Meet the Celestial Serenade Human Crew

Meet the Celestial Serenade Human Crew

I talk about characters a lot on my blog. Some of them pop up over and over again, like Domerin and Azmih. That’s because these characters have been with me a long time, but many of their novel projects are still forthcoming. So I tend to write bits and drabbles to tide me over until it’s time to dig into the dark depths of their stories.

When I started this blog, I had already written the first draft of Symphony of the Stars and dug into the heart of the Celestial Serenade story. So the characters featured in the series have only graced this blog a few times in the past. I didn’t need to write drabbles with these characters because I had already plumbed their depths and discovered their voices. (Though now that I’ve finished their main stories, I’m sure some extra little bits will slip through.)

Unfortunately, this means that long-time readers won’t be overly familiar with the Celestial Serenade crew. So it seems time to rectify that!

The End of All Things, the first book in the Celestial Serenade features dual plotlines. One is focused here on Earth, while the other features a planet known as Caltara.

The opening lines of the Celestial Serenade read:
The stench of burnt flesh and charred brick stuck in Gaia’s nose for weeks, while the crash and shriek of rending metal echoed in her skull. But those weren’t the most horrifying things about the day her life fell apart.

So let’s start by introducing the human crew!

Gaia

Who is Gaia? She fancies herself an average engineer, but her life has been anything but average. Gaia is actually the result of a complex experiment. The goal was combining ancient DNA recovered from an archeological dig sight with human DNA. The goal of the project was not to resurrect a fallen or forgotten empire but, rather, to gain access to a complex and powerful deep space scanning array discovered in the same ancient tomb.

Gaia has spent most of her life studying the ancient array, unlocking its secrets so that they can be used to benefit humanity. Her life has already been something of a whirlwind at the moment the story starts. Gaia is in her early twenties. But she has already finished a high-profile masters program in order to gain her engineering degree. A feat that was made possible by the man credited for her creation, Doctor Leon Roth.

Gaia’s most distinguishing characteristic is her long, silver-colored curls, which tend to gather into ringlets around her shoulders. Her eyes are crystal blue, and often burn with the fire of determination.

Gaia has spent most of her life in a privately funded science facility located in Prague. (Incidentally the first city to fall under attack by the mysterious Dragon – which we’ll get to in a minute.) Since she alone possesses the ancient DNA of her mysterious benefactor, she alone can operate the all important array that might allow her people to discover the origins of their mysterious attacker.

If it survives the imminent destruction of Prague, that is…

Shanice Taylor

Like Gaia, Shanice is an engineer. She works on many of the same projects that occupy Gaia’s days. She also works closely with Doctor Leon Roth, the director of their shared facility. And also like Gaia, we meet her on pretty much the first page.

While Gaia could be described as impulsive and rash, always jumping into action without really thinking, Shanice could be seen as a balancing force. She is the voice of reason against acting too quickly or without thought. Shanice is meticulous – which is one of the reasons she earned her position in such a competitive field. At the moment, the force she most often balances is Gaia, making certain she doesn’t leap into the growing flames and throw all their research out the newly shattered windows.

Shanice is of African-American descent. She has soft brown eyes and often wears her long hair in cornrows or twists. Shanice grew up in the US. Her path through graduate school to become one of Doctor Roth’s assistants was long and slow. She moved to Prague a few years ago, and she and Gaia became fast friends. Now the two of them keep each other moving through what is bound to prove a difficult time.

Liam Barrows

Liam is used to being addressed by his military rank. Major Barrows was stationed near Washington D.C. when the dragon descended over the US. Liam is a no-nonsense man of hard lines and rough edges. Though he’s only in his mid-thirties, his hair is speckled with grey locks, giving him a salt-and-pepper look that makes him seem older than he actually is.

Liam grew up in upstate New York, but enlisted in the military shortly after graduating high school. A career soldier, he has seen his fair share of humanity’s darker side, but none of it quite compares to the destruction wrought by the dragon. When his superiors asked him to probe the depths of Prague – the dragon’s ground zero – for signs of Doctor Roth and his projects, he doesn’t hesitate. He knows the cost of failing to complete this mission.

More than his peers, Liam Barrows fosters a growing desire to confront their strange, dragon-shaped conqueror. Though he understands the risks involved, he spends his downtime contemplating complex attacks that might one day pierce the mechanical weapon’s metallic hide. That is the first step to driving it away and reclaiming the surface of his beleaguered planet.

The Dragon

No one knows what the dragon is or where it came from, though it certainly seems to be of alien origin. It is made of a metal so strong, no weapons on Earth seem able to pierce it – not even nuclear warheads. Its initial approach trajectory was traced through the solar system, but it moved too quickly to identify prior to its arrival.

The dragon first appeared over Prague at about midday. It opened fire without a word of warning or demand, reducing much of the city to a smoldering ruin. Its body has a mostly serpentine shape, though it does have a pair of solid hind legs as well as a pair of stubby forearms. Its wings are large and bat-like, the sails made of a strong, thin metal. From its jaw, it breathes plasma beams that melt through metal and lights the areas surrounding its attack on fire. It also drops powerful bombs during its attacks, but no one is quite sure where they’re stored.

No one has successfully approached the dragon and returned to report on its appearance or composition. But reports suggest that it is drawn to communication signals, especially large concentrations of them. Unfortunately, this makes the only safe places for humanity at the moment in the depths of the earth where they can hide their numbers, if not their communications.

If you’d like to learn more about the Celestial Serenade crew, you can find the first installment of their story on Amazon in ebook, kindle unlimited and paperback formats. And if you’d like to meet the Caltaran crew, tune in next time!

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