Characters

Dr. Dawn Anne Stroganoff traded the dusty trenches of Arizona for the red deserts of Mars, becoming the first archaeologist to ever leave Earth. Her mission: investigate an alien signal emanating from Mars' towering Olympus Mons. But when she discovers ruins in the foothills of the volcano, she triggers an ancient doorway. Tumbling into a hidden vault, she finds more than history – she falls victim to a trap set by a long-dead alien mind waiting to live again. One catastrophic mind-swap later, Dawn is hurled into a divergent timeline where sentient dinosauroids reached the stars and humans never evolved. Now, lost in the body of a saurian princess, Dawn must bridge two universes to stop a prehistoric catastrophe.

Born in Boston and raised in Houston, Swedish-American Eric Gustav “Gus” Granberg has the credentials of a legend: MS in Aeronautical Engineering from UT Austin, Captain in the US Navy, decorated Naval Aviator, and NASA pilot-astronaut. After leading NASA’s 2025 Eros mission, he now commands the 2029 Mars mission. But will his expertise and heroism be enough to save the universe – and, more importantly, Dawn Stroganoff – from oblivion? Only time will tell.

Regarded by her crewmates as a true polymath, Kristina Jefferson bridges the gap between deep science and space exploration. With BS, MS, and PhD degrees spanning Ecology, Mechanical Engineering, Paleontology, and Planetary Geology – earned from Howard University, UC Riverside, and Caltech – Kris transitioned from a distinguished career as a planetary geologist at Goddard Space Flight Center to the astronaut corps. After serving as a NASA Mission Specialist for the Eros 2025 mission, she now brings unparalleled interdisciplinary expertise to the Mars 2029 mission.

Seattle-born and Canadian-raised, Harrison Wong is a dual citizen, with a PhD in Paleontology, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto. After a career hunting dinosaurs in the bone fields of Alberta and Montana, Harry transitioned to the stars, serving as a NASA Mars 2029 Mission Specialist.

Natasha “Tasha” Antipova, MD, is the Chief Medical Officer for NASA’s Mars 2029 mission, bringing extensive expertise in aerospace and emergency medicine from UTMB Galveston. A graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, with international training from First Moscow State Medical University, she leads the mission’s health operations alongside her husband, Dr. Lex Smith, a fellow team member.

Alexander “Lex” Smith earned both his Medical Degree (MD) and Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) from the University of Michigan, where he specialized in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. This unique combination of expertise is vital for the Mars 2029 mission, where crew members must manage complex medical emergencies without immediate Earth-based support. Lex has been married for over two decades to the mission’s lead physician, Dr. Tasha Antipova. Together, they battle to keep their crew safe from both the lethal hazards of Mars and the chaotic dangers of alien interference with space-time.

Mars 2029 astronaut Colonel Jean-Michel Gonin – an ISAE-SUPAERO trained aeronautical engineer and a French Air and Space Force officer – is left holding the line. While his crewmates explore the Martian surface, Gonin mans the spaceship Destiny from orbit. Disaster strikes when a sudden rift hurls the entire mission backward through time. Isolated but supremely capable, Jean-Michel must leverage his engineering knowledge to become his crew’s ultimate lifeline in the past.

Dr. Edward McAdams spent his life engineering a path to the stars. But as NASA’s Eros 2025 mission nears its end, a clandestine encounter at Sagan Station shatters his reality. A beautiful extraterrestrial named Alienne appears to Ed, declaring she came to this Solar System find her “Chosen.” Revealing she can see in the ultraviolet range, she describes his rare aura – swirling violet-white beams, the mark of keen intelligence. She asks him to consider sharing her life, to journey with her across the cosmos. Now, the MIT-trained mechanical engineer faces a crossroads: leave the Solar System to master a paradigm of technology beyond human comprehension, or remain bound to the slow, tethered progress of mankind’s local exploration. As he ponders his future, Ed wonders if his path has always been clear; that love will find a way.

The Keeper, an ancient and formidable entity, endured eons of stasis deep within Mars, waiting for a savior. Through the masterful manipulation of space-time, he averted the extinction of one of Earth’s theropod dinosaurian species, the troodontids, steering their evolution into the sentient saurian race. After his creations travel to the red planet to rescue him, he claims dominion over their solar system. Now, he rules their empire with an iron grip – until a defiant princess and her allies begin to stir the fires of rebellion.

Princess of the Two Worlds and Royal Consort to the Keeper, Dawann-dracon is the highest-ranking saurian in the solar system—and a secret rebel against the Keeper’s tyranny. But her mind is fractured by a dangerous anomaly: the memories of Dawn Stroganoff, a human female from a parallel universe where mammals rule. When the spectral image of a man named Gus invades her consciousness, her trauma is met with a shocking revelation: a human clone is being raised in a secret saurian lab. Is this Gus reborn through a rift in time? Risking everything, Dawann journeys to the lab to uncover the truth about the clone and, ultimately, to find her own destiny.

Banished into the cosmic void after a failed rebellion, the fallen warrior Alienne spent centuries piloting her spaceship through silent galaxies. Her isolation ends when she finds the blue Earth, a planet teeming with life and billions of sentient beings, most notably Dr. Edward McAdams, a brilliant NASA engineer manning a station on the asteroid Eros. Instead of a standard first contact, Alienne initiates a covert, breathtaking rendezvous as she takes Ed on a reality-bending jaunt through the Solar System. Together, they witness the blinding, crystalline refraction of Saturn’s rings and brave the toxic, methane-slush storms of Titan. Afterward, they stand at the viewport of her starship and look down on humanity's next goal, the red planet Mars. As her need for Ed's companionship overwhelms, Alienne extends an invitation in the form of a desperate ultimatum: return to his life in this backwater solar system, where future human exploration is limited, or become her “Chosen” – the co-commander who will follow her to the stars.

Deep within the wheeling stars of the Peshal’a ring galaxy dwells the Magnificent One, a warlord-scholar who treats creation as his own personal laboratory. He once hunted the insurgent Alienne; now, he guards her like a daughter, captivated by a shared cosmic stubbornness – her refusal to yield to tyrants mirrors his own refusal to bow to the laws of nature. 

One of the Ancient Ones, the Mighty Oracle has existed for billions of years. It evolved from a biological creature into an entity of pure energy, with the ability to travel anywhere in the infinite Multiverse. But when the Magnificent One reveals that a powerful, time-traveling being, the so-called Keeper, threatens the very fabric of space-time, the Mighty Oracle pledges a devastating crusade across timelines, to keep the Multiverse safe.