Alex Rogan
Starfighter recruit
An eighteen-year-old with a lean, still-growing frame, sun-browned skin, and a mop of dark brown hair that falls toward his eyes. Open, earnest face; a slightly long nose; brown eyes that go wide when he is overwhelmed. He wears a faded T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers scuffed from trailer-park pavement. In the Gunstar his flight suit is utilitarian, with a helmet that still looks a size too serious for him. Shoulders not yet filled out; hands restless.
Brave in bursts, homesick, better at the stick than at speeches. Loves Maggie; indebted to Centauri; becomes Grig’s unlikely brother-in-arms; Xur sees him as a statistical nuisance.
Centauri
Recruiter
A short, round-bellied showman with a wildly wrinkled face, a halo of white hair, and eyes that glitter with salesmanship. Earth disguise: loud patterned shirt, pale trousers, theatrical gestures. Unmasked, his head is an alien shape—broader cranium, unusual ear-ridge—still wearing the grin of a man who has closed too many deals. Stubby fingers heavy with rings. He occupies space like a carnival barker.
Charming liar, secretly fond of the humans he cons into heroism. Recruited Alex; answers to Star League bureaucracy; treats Grig as a respected professional.
Grig
Gunstar navigator
A compact reptilian humanoid, lizard-scaled in warm olive and gold, with a blunt snout, large amber eyes with nictitating membranes, and a crest of small spines along the skull. He is shorter than Alex, barrel-chested, with three-fingered hands built for instruments. Flight suit tailored to a nonhuman torso. Expression is surprisingly gentle; the mouth can open into a startlingly wide, toothy smile. Skin has a dry, pebbled texture that catches cockpit light.
Loyal, ritual-minded, treats death in combat as an honor rather than a tragedy. Alex’s copilot and translator of Star League custom; professionally wary of Xur; amused by Centauri.
Maggie Gordon
Earth
A teenage girl with a heart-shaped face, light brown hair worn long and slightly wind-tangled, and a summer tan. Hazel eyes, a scattering of freckles, and a mouth that smiles easily then goes still when she is thinking. She wears simple 1980s small-town clothes: sundress or jeans and a soft blouse. Average height, not stylized-glamorous—real in the way film photography makes people real. A thin gold necklace.
Grounded, skeptical of spectacle, the reason Alex’s courage has somewhere to land. Alex’s love; briefly deceived by the android double; never part of the war except as what must be protected.
Xur
Ko-Dan betrayer
An alien aristocrat with an elongated skull, ashen-lavender skin, and a face that seems carved rather than grown. High, hairless cranium; cold pale eyes set slightly too wide; a thin, cruel mouth. He wears layered Ko-Dan armor in black and bruised purple, with sharp ceremonial shoulders. Tall and gaunt, he moves as if the air owes him space. Fingers are long; the nails dark. Lighting likes to find the hollows of his cheeks.
Narcissistic collaborator who dresses treason as destiny. Enemy of the Star League and of Alex; uses the Ko-Dan as a vehicle for personal rule; Centauri’s dark inverse.
