Killswitch: Cassandra Kresnov, Book 3

Two years after the un-hatching of Callayan President Neiland's plot to make the capital city of Tanusha the center of the Federation, Callay is under siege. So begins the third installment of this gripping trilogy from an exciting new sci-fi author.

A powerful faction of conservative Fleet captains has surrounded Callay, at Earth's behest, and is threatening a blockade - or worse. A fearful Earth does not wish to lose direct control of its precious war machine, and there are fears of civil war. All that Callay has to oppose the warships of the Fleet is the Callayan Defense Force (CDF) - a newly formed group of raw recruits led by a politically hamstrung general. However, the CDF is largely trained and organized by Major Vanessa Rice and her best friend, Callay's combat-android, Commander Cassandra Kresnov. But when Cassandra's lover, Special Agent Ari Ruben, discovers a plot to kill her using a killswitch, which her old masters in the League built into her brainstem, Sandy is forced to go underground to stay alive.

Joel Shepherd is the author of Crossover and Breakaway, the two previous novels in the Cassandra Kresnov series. Born in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1974, he was raised in Perth in Western Australia. He studied film and television at Curtin University but realized that what he really wanted to do was write stories. His first manuscript was short-listed for the George Turner Prize in 1998, and Crossover was short-listed in 1999. Visit Joel Shepherd's website at www.joelshepherd.com.