After the attempt to establish a colony at Proxima Centauri ends in disaster, humanity attempts to establish a colony at Trappist. The next closest habitable star system, 40 light years away from Earth. An advanced scout team is shocked at what they discover. Can they avert another disaster? Is humanity trapped in the star system of their birth or do they have what it takes to make humanity citizens of the stars?

Eugene Hamilton, commander of an Earth mission to colonize the Trappist system, wakes after eighty years asleep aboard scout ship Exo-1. Once awake, Hamilton and his crew must choose which of the Trappist planets is best suited for human settlement, and they only have four months to make the decision before the ship Atlantis will arrive with five thousand colonists. Choosing the right location is no easy task. Numerous factors need to be considered, but what the humans did not expect was to discover traces of a vanished civilization. Not only do they find ruins of the Marzon aliens, but they discover this people were exterminated by another alien race. This race has left behind robots to defend the planet. While Exo-1's crew believes it can secure the planet against these robotic defenders, it's less certain it can defend itself if the robot's creators return and plan to colonize. For a while, all seems to go well as the colony begins operations. But then an alien ship approaches. Will these aliens be willing to make peace and compromise in sharing the planets, or will they seek to exterminate the humans, just like they did to the Marzon? Readers will love the suspense of Colonizing Trappist, Book 1 in Chris Shockowitz' new Outward Bound trilogy, complete with fascinating alien life forms, space-age technology, and moral quandaries about respecting life.