Last Week on Tuesday, I watched my father die. My brother Josh was there, as was Dad’s wife, Joyce. We were standing around his bed as the Hospital Staff unplugged his life support. The previous Thursday Morning, he had a massive heart attack and stopped breathing. But they managed to get his heart restarted but he had been without oxygen to his brain for about five minutes. He was in a coma since the heart attack.

We held on to hope that he would recover. That he would wake up. An MRI scan was done and it showed a glimmer of hope, initially… But then a neurologist took a look at it and determined that the damage was severe throughout all of the brain.

We all knew Dad didn’t want to live like this. He had a DNR on file… that the hospital wasn’t aware of initially… And we knew his chances were almost zero, and it turns out to have been exactly zero. We didn’t know what would happen once we pulled the life support… He his body could kick in and he’d live. Or he would expire… Doctors said it could be five minutes or five days… In God’s mercy, it was only about 1 minute. His body gasped for air for awhile and then the gasps came fewer and fewer until it all stopped.

In the very moment of his passing… He smiled. Just before he went slack. I believe it’s because he saw his Father, his Mother, his brother Bruce, and my brother Zach.

I’m grateful for these last few years I had with him… Because we had always had a rocky relationship and I had learned a great deal about him that I didn’t know. This knowledge became an understanding of the reality of things that he had always kept away from me and my brothers. All the pieces came together and the picture it made was one of a man that sacrificed so much for us. For me. I didn’t know how much he loved me until the end. I had no idea. I miss him terribly.

Shadow over Miskatonic is now available in Paperback.

The Shadow over Miskatonic is now available on Kindle, and in a couple of day, the Paperback version will also be available.

It’s been some time since I got a Hate Post on MadOgre.com. This one made me laugh. Shame people like this never use their real info when they do this. I’d really like to have a reasonable conversation. But I can just imagine the bright green, half-shaved hair and horn-rimmed glasses… so… Being able to be reasonable on any level is probably not something he can do. This is the only kind of discourse the Letists are only capable of these days.

Ruger SFAR .308, topped with the Primary Arms SLx 3x MicroPrism. It’s hard to really wrap your head around just what the SFAR is. It’s an AR-15… It’s the size of an AR-15, and it’s the weight of an AR-15. But it’s not really an AR-15, because it’s chambered in .308. And as everyone knows, that would make this an AR-10. But it’s not an AR-10. At all. It’s a solid two POUNDS lighter than an AR-10. It’s smaller than an AR-10… it’s NOT – at all – an AR-10. So what is this thing? It’s the SFAR. *shrug* it is what it is… A .308 AR-15.

How did Ruger do this? Most all the small parts are all AR-15 parts. The difference is that you have the longer Magwell to fit AR-10 Magazines… Slightly longer receiver. And the BCG is bigger… About halfway between a 15’s BCG and a 10’s… It’s the only real unique parts group.

Even fully loaded, you can feel that the rifle is much lighter, and balances much better than any AR-10. Now, that would normally mean you are going to suffer from ferocious recoil. But thankfully, shooting the SFAR is actually pleasant if you are at an outdoor range. This is thanks to the extremely effective Muzzle Brake. It looks like it’s right off a WWII Hellcat Tank Destroyer… And if you are standing to the side of one being fired – it’s going to feel like that. But to the shooter, it’s just fun.

Everything on the SFAR is selected and designed to be light. The highly skeletonized handguards up front, and the Magpul SL stock at the back. Everything on it feels good, and I feel no need to change anything. The MOE grip even feels great, though it’s not my first choice. I’d rather have the Ergo rubberized grip, but not enough to bother spending the bucks and swapping it out. Anything else would probably just add weight and not add any tangibly better results. To complement the Light Weight and Simple approach to things that this rifle offers, the Optic I selected was the Primary Arms SLx 3x Micro Prism optic. It’s a very solid, compact little scope with a modest 3 Power magnification, etched reticle, with battery power illumination when needed. When I looked through it for the first time, I was highly impressed with the quality that exceeds the price. Think of it like a Compact and Light Weight ACOG for a fraction of the price. I had initially been thinking of doing a LPVO, but to get a good one, the price would have been at least 3 times the price of this one. And it would have added bulk and weight without advantages enough to offset those liabilities.

Yeah, I’m the guy that wrote “Why I hate the AR-15” a long long long time ago. I was part of Crusader Weaponry. So I’ve been on both far ends of the spectrum when it comes to AR’s. I’ve been jaded as hell about AR’s since as long as I’ve been shooting them (Enlisted in ’87) and few have impressed me. Even fewer still have actually knocked my socks off.

Then earlier this year, Ruger launches the new SFAR. It’s in .308 but it’s NOT an AR-10. Don’t call it an AR-10. The size and weight is that of an AR-15. The rifle in 16″ form (also available in 20″) weighs in at only 6 pounds, 8 ounces. When I heard about it, I ran down to the Nichol’s Store in Rock Hill, South Carolina to take a look at one in person. They had one in stock and I asked to check it out… The guy handed it to me… and INSTANTLY I knew this was some next level stuff right here. It felt like an AR-15. It handled like an AR-15. But the bigger mag-well showed that, yeah, it really was a .308 rifle.
“Put a fuqqing Bow on it, because I’m taking it.”

It’s the only AR that has truly knocked my socks off. How Ruger made this is truly impressive. The metallurgy and design engineering is fantastic. I didn’t expect to get a rifle that day. I didn’t even know I wanted a rifle that day. Honestly, I think I’d rather have snagged an M1A Springfield… but the SFAR just blindsided me. It impressed me that much. Which hasn’t happened in a decade.

I’ll do a detailed review on the rifle once I get an Optic on it so I can speak to the accuracy. Right now, it’s topped with the Magpul MBUS3 flip-up sights. These are rather new, and have the features of the MBUS PRO’s but are made of plastic. They are a little bulky like the regular MBUSs we all know and love.

I’d rather have gone with the Pros but the LGS only had the Front and not the Rear in stock. They did have the Offset versions of the Pros but maybe I’ll update to those after I get the Optical Gun Sight situation sorted out.

I don’t have any “Good” ammo for it either, just 150gr SP Federal Blue Box stuff, which is fine for any purpose I could have for the rifle here in The South. Out West, I’d want to get some 168 Match type rounds. But even that might be rather ambitious for a 16″ Light Weight AR.

When you can’t sleep… Write. Here is the scene from SILVERSHOT where our protagonist meets Mohtahe Okohke, aka Plague of Crows. She’s a Skinwalker, which according to Native American Lore in the Ute Tribe, is an evil shaman that haunts them, and causes sickness, death, and terror. Plague of Crows is all of that and more. Take a look:

Sleep must have taken me because I knew I had to be dreaming. I was once again standing in front of the mountain cabin. The snow on the cabin and around the area was completely gone and the ground was barren and muddy. I looked around with a distinct sense of both the familiar and a new strangeness. The once bright glass of the windows was coated in filth, broken, and some had rough boards hammered over the empty frames. Dim light seeped through where there should have been bright, warm light.

I walked up to the door with a couple rabbits that I had shot… good sized fat ones. Or at least they were in previous versions of this dream. I looked down at them they were no longer fat and juicy, but desiccated, with holes through the hide in patches that showed old rot, bones, and maggoty corruption. I dropped the rabbits.

When I pushed open the door, I expected to see the fun looking redhead from the strip. Instead, there was an Indian woman standing here. She was thin, with long, straight, black hair that had black crow feathers tied into some braids. She wore a tan buckskin dress with tribal decorations I’ve not seen around here before.

As she walked over to me, slowly, I realized that I was unable to move. Not even to flinch when she raised her hands and held my face. She had dark eyes and dark lips. She could have been beautiful… but something about her was off, and that made her unattractive. I felt a coldness in her hands. She pulled me down to her and gave me a kiss. Her lips were cold and dry and hard.

For just a moment, her presence felt familiar. Like I had seen her before. But I couldn’t place her. And then I remembered the church building in Dragon and seeing her up on the ridge after I came out of that perverse church building. Suddenly she bit my lip, too hard, too sharp, and the pain snapped me back to the moment and I pulled away from her.

One half of her face was young, almost beautiful but stark and angry. The other half of her face was bare skull, old and dead with no eye in the socket, The teeth on the skull side had a smear of blood that streaked down the bare bone of her chin.

She laughed at me and pushed me away, so hard I was sent half thrown, half stumbling across the room where I collided with the chair.

Darkness started swirling around her, like smoke. It pulled the light out of the single lit oil lamp left in the room and it grew dimmer and dimmer until the flame was barely a spark. The only other light was the orange glow coming from that empty eye socket. The swirling darkness started to fill the room, and I tried to back away from it, tumbling over the chair in front of the fireplace. But there was nowhere to go and the darkness reached me.

When it touched my hand, there was pain as if the fingers in my hand were broken. I looked at my hand and could see it and my arm shriveling and drying up. I could feel it in my boots, then up to my knees. I could feel my very life being pulled out of me, into that vortex of darkness. All I could see now was a pinpoint of orange light, coming from that eye socket, which was getting closer. I didn’t know if it was coming to me, or I was going to it. The very air in the cabin was a howling wind that carried my scream with it.

I was still screaming when I suddenly woke up with my chest aching, breathing hard, and my heart beat thumping like crazy.

“You need four things out here,” the grizzled old man said. He was old enough to be one of the fossils that littered the area. Covered in enough dust, he was the same color. “Fuel, water, ammunition, and a purpose. If you’re missing one of those things, you might as well just kill yourselves right now.” The old man laughed at his own humor, but it came out like a dry coughing fit.

Jane nodded to the old man with a smile and then turned away, dismissing the unsolicited advice and turning back to her cycle. She had listened to the locals long enough to know that they are either batshit insane, want something from you, or they are setting you up for something bad. But sometimes she needed them, and that pissed her off.

Marshall was already sitting on his cycle, letting the engine come up to temp. He had packed up quickly as soon as the sky got light enough to see and was ready to go.

Aaron was pushing his cycle out of the garage. The fresh tread on his new tires made Jane envious. But she grinned as she thought of all the miles it would take before those nobbies smoothed out enough that it didn’t vibrate his nuts until they were numb. Still, he had new treads and she didn’t. She’d have to get some as soon as possible. The terrain in this region was not easy on tires.

Jane opened a small pouch on her tank bag and pulled out three coins. “Here you go, Mister. Three duckets for a night’s rest and use of some tools as agreed. We appreciate it.”

As she turned around with the coins in her hand, she turned into the muzzle of a hacked-off gauge. The old man was grinning ear to crooked ear. “Damn.” She muttered.

“Maybe I’ll just take all of it and kill you three right now. Could sell those machines and have enough to move to the coast.”

Jane slowly raised her hands. “You don’t want to go down this road, mister.” The old man’s grin twisted and one eye started to close as he sighted down the barrel of his hacked gauge.
Suddenly the man’s head erupted in a chunky gore fountain and the echo of a gunshot bounced off the building and canyon walls.

“Damn it, Marshall!” Jane yelled as she wiped old man’s brain chunks off her jacket. One chunk was hard and she picked it off. It was a gold tooth. She put that in a pocket and pulled out a rag to clean up the blood splatter. “You could have waited a second till I backed up a step.”

Marshal just grunted as he holstered the long barreled magnum he kept under his jacket in a shoulder rig. “I hated that guy since I first saw him… he was sketchy. Didn’t trust him.” Marshal’s voice sounded like it was as dry and full of dust as his cycle’s air filter. This also explained why he kept his jacket open since they pulled up, even though it was cold at night. “Didn’t like the way he looked at you.”

Jane put the coins back in her bag and turned to the crumpled body. The shotgun pistol was still clutched in the old man’s chilling hand. It was rusted, cracked, and useless. Jane kicked it away from the body in case rigor made the trigger finger contracted enough to fire the gun. She went through the pockets and found a lighter and a packet of instant coffee. She took both and stood up.

“Can we get out of here?” Aaron asked as he pulled his goggles down over his helmet. He wore an old fashioned motocross helmet because he liked the vintage style. His goggles were new tech though. Full data streams and eye tracking. A strange meld of the ancient and new that worked well with Aaron’s style. He did a lot of things the old fashioned way. Like his coffee. He actually used a burner to heat the water and not a flash induction coil. Jane didn’t understand why he preferred to take a couple of minutes to wait for hot coffee when he could have it in seven seconds. He claimed there was a better flavor, but she didn’t buy it.

She threw her leg over the seat of her cycle, kicked the stand up, and hit the starter. There was a high pitched whine as the turbine spooled up. With a low thump the ignition kicked in and fired the fuel-air mixture. A moment later the engine RPMs were up to speed and she was ready to go.

Aaron started his cycle. The big bore Twin-V-Twins burbled to life after a couple of coughing starts. The engines were older than the bike’s frame, but Aaron loved them. They were ancient and Earth-Made. But they were efficient and reliable. Aaron could keep up with the other bikes, so they had to have enough power output. He patted his tank like a cowboy would pat the neck of his horse. Sometimes, he even talked to it. Not to the engine management system or the nav-comp, but to the bike itself, like it could listen and understand him. Strange.

Jane pulled down her lid and cinched the chin strap. Her HUD lit up and showed her machine’s telemetry data. The warning lights from yesterday were gone thanks to the night’s opportunity to wrench and wire without worrying about feral packs or ROUSs. When all the system checks were completed, she looked over at Aaron and Marshal. “Come on. Let’s roll.”
She didn’t wait for a response. She opened the throttle and feathered out the clutch, and her cycle surged forward like it was shot out of a cannon.

The three Riders tracked Spinward in a wedge formation, Jane on point. Three plumes of dust rooster tailing behind them.

After a high-speed burn across the open desert that was called “The Great Capacious Ocean”, Jane eased off the throttle. They had been riding all day, stopping only for a few minutes to drink and drain. This last stretch had been a sprint to the finish. Two of the bikes slowed and stopped in a small clearing off the main track. They were close to the Grand Banks that she had been warned about approaching. If you wanted to get out of the Ocean, you had to get up on top of the Grand Banks. To do that, you had to get up the Ramp and through the Gates.

Jane looked around. The Great Capacious was once one of the largest and deepest bodies of water in known space. Once. They had been riding for two weeks just to cross this dust bowl and the sight of the edge made her excited. She pulled off her helmet and looked around. Dust and trash. A hundred years ago, there was supposed to have been good fishing here. Before the Cataclysm. There were a few skeletons of old boats around. Usable materials were scavenged a long time ago, all that was left were keels and main bulkheads too heavy to make off with.

Marshal shook out his dreadlocks and pulled off his armored jacket. Sweat and salt-stained, his black shirt looked grey and old. Almost as old looking as his bike, which was brand new only a couple months ago.

Jane’s machine was looking no better. Dust and grit combined with high speeds had stripped much of the paint off all the leading edges. The machine started its familiar cool-down ticking even before the turbine stopped spinning.

Aaron was coming in. He had been lagging behind a little, keeping an eye on their six to make sure no one was following them. No one was.

Jane didn’t have to look. The rumble of those big pistons announced his position down to the centimeter. She held out a water bottle, knowing he would be there in a second to take it. She grinned as the bottle was plucked from her hand. He had caught more dust than her or Marshal had, being behind them, so he was full-on monochrome. Aaron emptied the water and carefully tucked the bottle away so they could refill it later.

“How are we doing on fuel?” Aaron asked after he wiped off his lips. He was getting low, and knew the other cycles were even more thirsty than his.

“I’ve got another thirty miles,” Jane answered.

“Twenty,” Marshal noted.

Aaron got off his bike and unstrapped a small fuel can. He poured some into his tank, more into Marshal’s, and the last of it into Jane’s. “This should be enough to get us up top to the Station.”

“Hopefully they have fuel.”

“They always have fuel.”

“Hopefully they have fuel that they can sell,” Jane said as she stretched, glad to be off the bike again.

Marshal glassed the upper edge of the Grand Bank and noted the positions of the cannons there. Ancient rifled cannons lined the edge where the sky and ground met. Huge barrels aimed out into the Ocean as a warning to those that might have bad intentions. The guns were old, but the cybernetic targeting computers were state of the art and that made for a brutally effective combination. What High Order Explosive Shells didn’t take care of, the Las-cannons did. One blast could cut an APC in half.

“We’ll stay the night here and go up in the morning,” Marshal said. Jane was fine with this.

Aaron looked around. “No Ferals?”

“Didn’t see any for the last hour,” Marshal said.

“They mostly come out at night. Mostly.”

Jane snorted. “Don’t worry, Aaron. You’ll be fine.”

Aaron had been nervous about the dogs and rats ever since one bit his foot while he was asleep. He almost lost the toe to the bite, and the foot to the infection.

They had just set up camp when the Night passed over them. Day and night cycled at the Earth normal 24-hour mark. This annoyed Jane as it felt like the days were too short. Athens had a civilized day night cycle of 30 hours, which meant her wristwatch was useless here. She had clasped the watch band around her handlebars so she wouldn’t lose it. Keeping it on meant looking at it out of habit, and that threw her day off.

Marshall took the time to strip and clean. Once he had washed down with moist Baby-Wipes, he let himself air dry by stretching out on his bedroll. His feet hung off the edge. Marshall was tall, dark-skinned, and considered handsome by most folks. The dreads were getting long, not because it was a fashion or style thing, but because they’ve been out a long time running.

Aaron tinkered with his bike for a bit before he decided to turn in. He was always doing that, even if the bike didn’t need it. “Gotta keep the old girl happy” he’d say.

Jane understood it though. They depended on their machines like the Cavalry of old depended on their horses. Before the Cavalry took care of themselves, they took care of the horses first. Priorities. That and Aaron’s bike had problems with intake filtration that Marshall’s and her bike didn’t have. Turbines sucked in everything and blew it out hot.

Before she laid down for the night she pulled out a small black sphere. The Sentry-Bot. She tapped it three times on the top and the little bot started to hum. Small blue lights under the surface flashed and little induction pods unfolded, glowed, and the bot lifted off her gloved hand. It hovered for a moment and then climbed up into the dark. She caught a glimpse of a couple more blips of blue light before it went stealth and hung in the air silent and invisible.

The Sentry-Bot was a small robot designed for campers. It would scare away animals that could hurt anyone sleeping by flashing harmless laser lights at them. If that didn’t work, the Bot would set off audible alarms in various tones inaudible to humans and if that didn’t work, it would go audible to humans. It could stay up for as long as fourteen hours if needed. Usually available at any sporting goods store for about 30 duckets. Jane’s had a customized hers to add a couple more features. One of which was to allow remote access to a small multi-spectrum camera array.

After verifying the Sentry-Bot was operating in the right modes, Jane pulled out her notebook. An old fashioned paper notebook bound with a simple spiraled coil of wire. It was thick with inserted scraps, data sheets, flexible PDAs, and anything else thin and light. The cover was torn in a couple of places that strips of adhesive tape held it together. Elastic bands held the rest of the stuff inside the notebook. The total collection of a decade’s worth of research. It was as adhoc and confusing as a method of collection, but to Jane it all made sense. She was able to flick through the leaves of paper and scraps and retrieve any bit of data she wanted faster than she could type in a request into any type of computer, or vocalize a request into a PDA.

She quickly flicked to a section highlighted in faded blue along the edge and opened the pages wide. A scrap almost fell out, but a thumb had caught it. The scrap had a small sketch on it. This scrap she picked up from ruined school on the planet Hector 3.

Hector 3 had been abandoned by a race of aliens, similar to the classic humanoid shape, but with an extra set of eyes and nostrils. The planet had been abandoned long before human contact. The ruins on Hector 3 were ancient and little evidence of sentient life remained on the surface. Underground though, things were preserved quite well. Including scrolls and books. Deciphering the history of the Hectarians wasn’t what interested Jane. It was this sketch. She looked at it once again… for the hundredth time if it was the first time.

It was a small simple sketch of a dragon. What made this sketch interesting was the isolation of the race of aliens that drew it. They wouldn’t have had contact with other species of Sentients. And yet here was a dragon. Humans from Earth arrogantly thought that dragons had been the invention of their own creativity. Turns out they were wrong.

Jane had found fables and legends of dragons in almost every culture, in almost every sentient race, across nine galaxies. All from pre-contact eras. Everyone had stories of dragons. And all of them had similarities enough in their descriptions that there had to be something more than coincidences. If the planet had a Nitro/O2 Atmo, there be dragons.

Most scientists dismissed this as a coincidence. Shared storytelling from early space travelers and wanderers. Jane had a different theory. It was the dragons that were the early travelers. Unfortunately finding any actual physical evidence had been elusive. Until last year. Her hunt had brought her to a Bizarre on one of the oldest planets in known space, Eridani.

Jane had been searching for projectiles for an Eridani firearm she had already purchased when she found a clear crystal sarcophagus that contained what looked like a preserved baby dragon. The only thing that the proprietor of the shop would give her was the name of an Earth-Human university professor Thull Chafe who was said to be the one who discovered the sarcophagus. This started the hunt for Thull Chafe which took three world jumps to track down.

The night was uneventful for Jane. She slept well enough. She woke up slowly, opening one eye first. Then the other. She listened, then looked around. Marshall was rolling up his gear as Aaron was making coffee and rehydrating a nutrient mash that was supposed to be like scrambled eggs.

“About time,” Aaron said. “Here you go. Breakfast in bed.” He handed her a small plate and a cup of steaming hot coffee.

“Thanks, Aaron.” She said. He only grunted in acknowledgment, as he sat down to his own food. Marshall finished up packing his gear and sat down close by and helped himself to the rest.

“I could kill someone for some salt and sugar,” Marshall grumbled but downed the breakfast nonetheless. Once done he leaned back against what was once a huge ship’s keel. He looked around, “So how was this an ocean? What happened? What was this cataclysm?”

As Jane got dressed, Aaron explained. “This world didn’t use to be a Ring. Eighty years ago it was a Dyson Sphere. The biggest one ever. Then something punched it. The impact shattered one side and blew out the other. All that mass added to the sun made it hotter. Surface water vaped off over the years. The underground water won’t last.”

“So why is the world called ‘Deirdre’?” Marshal asked.

“Because it was once beautiful and has a tragic end. It’s a Lore thing. A beautiful woman that ends up with her head smashed open.” Aaron said.

“There’s more to the story, Aaron.” Jane said as she shook out her armored jacket.