Aja

In common with every Sumerian, a pair of antennae rise from Aja's head, and she dons the army's regulation metal armor. Her dark hair is cropped to stubble, a pearl stud rests in either ear, and her build is bulkier than a typical soldier's, a point Tome ribs her about. Thick lashes keep her eyes out of view, a slanted scar cuts down each cheek toward her mouth, and she favors dark lipstick. While aboard the spaceship, bandages wrap her forehead, jaw, and cheeks.

As bright and hopeful as Tome, Aja mothers Bamora as though the girl were her own. When Banga reduces a very small Bamora to tears, she gives a disapproving look; she frets when no Sumerians appear at the rendezvous; and she throws herself in front of Banga and Bamora to guard them as they flee. Touched by Tome's resolve to lay eyes on the ocean before death finds her, she joins in with a smile, accepting they could die in a hopeless fight. When Bamora bends over a gravely hurt Banga, Aja yanks her up hard, shouting that Banga is lost and that Bamora, the child of every Sumerian, has to live on. That she and Tome would trade their lives to get the girl out safely speaks to how much they love her.

When the globalist Kur began their invasion, Aja signed on with an all-female resistance cell, fighting mostly at the side of Banga and Tome. When Banga later griped about having to mind Bamora, a child she had scooped up off the battlefield, Aja and Tome teased her, since saving the girl made caring for her unavoidable. Years later their regiment headed west to link up with surviving Sumerians, but the meeting point proved a Kur trap, and only these four escaped the ambush to hole up in a cave. Respecting Tome's longing to reach the sea before the end, Aja went with her on one last stand. Banga and Bamora caught up once Banga realized the Sumerian transport pyramid could ferry them to the second homeland of Idea.

Reaching it turned violent when the Kur shot a freed male Sumerian, throwing the others into panic and forcing the four to cut a path to the pyramid. Missiles dropped Banga as she shielded Bamora, so Tome and Aja held the line; after Banga switched on a Sumerian god exosuit and stirred the enslaved men to fight, the two of them cleared Bamora's way to the warp gate. Once Bamora vanished through it, the Kur's vanguard closed on Banga, and their leader threatened to torture a wounded Aja by rewriting her mind unless she powered the royal slab that responds only to Sumerians. Later, with a commandeered vessel, she joined Banga, Tome, and two surviving male Sumerians to beat back the Kur over the skies of Sumer and set off for Idea and a reunion with Bamora.