One Jump Ahead by Mark L Van Name

Author:Mark L Van Name [Name, Mark L Van]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Adventure
ISBN: 9781416555575
Google: EPvBJgAACAAJ
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2008-05-20T04:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 17

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I instructed the cab to return to Queen’s Bar via a long route with four switchbacks. I planned to spend another half an hour there in countersurveillance maneuvers on the off chance Chung’s men had spotted me or Earl had Saw soldiers on my trail. As the vehicle skimmed over the highway, I sat back and pondered the logistics of approaching Lim. I could probably afford her fee straight up, but I was getting tired of pouring so much of my own money into simply staying alive. Besides, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that discovering a corporate illegal arms deal and delivering it to the planetary government ought to be worth significant money. I didn’t see the opening yet, but I resolved to examine the issue further over the next few days; money was lurking somewhere in all this.

Lim, though, presented the more pressing and immediate issue, so I returned my focus to her. Try as I might to think only about how best to recruit her, I couldn’t avoid recalling the last time we saw action together. Willing down the hardcore sensory memories that cried for release in my head, I focused on the facts, hoping that by reviewing them I could leach some of the pain from the experience.

We’d been humping on Nana’s Curse, a planet that spun around a young star three jumps from anyplace I’d ever heard of. A world of startling weather, with microclimates so extreme it dragged even the best forecasting technology out of its computational depth, the planet had been a place no large organization ever wanted to colonize. Over time, however, the extreme weather attracted dozens of the various nature-worshipping cults that had started on Earth and spread outward along with the rest of humanity. Despite their varying belief systems, these cults had managed to find enough common ground to live in peace in settlements scattered across the planet’s largest continent. They’d even created a planetary government and joined the Frontier Coalition in the vain hope that formal representation might keep away the major corporations.

Then the Purifiers, the most militant and heavily armed of the many militant and well-armed one-god cults, discovered the world and its hordes of evil heathens, and all hell broke loose. I’ve never been a fan of dirt worshippers, but they were always either peaceful or so inept at violence as to not pose any problems for anyone other than themselves. The Purifiers, however, hated any religion other than their own. They pursued an ancient, simple approach to any place they found weak enough to attack: convert those who’ll accept the truth, and kill the rest.

The FC had contracted with the Saw to force the Purifiers off Nana’s Curse, and in the process we’d spent months crawling from town to town, taking back those locations the Purifiers had overrun, burying the thousands of dead who’d possessed too much belief or too little sense to convert, and ferreting out the slash-and-burn squads that were purifying the smaller villages.

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