Dreadnought

Author's Notes

Dreadnought is a Sci-Fi thriller. Unlike GODNet, which takes place in the future, Dreadnought occurs in our time. I thought it would be interesting to take a political/warfare thriller and spice it up with a little science fiction. The premise for the story is that some secrets are better left unknown. In the book, Dreadnought is a classified U.S. government program run under the Special Forces Operations Command. It's backed by an executive order from the president to step up counterterrorism efforts by "any and all means necessary". Of course, the president doesn't know what "any and all" equates to. After all, he's focused on getting  reelected.

The Dreadnought Program centers around a scientific discovery involving an alien virus that rewrites the genetic code of a person, morphing them into something "better than human." Consider it a fast-track course in mammalian evolution. The government's experiment is working well. Operatives are quickly dispatching targets and terrorism is down. But wouldn't you know it, something has to go awry. There's dissention in the ranks and the baby's outgrown its parents, so to speak.

Dreadnought is about a political time bomb waiting to explode. Two unlikely individuals pair up to stop the project. One is Martín, a recluse living in the jungles of Argentina, the first to be infected with the virus; the other, Lisa Gutierrez, a field agent for the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations. Martín runs into Agent Gutierrez during her investigation of a missing soldier found dead in South America. Gutierrez doesn't know what she's gotten herself into. Her probe has caused her to become a target by those in charge of the Dreadnought Program. If what she discovers gets out, the damage could lead all the way up to the presidency. Martín is willing to do anything to protect her so he can find out the truth behind his alien origins. The closer the two come to discovering the truth, the harder it becomes to stay alive.

Dreadnought is the fourth book on my list of Sci-Fi/Fantasy projects, the first two being Volumes I and II of The Chosen One (Prophecy and Destiny, respectively), my contemporary fantasy epic, and the other being GODNet, my first Sci-Fi thriller. Like its predecessors, Dreadnought is an exciting project for me. I have already written the prologue and a couple of chapters. But this project is last in terms of writing priorities. I don't think I'll get to it until--eek!--2011.