on Telemachus, as she appears to have lived there for much of her life and has never referenced being born anywhere else. Around 2178, aged 24, she was sent to Cresswin Landing for the crime of hotwiring spaceships, and was subsequently involved in the Cresswin Uprising, alongside Arkady, although according to Arkady, Sana did not know who she was at the time. She ultimately "fled capture" with a fake passport under the name Rukhmani Desai.

During the Human-Dwarnian war, Sana worked in the shipyards, presumably as a mechanic. She may have continued to do so after the war ended, and eventually met Arkady while the latter was working as a guard for the IGR on Telemachus. At some point Sana built the Rumor "out of scraps" (which she would most likely have had plentiful access to in a shipyard) and recruited Arkady as her first mate.

Sana has a long-standing relationship with Ignatius Campbell, a fellow Telemachian, although it isn't clear whether the two met while Sana was living and working on Telemachus or after she left to become an intergalactic smuggler.

Aboard the Rumor
It is not known exactly when the Rumor crew was formed - whether Sana and Arkady travelled together as a twosome before Brian and Krejjh joined the crew in 2189, whether they flew with another pilot (although this seems unlikely), or whether they did other things (perhaps smuggling goods within Telemachus) before Sana built the Rumor and they began to travel the galaxy.

As captain of the Rumor, Sana is the organisational force behind the crew, determining when different members of the crew are on shift and when they are off-duty. As a leader, she listens to her crewmates and is keen to make decisions by consensus, as shown when she makes a point of giving all of the crew a say before they untether from the exploding Iris I in episode 2, and when she insists on having a crew discussion before embarking on Plan B in episode 9.

When the crew pick up and drop off goods or make supply runs, Sana and Arkady usually venture out as a pair, presumably because the only other member of the crew with any combat experience is Krejjh, who isn't able to venture out due to being a Dwarnian. Sana is presumably the negotiator and primary contact for deals, while Arkady is her backup and 'the muscle'. Sana is also the driver of the crew's truck, and has excellent driving skills, able to drive at very high speeds and take risky shortcuts in order to make it back to the ship as quickly as possible.

Sana is also fierce when her crew's safety is on the line, and will go to any lengths to protect them, as evidenced by her willingness to meet Ricky Q, who had betrayed the Landers during the Cresswin Uprising, alone on Hafizah because he implied that he would leak further information to the Regime about her crew if she didn't. As she said to 'Lenny' (her nickname for the eavesdropping IGR agents) in an impassioned speech during episode 7, "understand that when I say that I would do anything for my crew, I mean it. But that’s not an offer, Lenny. And it never has been. It’s a threat."

Sana has made jackets for each of the crew members (at least, she made Violet's jacket and we can assume she also made the others), which suggests that she has sewing skills. She also references singing in the shower, something she may or may not be very good at (given her embarrassment at the idea that IGR agents could have listened to her singing). During the group sing-along in episode 9, Sana plays the guitar, but doesn't join in with the singing.

Sana's speech to 'Lenny' in episode 7 implies that she no longer feels as though she has a home on Telemachus, or anywhere in particular, except for the Rumor. "There’s no place where every single piece of me belongs anymore. The closest I’ve got is a ship I built myself, out of scraps."

During episode 10, Sana's role in the break-in (and subsequent escape) on New Jupiter was to pose as a plumber fixing a leaky pipe, when in reality she was constructing a system out of old pipes and a stolen fuel tank that would ignite and blow up the penthouse floor of ADVANCE as soon as the sprinkler system kicked in. After this she hotwired a ship that the crew, together with Agents Park and McCabe, escaped on, accompanied by the rebooted nanoswarm. Sana was the one who suggested naming the ship the Iris II, "in keeping with what's been started, and not letting secrets fade into the ether".