Sweltering Stars: the cast

This is a sci-fi novel being written pretty much for the sheer fun of it. It’s sci-fi horror (the horror stuff showing it’s first glimpses about the 5K mark) exploring transhumanism, the far (very far) future and essentially what happens when the hubris of a humanity that has spread out among six galaxies realizes it means nothing when the stars turn right and the Great Old Ones come out to play.

Cast:

Kaden: An archaeologist, Kaden is an explorer of the past who finds ways to interface with ancient technologies using modified old tech, techtweaks (sometimes alien in nature) and modern technology designed to break, scan and hack ancient systems. Nominally the leader of the expedition to the space station Nanospark VI, he knows the least about what is going on and nothing about the true nature of the universe, though he carries one alien item on him he’s hiding from everyone else, and it may be both their salvation and destruction.
He was pretty much based on how difficult it would be to get technology in the future to interface with ‘modern’ technology now, so in the future you’d need people who specialized in such things.

Lillias: a very, very well-trained security officer who is actually a cyborg (this is only technical: nothing of her is human, her memories implanted into a mechanical body - it actually makes her the most transhuman of the characters in that sense), she has done everything from bounty hunting to bodyguarding and running entire planetary security systems. If she has a flaw, it’s thinking that she is actually better than she is and being a bit too reliant on her various offensive and defensive systems and scans.
She is terrified of true darkness, though no one remembers why.

Otli: a flowing liquid entity with a human mind Otli is basically a sentient puddle that explores places and is close to unkillable (since it can switch between states of matter at need), Otli has run into one of the Great Race of Yith and barely survived the experience, its memories of the event being very, very vague. Otli definitely appears to be the most transhuman of the characters and is quite happy to use that in order to be underestimated or ignored.
It is well aware that they’re meant to all die at the station - Otli is often sent into situations to explore by the Charter where only it survives to report back - but is quite up front about this and rather puzzled as to why the Charter organization would sent along assets as valuable as Lillias and Kaden if they were meant to not survive this exploration.

Other people will show up eventually. This far all the main case have secrets - from each other and themselves - and no idea what their real mission is, or if they’re intended to survive it or not.