Politics, marsquakes, dust storms, and landslides: PhD-to-be Jen Z and her fellow researchers have come through it all to find life on Mars.

Their years-long quest may have even bigger implications than anyone imagined. The harmless Martian microbe they discovered-scientific name Crimsococcus halocryophilus, nickname Crimsy-may have brought the first life to Earth, hitching a ride on rocks or dust from the Red Planet billions of years ago.

But to find out for sure means studies and tests in labs here at home.

Not so fast, say nations and corporations who helped finance the mission. They're holding our history-making visitor hostage on a space station orbiting Earth, while threatening a colossal battle for control, of patent rights and bragging rights.

How do six scientists and three space station astronauts-as resourceful as they are dedicated-fight governments, lawyers, Homeland Security, the FBI-and two trillionaires with hidden agendas?

How will they bring Crimsy to the planet it might have helped create?

Forced into the fray against overwhelming personal and professional odds, Jennifer and her team must solve key mysteries about their own lives as they lead a charge to solve the mystery of life itself.

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Physicist and science journalist Michael Martin has written hundreds of stories about dedicated scientists, researchers, and innovators whose joys, frustrations, bottlenecks, and breakthroughs push the bounds of possibility, the boundaries of space, and the limits of human understanding.