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