Here’s a little excerpt from the first chapter of Omicron: Millennium. If it looks like something you’d like to read more of, head on over to Amazon to get your own copy! (Photo of Aztlan made in PlanetMaker)

The spaceport on Aztlan had always been a busy place at any time during the calendar year. Any good trader or merchant could tell you that. Travel between the Omicron Quadrant and the Theta Quadrant – adjacent to Omicron – had always been heavy, and it was no less today. It was surprising that the wormhole connecting the two had not collapsed yet due to the traffic. The Omicron Quadrant depended on the trade both within and outside of its borders, primarily to pay off war debts.

Humans were not uncommon within the quadrant, but those traveling to the Omicron Quadrant were rare, so today was a special day. Today, a human was arriving, and her life would be forever changed. Most of her predecessors decided a century ago that they were done with settling on distant planets that were always at war. The humans already in the quadrant mainly worked for the government or in other leadership capacities or in more questionable arrangements. Iris Porter was about to find out just where she fell into this mix.

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A large transport ship descended on a landing platform on the outskirts of the Aztlan Spaceport. The spaceport was shrouded in a thick layer of smog and other air pollutants that the ships going to and from the port left behind. The transport ship that had just landed lowered its massive doors, and a multitude of different species piled out of the ship as soon and as fast as they could. Among the multitude was Iris Porter.

Iris hauled her pack further up on her shoulder as she was jostled by the aliens around her. This was her first time in the Omicron Quadrant, and she was already overwhelmed by all of the species she had never seen before. Iris followed the crowd onto a smaller transport ship that took them to the heart of the Aztlan Spaceport. She was used to being in new places, but this port was like nothing she had ever experienced in the Alpha or Gamma Quadrant back in the Milky Way. The whole city was alive with people, even though it was very early in the morning. The twin suns were just beginning to rise.

All around her, different species of aliens were buying, selling, and scuttling off to different areas in the port. Shops along the main road were opening, and the smell of cooking food began to cover up the stench of exhaust coming from the ships flying above. Iris came to a stop to take in the scene around her. On a building in front of her was a sign that had a picture of a man, human, pointing at her and grinning. He looked to be middle-aged with brown hair, streaked with grey, but even the static picture captured the youthfulness in his eyes. The words next to him read, “Welcome to Aztlan! The trading and bargaining hub of Omicron! Come start your business here!” The picture changed, showing the same man advertising a hotel with the name “ROYAL FLUSH” written in big letters across the top and an arrow pointing to the right. Iris looked to her right, and a few blocks over was the same massive, imposing building. It towered above all of the other buildings in the area and must have been at least one hundred stories tall. When she looked back at the sign, it had changed again. This time, the man was drinking a purple liquid out of a glass bottle. It was an advertisement for DR. GALAXY’S COLA! THE COLDEST AND BEST COLA IN THE QUADRANT! In fact, the building the billboard was on seemed to be Dr. Galaxy’s headquarters, if the giant sign at the top was any indication.

More and more people began side-stepping around her. She continued watching the billboard in front of her, not paying attention to her surroundings. A moment later, someone ran into her from behind. Whoever it was caught her in a secure grip before she fell over. She let out a startled cry and turned around in the person’s arms once she steadied herself.

“Hey, Lewis! Now’s not the time to be flirting! We’re gonna be late!” a woman shouted from the doorway of a nearby pub.

Iris looked at her and then at the person who was still holding onto her arms. The ‘person’ was a young man with short, dark hair, who she concluded was Lewis. He had a kind face, and Iris could tell right away that he was not human due to the small ridge between his eyes that rose up on his forehead. He was giving her a startled look.

“I am so sorry! I was rushing and wasn’t looking where I was going! Please forgive me!” he said hurriedly.

“Lewis!” the woman in the doorway exclaimed, giving the two an exasperated look.

“Yeah, I’ll be right there!” he called back to her. He then looked back at Iris. “Sorry again.”

“It’s fine, really! No harm done,” she said reassuringly, moving her arms out to the side, demonstrating that she really was okay.

This did not seem to satisfy him because he offered to buy her a drink, all the while, his companion was yelling at him to hurry up.

“A drink? This early in the morning?” Iris asked.

“Not uncommon in our line of work,” the woman, who appeared to be around the same age as Iris with short, dark hair, and a headband covering her ears, said briskly when she walked up to them. She looked like someone Iris would rather not cross. She was taller than Iris and carried herself like she owned the place.

The woman grabbed Lewis’s arm and started hauling him toward the pub. Iris stared after them, dumbfounded. Iris had just noticed the fact that the two of them had blasters hanging at their hips among other various small weapons strapped to their persons, and who knows what else under their coats. Her initial thought was that they were criminals of some sort.

Great, my first trip to the Omicron Quadrant and I’ve already run into trouble! I haven’t even been here five minutes, she thought miserably.

Right before the two mysterious persons entered the pub, the woman looked back at her, her face holding an annoyed expression. “Well? Aren’t you coming? Klutz here just offered you a drink, remember?” she called.

“Oh, right!” Iris exclaimed, shaking out of her reverie.

Iris thought that it would be best if she did what they said, lest they turn out to be something less than friendly. She quickly followed them, weaving in and out of the people between her and the pub. As she entered the bar, she knew almost at once that she had gotten herself into some deep trouble. The bar appeared to be filled with the roughest kind of people, even at six in the morning. It seemed that all of them were carrying a blaster of some sort, and they were all dressed like the woman and Lewis. All eyes turned to the three newcomers for a brief moment. The woman took a step forward, her hand resting on the hilt of her blaster. Upon seeing this, everyone went back to what they were previously doing. The woman smirked, nodded at Lewis and Iris, then walked off to sit in a secluded alcove where one other person was already sitting. Maybe she really did own the place.

Lewis guided Iris to the bar. “Anything in particular you’d like?” he asked as they sat down.

“Um, tea?”

Lewis stared at her like she had sprouted another head. “Listen, sweetie, you’re in a bar. On Aztlan. They don’t serve tea. Only cold, stiff drinks.”

Iris’s cheeks reddened. “Oh, um, well, I guess I’ll have whatever you have.”

Lewis chuckled at that. “Alright, two of the usual then, Barzog. On my tab,” he said to the creagan bartender, a large, rough-looking alien with a horrendous underbite.

Barzog grunted and turned away. Lewis then took this time to study Iris, tilting his head to the side. Iris was beginning to get uncomfortable under his scrutinizing gaze.

“See anything interesting?” she asked, attempting to break the silence.

He chuckled again. “You’re not from around here, are you? Human?” he asked, checking her ears for any indication she might not be.

Iris nodded, feeling suddenly self-conscious. She was probably the only human within five light years of this place.

“Well, that’s something! We don’t see many new humans around here anymore. Most humans we see are in the government. Or Mr. Royal T. Flush, who owns the entirety of Aztlan. Humans have stopped moving here for the most part.”

That answered Iris’s question on who the man was on the billboard. But she was very aware of the fact that she was one of the few humans on the planet. She then decided to be bold and asked him what he was.

She had done a fair amount of research on the quadrant, but between the time she decided to leave Earth and now had not allowed enough time to do a thorough job.

A pained look crossed Lewis’s face so briefly that Iris was not even sure she saw it. He quickly gave her a goofy smile.

“Did the ridge give it away?” he asked, gesturing to the single peak between his eyes. “Yeah, I’m lorav. Well, part lorav. I don’t know what the other part of me is, actually… Never had enough money to find out. My mother was a lorav, and I never met my father,” he explained.

Iris nodded, fascinated. She had heard of the lorav through her grandfather, who used to travel to the Omicron Quadrant quite often as a merchant. “A very curious race,” he used to say. “A very kind and under-appreciated race. No one seemed to like them very much, but there was never a reason why anyone should dislike them. Very technologically advanced. Most of them were scientists and engineers. And, the poor things, they were nearing extinction last I heard.” It had been twenty years ago that her grandfather had told her that. Iris decided that if an opportunity presented itself, she would ask Lewis about it. She just hoped things had improved for his people.

“I’m Lewis, by the way. Lewis Auznarr,” he said, extending his hand to her.

Iris shook his hand and returned his smile. “Iris Porter. It’s nice to meet you.”

He then gestured to the woman who was talking to the man in the alcove. “That’s Kansas Smith. Captain Kansas Smith to be exact.”

Iris gave him a puzzled look. “Kansas Smith? That sounds like a human name.”

Lewis chuckled. “If you knew anything about Kansas, that wouldn’t be surprising. She’s obsessed with your species’ cowboy stories. The ‘Harsh West,’ or something like that.”

“I think the term you’re looking for is ‘Wild’ West,” Iris corrected, laughing lightly.

Lewis pointed at her. “Yeah, that’s it! Kansas is always talking about those stories she reads. The ones about the showdowns and the shootouts, and riding around on those beasts called horses, I believe. She even found one of those hats they used to wear one time when we visited an old human settlement. She didn’t take it off for a month!”

Iris took the time while Lewis was talking to see what Kansas was doing and what she had been in a hurry to get to. She appeared to be in a meeting with what Iris assumed to be a man. An intense meeting, in fact. The man, whose skin was tinted green, had small, beady, dark eyes and three antennae atop its head, was chattering away wildly in some language Iris did not understand. Kansas seemed to know what it was saying, however. She looked on with a bored expression upon her face. Occasionally, she would roll her eyes as if the alien had said something exasperating. Kansas then placed her hand on the table, pointing at something between them.

“Listen, we’ve completed the contract, we got the guy, and we expect payment in full,” Iris managed to hear Kansas say.

Lewis leaned close to Iris. “We’ve had problems with this client before. Asks us to fulfill fairly large contracts to bring in bigwigs for large sums of money, but then has problems actually paying us,” he explained, his eyes fixed on Kansas and their client.

“What is it you two do exactly?” Iris asked, panic stirring in her chest again as she thought that they were thieves or assassins or something that she would prefer not to get involved with.

Lewis gave her a sideways glance. “We’re bounty hunters.”

Iris paled and swallowed thickly. Oh, great, she thought. Just great. They’re bounty hunters who probably work for some drug lord or the leader of some notorious space pirates.

“We work for Maggie Croft: Prime Minister of the Omicron Quadrant,” he added, taking note of her panicked expression with a slight smile.

Iris then turned to look at him. That definitely made a difference.

“I don’t care if your boss lost some money in the Space Market. Our contract clearly states that Lieutenant Auznarr and I would be paid, in full, on the completion of the contract. Same with all of the other contracts we’ve fulfilled for your boss,” Kansas’s voice cut through the din in the bar and distracted Iris for the moment. “We made an agreement last time that you would give us our money no later than one week after the contract was completed. It has been a week and a day.”

The bug-like man made more excited chattering noises, its fingerless hands flying. Kansas stared at him a moment, dislike and annoyance prominent on her face. She then shook her head, pulled her blaster from its holster, shoved the end of it against the man’s chest, and shot him. He fell forward with a thump onto the table.

The whole bar went silent. Lewis’s face was grim with a hint of annoyance, much like Kansas’s. Iris stared on, looking horrified. Kansas felt around in the man’s vest pockets as if searching for the money that was owed to her but came up with nothing. She then stood with an air of superiority about her. She looked out at the silent bar, her blaster aimed at the ceiling.

“Anyone else want a go?” she asked the bar’s patrons.

Everyone quickly went back to their own business, acting as if they had not seen or heard anything. Two waiters silently and discreetly removed the body of the bug-like man from the alcove.

Lewis sighed and turned to his drink. “The PM won’t be happy about this…” he muttered before he took a long swig of the orange liquid in his glass.

Iris watched as Kansas walked to the other end of the bar to talk to whom Iris assumed was the manager, for he seemed distressed at her drastic action. Iris then slowly turned back and stared down at her own orange drink. She was silent for a long moment.

Finally, she took a deep breath and looked at Lewis, who was quietly nursing his drink. “Why did she do that?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Old habits die hard. No pun intended.”

Iris stared at him, wide-eyed. “Old habits? Since when is killing an old habit?!” she asked incredulously.

Again, Lewis shrugged. “Since Kansas was first trained to be an assassin.”

Iris went back to staring at her untouched drink. Forget the fact that the two worked for the prime minister of the quadrant. One of them was an assassin. Iris then had an unpleasant thought. If Kansas was a trained killer, then what was Lewis? She gave him a wary, sidelong look. He certainly did not seem the type, but then again, as far as outward appearances go, Kansas did not either. They might look like scruffy thieves, but certainly not killers.

“Lewis, we need to get out of here. Your friend too,” Kansas’s voice sounded from right behind her, startling Iris from her thoughts. “She’s seen and knows too much if you’ve been your usual blabby self today.”                   

Lewis frowned and turned toward Kansas. “But I just ordered another drink,” he complained.

Kansas gave him an exasperated look. “There’s no time! They are on their way.”

Iris debated on whether she could make it to the door quickly enough without getting caught and make a run for it, but Lewis’s reaction to what Kansas had said made her think that she would probably be safer with them.

Lewis jumped to his feet as if he had been shot at. “What?! How’d they find us? We masked our warp trail. They wouldn’t have been able to track us here.”

Kansas began walking to the back of the bar. Lewis followed, grabbing Iris’s arm along the way to make sure she stayed with them.

Iris, still in shock, did not have time to protest.

“At some point during our talk, our former client sent a transmission to the silhadox, informing them of our location,” Kansas explained.

“Who are the silhadox?” Iris asked, her sense returning to her.

“The bad guys,” Lewis said rather bluntly.

“They’re enemies of my people, the eldevians,” Kansas clarified, looking grim.

It was then Iris noticed that Kansas was indeed an alien if the shape of her ears under the headband and two small ridges that ran along the length of her nose were any indications. The three of them reached the back door, and Kansas cast one last glance back at the entrance. Unfortunately, it was at that exact moment that two hulking reptilian creatures armed with big, heavy guns walked through the door, their large, orange eyes locking immediately onto Kansas. Kansas’s own eyes widened, and she turned to push Lewis and Iris out of the door, yelling at them to run.

And run they did. For miles, it seemed to Iris. They ran through the busy, dusty streets of the port. Various praxans and flugs thrust their wares at them, asking for “only one hundred credits,” while others cheated unaware travelers out of their money. The three continued to run past all of the shops and restaurants that Iris could not even begin to describe as they went by in such a blur. Finally, when she thought her lungs and legs could take no more, they reached a docking port where they ran up to a run-down looking ship. Iris stopped short.

“What is-? Are we actually getting in that thing?” she panted, eyeing it warily.

The ship honestly looked like it could fall apart at any moment. It was a brownish green color, with two beat up engines on its stern. On the port side of the ship was the name Star Chaser and it looked like it had been painted on quite crudely. It was a small ship compared to the freighters that were docked around it, and it looked as though it had been through several phaser beatings as dark scorch marks were adorning its sides.

Kansas spun around at hearing Iris’s words and looked royally offended. “This ‘thing,’ as you call it,” she said sharply, “happens to be. My. Ship. And if you have a problem with my ship, I will push you out of the airlock as soon as we break orbit.”

Iris immediately quieted at this and did not say another word for a long while. They quickly boarded the vessel and went directly to the cockpit. There, Kansas and Lewis took their places at the controls: Kansas at tactical, Lewis at the helm, and Iris in one of the seats behind them.

“Alright, Lewis. Engage engines, release docking clamps, and begin ascent,” Kansas ordered.

They both began tapping the controls. Iris heard the engines whir to life and a loud thud from under the ship.

“Engines engaged, docking clamps released, beginning ascent,” Lewis said as the ship began to rise.

They had not gotten very far in the air when the ship shuddered from what sounded like blaster fire hitting the port hull.

“They’re firing on us!” Lewis exclaimed, tapping rapidly at the controls.

“Where are the shields?!” Kansas yelled as they continued to be fired upon.

“I haven’t had time to fix them yet!” Lewis replied.

“Then get us the hell out of here!”