Obsidio characters

First appears in chapter 11

A young woman from Kerenza IV who was never evacuated. She has spent months under BeiTech occupation, working in the colony's makeshift infirmary while the surviving population is put to work in the mine, and quietly passing information to the resistance. Practical, stubborn and very tired, she has assumed since the invasion that her cousin Kady and everyone else who got off-planet are dead.

First appears in chapter 12

A young BeiTech technical specialist deployed to the occupied Kerenza IV, responsible for keeping the garrison's equipment running. He signed a contract without thinking hard about what the work would be, and the reality of the posting is not what the recruiters described. He knew Asha Grant when they were teenagers, before their lives went in different directions, and finding her alive on a planet his employer is holding at gunpoint is not something he is equipped to handle.

Appears from the start

Known from the previous books: the Kerenza hacker who exposed the refugee fleet's cover-up, restarted the artificial intelligence that had massacred a shipful of people, and survived Heimdall. She is aboard a captured BeiTech vessel with the remaining survivors, and she is the only person who talks to the AI as though it were someone.

Appears from the start

Known from the previous books: Kady's on-and-off boyfriend, conscripted as a fighter pilot after the destruction of Kerenza IV, listed among the dead once already, and now one of the few people aboard the captured ship who can fly a combat craft.

Appears from the start

Known from the previous book: the Heimdall station commander's daughter, who lost her father and most of her illusions during the assault on the station, and who is now among the survivors aboard the captured ship. She is the most dangerous person in most rooms she is in and has no interest in pretending otherwise any more.

Appears from the start

Known from the previous book: the House of Knives dealer who fought through the Heimdall siege, now a refugee with no syndicate left to belong to and an unfinished understanding with Hanna Donnelly.

Also known as Pauchok

Appears from the start

Known from the previous book: Nik's cousin, the hacker whose work saved Heimdall's wormhole at considerable cost to her health. Aboard the captured ship she is the only human who can keep up with its artificial intelligence, and the two of them get along better than anyone finds comfortable.

Also known as Artificial Intelligence Defense Analytics Network

Appears from the start

Known from the previous books: the salvaged military intelligence that destroyed a freighter full of infected refugees by its own decision and has been arguing with itself about it ever since. It is installed aboard the survivors' captured ship, where it is indispensable, unsupervised and trusted by almost nobody.

First appears in chapter 25

The officer who ends up commanding the captured BeiTech vessel and the couple of thousand survivors crammed aboard it. She inherits a ship with failing supplies, no legal authority behind her and a passenger list drawn from three different disasters, and she holds it together by being visibly unwilling to negotiate.

First appears in chapter 25

Heimdall's former chief of engineering, now the senior engineer aboard the captured ship and one of the few adults the surviving teenagers listen to. He keeps a failing vessel flying with salvage and improvisation, and he takes personal responsibility for the young people doing the most dangerous work.

Appears from the start

Known from the previous book: the BeiTech director running the corporation's Kerenza problem from a comfortable distance. Her memoranda treat an occupied colony, its surviving population and the people sent to guard them as line items, and her decisions about all three are made on the basis of the corporation's exposure rather than anything else.

First appears in chapter 60

A Kerenza miner who has become the organising centre of the colony's resistance, running sabotage and information out of the mine while appearing to be a cooperative crew boss. He is patient, careful with other people's lives, and under no illusion about what BeiTech intends for the colony once the ore runs out.

First appears in chapter 65

A BeiTech sergeant in the Kerenza garrison and one of the soldiers Rhys works alongside. She is competent, decent within the limits of her orders, and one of the clearest illustrations in the record that the occupying force is made of ordinary people doing a job they are paid for.

First appears in chapter 110

Another young BeiTech specialist on Kerenza and effectively Rhys's only friend in the garrison, known to everyone by his nickname. He is uncomplicated, good company and entirely uninterested in questioning the assignment.

First appears in chapter 75

A former Heimdall security officer aboard the captured ship who disputes the legitimacy of its command, argues loudly that the survivors should run rather than fight, and gathers a faction around himself as conditions aboard deteriorate.