Laura Brandt is approximately three hundred years old, a Higher and member of the Brandt Dynasty expedition to establish a new colony outside the Commonwealth. She is a molecular physicist.
In The Abyss Beyond Dreams
Laura is one of a team of four who are sent to investigate a strange alien structure in space while her spaceship is guided toward Bienvenido by a Skylord after they were transported into the Void by an unknown force. Her team is attacked by Fallers and she is the sole survivor, managing to escape and crash-land on Bienvenido, in the middle of a vast desert. It transpires that she is trapped in a time loop, as is later discovered by Nigel Sheldon and Kysandra Blair. Sheldon is horrified by Laura's plight and resolves to rescue her, which he accomplishes near the end of the book, sending her to Bienvenido three thousand years after the time she and her ship arrived.
In A Night Without Stars
Laura is working with the government of Slvasta (who she despises) to combat an even worse threat than the Fallers: after Bienvenido was ejected from the Void due to Sheldon's attack on the Faller egg factory Bienvenido comes under attack from a nearby planet inhabited by Primes. She sacrifices herself to save the inhabitants of Bienvenido by using the wormholes found in the cellar of the palace to destroy the planet the Primes inhabit.