Showing results by author "Mark L. Van Name" in All Categories

Best-selling author David Drake has been creating top-notch military science fiction, space opera, and fantasy novels and stories for decades. In this all-original collection, a stellar line-up of writers pays tribute to Drake with stories as broad in range as his own fiction.

Jon Moore grew up in a prison laboratory. When he escaped with nothing but his body's nanotech enhancements and more anger than even a long lifetime could wash away, an entire planet died behind him. Memories of the things he’d done still haunted him; because of them, he often ended up helping those in need. His kindnesses frequently didn't work out well. This one really didn't work out well. This one really didn't work out well. It hurled Jon and Lobo, the intelligent assault vehicle and Jon's only friend, down an accelerating, ever more dangerous spiral.

No child should ever be a soldier. Jon Moore knew that better than most, having learned to fight to survive before he’d hit puberty. So when a former comrade, Alissa Lim, asks for his help in rescuing a group of children pressed into service by rebels on a planet no one cares to save, he agrees. Only later does he realize he’s signed up to do far more than he’d ever imagined.

The job looks simple enough: Jon Moore, the nanotech-enhanced, world-weary, soldier of fortune, agrees to help a con man, a friend from a part of his past he’d rather forget, protect a very special young boy. The deal doesn’t stay simple, as each move Jon and Lobo make results in more danger and more enemies. The situation grows even more complicated when a beautiful woman with an unclear agenda joins them in their quest.

Haunted by memories of children he could not save, Jon Moore is so increasingly self-destructive that even his best friend, the hyper-intelligent Predator-Class Assault Vehicle, Lobo, is worried. When Jon risks meeting a woman from his distant past and undertakes a high-stakes mission, Lobo fears this will be their last. The job is illegal. They have to take on one of the oldest, most powerful men alive. Two different security forces are tracking them. And Jon is falling in love.

Jon Moore wanted only to relax on the pristine planet of Macken - but Macken was the secret battleground of two megacorporations, both determined to control the local jump gate and the riches of an undeveloped world. Moore was too valuable a tool not to be used, whether or not he was willing. What the corporations didn't realize was that Moore had a mind of his own and a conscience that wouldn't let him quit until he'd righted their wrong. And Moore had Lobo - or just possibly, Lobo had Jon Moore, because this Assault Vehicle had a mind of its own,