Lieutenant Cara Engel

Overview

Lieutenant Cara Engel is a security team leader for the Terran Resource Consortium and Dieter Thiel’s protege. At 34, she’s spent twelve years in corporate security and has become one of TRC’s most effective field operatives. She doesn’t ask questions about her orders. She executes them.

Background

Born in Munich, Germany, Engel joined TRC security at 22. Her parents remain in Munich; she has no spouse or children. Thiel trained her personally, and his influence is evident in her methods and her worldview. Her surname means “angel” in German – an irony she likely doesn’t appreciate.

Physical Description

Athletic build, maintained at combat readiness. Blonde hair cropped short for helmet compatibility. She moves with the economy of trained violence. Cold blue eyes assess everyone as either threat or asset. A small scar on her jaw comes from close-quarters training. She is always armed, even in environments that are supposed to be safe.

Personality

Engel’s core trait is professional competence in service of orders. She hunts targets with methodical precision, not cruelty – she’s doing her job, nothing personal. In a straight fight, she would win. The people who survive encounters with her do so by not fighting straight.

Her speech follows military cadence: clipped, tactical, and spare. She rarely says more than necessary and reports in passive voice, distancing herself from the actions described. A German accent emerges under extreme stress.

She maintains professional distance from her team – loyal but not personal. Her identity is her usefulness. She never questions orders, never fails assignments, never shows weakness.

Role

Engel is the human face of corporate enforcement. She’s not a monster – just someone following orders without ever developing ethics independent of the chain of command. This makes her more unsettling than overt cruelty would.