In a future where asteroids are being actively mined and comets are being intentionally crashed into the Venusian atmosphere to cool the planet down for eventual colonization, a violent civil war breaks out in America over repeal of the Second Amendment.

On one side is a fanatical religious right, on the other a spineless liberal administration.

Caught inbetween are space-travelers returning home from a stint on Mars. Among them is one Butch Hogan, a spacejockey in the employ of Transcomet Industries. Butch works atop the highest of all steels, orbiting electromagnetic mass drivers crucial to the asteroid trade.

Upon landing, he must choose up sides in the ever-widening war.

Now, join Butch Hogan and his companions on an intense voyage through the future of our Constitutional rights.

Review from the prestigious

SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE:

THE GRANDFATHER PARADOX

by Steven Burgauer

This particular author has written some entertaining sections in this kitchen sink novel that involves time travel back to the post Civil War era, a trip to the planet Mars, being marooned in another system, and so on. There's also clones, monsters, battles, escapes, etc. The writing is occasionally rough but competent for the most part, and you won't find much more in the way of adventure than is contained herein.

by SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE'S Don D'Ammassa, August 1998

CHAPTER ONE

The sniper was in position, in his nest, well before the big game got underway. He was camouflaged from view by a chameleon ghillie suit. The barrel of his rifle was sheathed in an identical chameleon barrel wrap. The material on both the ghillie and the wrap was adaptive and light-sensitive. It adjusted to the tapestry of its surroundings, became neutral to thermal. It made the nest virtually indistinguishable from the background. No one would see him lying there on the rooftop taking aim, not even the surveillance drones that regularly circled overhead.

This man was a cold-hearted killer, a washout from the U.S. military, Omega Special Forces to be exact. He had no confusion about bonding with his targets or holding back on his adrenaline. Once everyone in the stadium was on their feet standing — and while the National Anthem was still being played — he was going to murder as many spectators as he could before he ran out of ammunition. This time, there would be no holding back.

The sniper’s name was Branislav Karpinski. Friends called him the “Carp.” But then again, enemies were few. — And not because the man was so well liked; because they didn’t last long. The story was still told of an occasion when a chap he knew called him Bran Flake, trying to make light of his first name. That man had suffered a brutal end. When his body was found a week later, he was so badly beaten around the face, not even his wife was able to make a positive I.D.

Branislav Karpinski was an immigrant from Central Europe. He had a head of dark wiry hair, plus a mouthful of straight white teeth. Sadly, those teeth rarely smiled; for Branislav Karpinski was not a happy fellow. And yet, on those rare occasions, when he saw a funny cartoon, he would laugh so hard, tears would roll down his cheeks.

The man was only vaguely interested in people, though he was always amused by life’s little surprises. Branislav was religious to a degree, liked what he’d heard in Puritan City from the Reverend Roland Whitmore. He was also the most unforgiving and ruthless killer to ever walk God’s green Earth.

Branislav reached into his bag, now. This wasn’t the first time. He had done it every hour like clockwork since first settling into position in his nest.

The bag was filled with fine sand, very lightweight. Branislav extended his arm, let a handful slip through his fingers, watched it settle to the ground. The particles drifted slightly to the left with the breeze. He looked at a distant flag hanging nearly motionless, ran the numbers through his head, compared the results to the dial on his shooter’s watch. The rule-of-thumb formula for wind velocity was straightforward enough:

Hold paper, dust, or grass at arm’s length and allow it to drop. Point to where it lands. Divide the angle between the extended arm and the body by four to get wind velocity in miles per hour. To get the answer in kloms, divide the angle by two point five.

Then, to manually adjust the rifle’s sight for wind shear, take the range to target in hundreds of yards, multiply it by the wind velocity in miles per hour, and divide the product by fifteen. This is the number of clicks left or right needed to adjust the setting on the sights. An equivalent formula existed for metric ranges and velocities.

For those weak in mathematics, a shooter’s watch could take out some of the guesswork. But, on this particular occasion, precision shooting wasn’t the objective. Today, Branislav didn’t care who he hit. Unlike a traditional hostage situation, where there were hostages whose lives had to be spared, collateral damage was not an issue here. In those other situations, a sniper didn’t want to accidentally hit one of the hostages. What he wanted to do was kill only one person in the group — the terrorist — and do it at long range, without harming anyone else. That made his job extremely difficult.

But on this particular day the sniper didn’t care who he hit. It just didn’t matter. All he wanted to do was kill as many spectators as he could, and do it in as short a time as possible.

To do the job, Branislav used a solid, hard-jacketed, military-issue round. The “Unlucky Thirteen,” as it was called in the trade, was known for its accuracy, stability, and penetration. Legend had it the big shell got its name on account of its approximate weight in grams. It was a big mother of a bullet, and only an M35 sniper rifle could deliver it reliably on target.

Branislav’s nest was an air-conditioning unit atop a multi-storied building four blocks from the stadium. He had scouted it on multiple occasions. The vantage was good, escape easy and quick. Not that it mattered. Even if Colonel Barnes wanted him to return to base camp unscathed, Branislav Karpinski didn’t particularly care if he got away clean.

The sniper had made his way to his rooftop nest in the wee hours of this morning, while darkness still hung over the land. After settling in, he made some initial measurements with his laser rangefinder. Hardcore old-timers might take sightings and calculate angles on nearby objects, then use the trig tables in their sniper data book. But this sniper liked his high-tech toys, especially his shooter’s watch.

He looked down at it now on his wrist and gently peeled back the dark, vinyl cover to reveal its illuminated face. A shooter’s watch was more like a wrist-capable minicomputer than an actual timepiece. It was a tactical watch engineered to perform a specific set of aiming calculations for the long-range shooter. It accepted a series of critical inputs, then displayed on the watch face the appropriate number of clicks to make on any model riflescope to properly adjust for wind and elevation. The input variables were many. Bullet weight. Muzzle velocity. Height above bore. Calibre. Barometric pressure. Air temperature. Wind speed and direction. Angle of inclination. Distance to target.

Branislav found comfort, in the dark, in his adaptive ghillie suit. Though only millimeters thick, the suit made him feel warm, as if he were home, in the loving arms of a woman.

The darkness closed in around him, now. He drifted off to sleep. But it was “field sleep,” not natural sleep, an inbetween state familiar to any combat soldier.

When a man is in field on a mission, perhaps days on end, he cannot stay awake around the clock. But a trained man can trust in his concealment to “field sleep” at night. He can sleep, yet still keep part of his mind on alert. He is asleep but also awake. His mind is resting and his eyes are closed. Yet, if anything moves nearby or if something makes a sound that registers as being dangerous, he is instantly and completely awake.

Field sleep is not the only behavioral skill an accomplished sniper must master. He must also learn how to consciously slow his heart rate. This enables him to literally shoot between heartbeats, a critical skill once you realize that the thump of a single heartbeat can throw a shot off by as much as a meter at long-range. It is all part of his biofeedback training — being able to selectively warm a trigger finger or foot that has gotten cold, being able to lie perfectly still for hours, being able to let the body rest while keeping the mind active. Fatigue kills snipers, not other snipers.

As for other bodily functions, a man does what he has to do. Liquids go in a bottle, solids in a plastic bag. Both go with the sniper when he leaves his nest.

As for nourishment, a man eats when he’s hungry — usually trail mix — and drinks constantly. Dehydration leads to fatigue, and fatigue kills snipers.

...

Branislav jerked suddenly awake. A robin was tending to her young nearby. They were chirping loudly. The sun was coming up.

Kick-off was scheduled for 11 a.m. That meant the stadium would be abuzz with activity by 8 a.m. First the robo-vendors, then the janitorial people, the press, then the fans. Concession stands usually opened by 9:30 a.m., the first drunks getting rowdy by 10 a.m.

Branislav had breakfast, a chocolate bar, a handful of walnut bits, two pieces of dried fruit. He took a swig of water to wash it all down.

He brought out his scope and laser rangefinder, readjusted his sights for a range of eight hundred and twenty meters, the distance to Section BB in the upper stands.

A shadow passed overhead, a surveillance drone. In these United States, there were precious few open-air stadiums. The few that did still exist were patrolled by drones, both overhead and in the stands.

But Branislav wasn’t worried. His camouflaged suit would keep him hidden from prying robotic eyes.

Karpinski waited for the drone to pass, then once again slid his hand into the bag. Once again out came a handful of fine sand. He extended his arm, let the sand slip through his fingers. This would be the last time. Then a final, tiny adjustment to his sights.

Branislav lowered the handle of the bolt fully. This action locked a round securely in the chamber. The heavy, tripod-mounted gun could be single-loaded or clip-loaded, nineteen rounds to a clip. He had eight clips within easy reach of his gun. Each was filled with a full complement of Unlucky Thirteens, all machined to be lethal, all machined to be virtually identical.

Branislav took a sip of water, let his finger find its place on the trigger. He adopted a breathing rhythm that would cause the least amount of movement to his sights. He adjusted for the first shot by sliding his right knee back and away from his heart.

In contrast to the last seven hours of inactivity, things now moved with uncanny speed. People were wound up, excited for the big game, waving, jostling for seats, balancing food in their arms, chili dogs, popcorn, beer.

The announcer quieted the crowd. People came to attention, hands over their hearts. The singer began to belt out the National Anthem. The sniper held his sights on the upper lip of a big, pot-bellied fan with an orange and black tee shirt.

Thwoomp!

The rifle spat out its venom with barely a cough. Branislav rocked back with the gentle recoil.

A killing shot drops a man so fast, it seems the earth just swallows him up.

The only hint that a large man had been standing there an instant before was a faint pink halo of bloody tissue and bone suspended briefly in the morning air. The pink mist dissolved almost as fast as it formed.

Thwoomp! Thwoomp! Thwoomp!

Three more bloody mists. Three more dead bodies. The dead fans collapsed in the stands even before the sounds of the shots reached the rest of the crowd.

Thwoomp! Thwoomp! Thwoomp! Thwoomp! Thwoomp!

Now some people in the crowd began to scream. A few tried to run, elbows flaring. Most didn’t know what to do. One or two stooped over the crumpled bodies, horror on their faces. A few of the more sensible ones hurled themselves to the ground, frantically urging the rest to dive for cover.

Thwoomp! Thwoomp! Thwoomp!

The music stopped. Airborne drones began to take notice, started to triangulate his position. Panic began to grip the stands. A crushing stampede got underway. No one had yet figured out from which direction the shots were coming.

But the Unlucky Thirteens kept on coming. The sniper wasn’t done yet. Not by a long measure.

Three more minutes and nearly eighty more rounds were still to be fired before the murderous rampage was over.