Steel World characters

Appears from the start

A 22-year-old IT student and devoted gamer whose family can no longer support his education. After leaving university, selling his gaming system, and moving out of the family home, he seeks a place in a space-going legion.

First appears in chapter 2

A prospective recruit who meets James during psychological screening at the mustering hall. Their first exchanges are confrontational, but Carlos follows James toward an opportunity with Legion Varus after other enlistment options narrow.

First appears in chapter 2

The Legion Varus recruiter who accepts James after larger legions reject him. Harris sees practical value in the independent streak identified by James's screening profile and offers him a six-year contract with the legion.

First appears in chapter 3

The officer overseeing the new recruits aboard Corvus. He reveals that their apparent transport disaster was a lethal training exercise in which several recruits died and were restored, then commends James for his response.

First appears in chapter 4

A self-assured recruit with technical skills who transfers into James's cohort after becoming involved with an adjunct. She is soon welcomed into his mess-table circle, where her arrival changes the group's social balance.

First appears in chapter 4

A recruit in James's cohort and a member of his established social circle aboard Corvus. She reacts negatively, with apparent jealousy, when Natasha transfers into the cohort and is accepted at James's mess table.

First appears in chapter 5

James's immediate superior before his reassignment. Toro seeks to have James removed after James kills Veteran Harris during a live-fire drill.

First appears in chapter 5

The officer who takes command of James's combat group after his transfer from another unit. Leeson leads a mixed formation that includes James, Carlos, Kivi, Natasha, and Veteran Harris for the coming deployment.

First appears in chapter 5

A heavy-weapons specialist deploying near James on Cancri 9. Sargon carries a powerful plasma weapon and explains why a soldier's stored revival data is especially vulnerable before reaching ground command.

First appears in chapter 6

A bio specialist who gathers scattered survivors after the landing on Cancri 9. She reports their position, directs the mixed party toward the mining complex, and puts James on point before a jugger kills her during their first ground engagement.

First appears in chapter 10

James's primus and a senior Legion Varus officer. Turov organizes a return to the site where James reported an unidentified alien, seeking evidence that could clarify the wider threat to Earth's contract.

First appears in chapter 10

The commander of Legion Varus. Drusus considers James's report of an unidentified alien important because it may indicate interference by a rival off-world mercenary power and threaten Earth's position on Cancri 9.

First appears in chapter 15

A six-limbed Galactic inspector and the injured occupant of an air car shot down by James's group. His protected official status transforms James's violent encounters with him into a capital diplomatic offense.

First appears in chapter 19

The local Nairb authority who charges James and Carlos with violating the campaign's aircraft restriction. The prefect disables human revival systems while ordering their self-execution, then restores the systems and stays the penalty when James invokes arbitration.

First appears in chapter 23

A bio specialist who joins Anne Grant beneath the captured spaceport. Mattis inspects the recruits' flawed assembly work on an old revival unit and helps commission the machine inside its secured underground vault.

First appears in chapter 27

The bio officer who takes custody of the salvaged revival-unit panel after James returns from the recovery tunnel. Her higher authority supersedes Leeson's control of the recovered equipment and the data it may contain.

First appears in chapter 30

A heavy-weapons operator at Bunker 12 during the failing spaceport defense. Technicians restore Lund's weapon after an overrun as coordinated jugger attacks continue to concentrate on positions already weakened by earlier waves.

First appears in chapter 30

A heavy-weapons operator holding one of the remaining bunkers as the spaceport defenses approach collapse. Borges receives James at his position and helps document the body of a distinctive crimson jugger marked by a belly scar.