One Jump Ahead

303 Pages·2008·1.19 MB·English

by  Van Name Mark L

ONE JUMP AHEAD-ARC
Advance Reader Copy
TWO WOLVES IN A GALAXY
OF LARGER PREDATORS
Jon Moore: nanotech-enhanced soldier-of-
fortune.
Battlewagon Lobo: A.I.-equipped intelligence
and weapons platform (think: a fortress on wheels) of
enormous destructive potential.
Two very dangerous wolves in a galaxy of deadly corporate and
paramilitary predators. But Moore has grown weary of the killing and just
once he’d like to finish a job without leaving a trail of blood behind him.
Not going to happen. Not on a pristine planet called Macken, where two
gigantic corporations vie for control of the local jump gate and access to the
riches of an undeveloped world. Dealing with a kidnapping and extortion
scheme is only the beginning for Moore and Lobo. Next they must survive
an enormous bounty placed on Moore’s head long enough to rescue yet
again the young woman they accidentally delivered into the wrong hands.
But with the help of an old lover and under-the-table support from the
mercenary outfit that made him, Moore just might beat the odds, save the
girl, and get out of this one a little richer and one step closer to making it
back to the strange world of his origin.

One Jump Ahead: the first novel in the Jon & Lobo series
“Just when I was thinking science fiction might be over, Mark Van
Name proves that there are still smart, exciting, emotional sci-fi stories to
be told. ”
—Orson Scott Card
“Holy Squidlets, Batman! One Jump Ahead is like well-aged white
lightning: it goes down smooth then delivers a kick that knocks you on the
floor. I want to kidnap Mark Van Name and steal his brain. I also want an
illegal, souped-up racing ray. Mark’s going to be the guy to beat in the race
to the top of SFdom.”
—John Ringo
“Hard real science smoothly blended into action that blazes like a
pinball from one exotic setting to another. This one is very, very good.”
—David Drake
“One Jump Ahead is the sort of—dare I say it?—old-fashioned SF
adventure tale that I dote on. Mark Van Name’s headlong pace of story-
telling reminds me a lot of Keith Laumer, in fact. He’s one of the very few
modern authors I’ve seen who can manage that.”
—Eric Flint
“One Jump Ahead is alive with fast-paced action, wild ideas, and
characters to root for. A joy to read.”
—Jack McDevitt
Cover Art by Stephen Hickman
Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-1-
This is a work of fiction. All the
characters and events portrayed in 41652085-6
this book are fictional, and any
ISBN-10: 1-4165-2085-6
resemblance to real people or
incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright© 2007 by Mark L.
First printing, June 2007
Van Name
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
All rights reserved, including the
1230 Avenue of the Americas
right to reproduce this book or
New York, NY 10020
portions thereof in any form.
Pages by Joy Freeman
A Baen Books Original
(www.pagesbyjoy.com)
Baen publishing Enterprises
Printed in the United States of
P.O. Box 1403
America
Riverdale, NY 10471
http://www.baen.com
Electronic version by
WebWrights
http://www.webscription.net
To my mother, Nancy Livingston
Who gave me so very much, including a love of books
&
To Jennie Faries
Who for thirteen years pushed me to tell more of Jon’s life
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
David Drake reviewed and offered insightful comments on both my
outline and second draft. All of the book’s problems are my fault, of course,
but Dave deserves credit for making it far better than it would have been
without his advice.
This was the last book Jim Baen bought. I’m glad he chose it, but I’d be
happier if he had lived to see it in print. Toni Weisskopf took up the reins of
the company and skillfully brought the book to market, for which I’m
grateful.
My children, Sarah and Scott, who’ve managed to become amazing
teenagers despite having to live with The Weird Dad, put up with me
regularly disappearing into my office for long periods of time. Thanks, kids.
Several extraordinary women—my wife, Rana Van Name; Allyn Vogel;
Gina Massel-Castater; and Jennie Faries—grace my life with their
intelligence and support, for which I’m incredibly grateful.
Thank you, all.

Baen Books by Mark L. Van Name
One Jump Ahead
Slanted Jack (forthcoming)
Transhuman ed. with T.K.F. Weisskopf
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
About The Author
Chapter 1
^ »

M
aybe it was because the girl reminded me of Jennie, my lost sister and only
family, whom I haven’t seen in over a hundred years. Maybe it was because
Lobo was the first interesting thing I’d met in a while. Maybe it was because it
was time to move on, because I’d been healing and lazing on Macken long
enough. Maybe it was because I had a chance to do some good and decided to
take that chance.
Not likely, but maybe the time on Macken had healed me more than I
thought, healed me enough that I was reconnecting with the human part of me.
Also not likely, but I choose to hope.
Whatever the reason, I was lying on my back in the bottom of a four-meter-
deep pit waiting for my would-be captors to fetch me. As jungle traps go, it was
a nice one, not fancy but serviceable. They’d made it deep enough to keep me in
when I fell, but shallow enough that I’d only be injured, not killed, from the fall.
They’d blasted the walls smooth, so climbing out wouldn’t be easy. The bottom
was rough dirt, but without stakes, another welcome sign they hadn’t wanted to
kill me. The covering was reasonably persuasive, a dense gray-green layer of
rain-forest moss resting on twigs. In the dark it passed as just another stretch of
ground in the jungle—as long as you were using only the normally visible light
spectrum. In IR its bottom was enough cooler than the rest of the true jungle
floor, and its sides were enough warmer from the smoothing blasts, that the pit
stood out as an odd red and blue box beneath me. Not that I needed the IR: Lobo
was chummy with a corporate surveillance sat that was supplying him data, and
he had a bird-shaped battlefield recon drone circling the area, so he’d warned me
about the trap well before I reached it. The drone wouldn’t have lasted two
minutes in a battle, where the best result you could expect was a burst of