“How’s the weight balance?” Drew asked.

Veronica held the giant weighty energy cannon in her hands. From his point of view, she looked like a badass, but looks were secondary to how it actually handled.

“Pretty heavy,” she answered, “but it feels good to hold.

“Good enough to go into battle?”

“Depends for how long. Add a shoulder strap, and I’ll say yeah.”

“Not sure we have straps strong enough,” Drew said. “But maybe Jack can help with that. I wish there was a way around it, but most of the weight comes from the Assaultron reactor that’s strapped to it.”

“So, we gonna try it out?”

Drew smirked. “There’s some old cars on the far side of the parking lot. Let’s try it out on some of those.”

Veronica showed off a sharp-toothy grin. “Sounds like fun.”

Drew was thankful that she hadn’t brought up her lust for intimacy with him, Gemma, and Kiki, though he knew she could bring it up at any moment, so it was best to keep busy.

“Though maybe we should wait on testing it out.”

Veronica’s face fell into a frown. “Why?”

“Now that I have a baseline design, I want to put something together for Gemma. Can you fetch her? I think she’s with Kiki.”

“Sure, I think I can do that,” she said. “But wouldn’t it be wiser to test that it works properly before making more?”

“I want to put together a frame. Then, we can have her hold the weapon we made for you, see how it feels in her hands and make adjustments based on feedback.”

Veronica headed off, returning a few minutes later with Gemma.

“Ready to give feedback.”

“This is Veronica’s weapon,” Drew said, pointing to where it had been placed on the floor. “We want your feedback on the weight and how it feels so we can start building one for you.”

Gemma picked it up. “Wow, heftier than I expected.”

“That’s the reactor we’ve strapped to it,” Drew explained. “You might have to make do with two Gutsy reactors.”

“Balance feels good,” Gemma said. “Might need a strap.”

“That’s what I was saying,” Veronica said.

“Yeah, and I agreed,” Drew said. “Any other feedback?”

Gemma shook her head. “Not really.”

“Great. Do you mind hanging around while I put something together?”

“Sure,” Gemma said as she sat on the cold hard floor.

Drew got to work cutting, grinding, welding, and riveting the bits of steel together until it took on the same basic form as Veronica’s weapon, sans the parts that made it an actual energy weapon.

“Hold this,” he said. “And be careful; some of the edges might be sharp. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to smooth them down.”

Gemma stood up and picked up the frame. “Feels nice,” she said.

Veronica snorted. “I bet that’s what you were saying this morning.”

Drew clenched his jaw, hoping that she would leave it at the dumb joke. Thankfully, she didn’t say any more and helped him as they began the arduous task of installing the Assaultron head lasers, the power cables and the reactor.

It took a good few hours, but finally, after doing a circuit and a safety test, he told Gemma to pick it up again, which she did happily.

“Feels great,” she said. “Are we gonna test them out?”

Drew nodded. “Yes, we can. I believe they are safe to use. Just keep your flesh away from these pipes,” he said, pointing them out. “Those are heat exhausts, so the thing doesn’t explode.”

“Got it,” Gemma said. “Keep flesh away from hot pipes.”

“I bet you were blowing on Drew’s hot pipe this morning,” Veronica said with a wiggle of her heavy brow.

Gemma pointed at her mouth. “Sharp teeth,” she said. “But I did thrash him with my tongue.”

Drew groaned as he made his way to the exit doors. “Come on, let’s head outside and test those weapons.”

The two followed him off the factory floor and into the hallway, where they bumped into Axa, who gawked at the weapons Gemma and Veronica were holding.

“Wow, you look dangerous with those guns.”

“I know,” Veronica said, pointing hers up towards the ceiling, striking a pose. “We look cool.”

“I’ll say,” Axa said before looking down at Drew. “When do I get one?”

“We’re nearly out of Assaultron head lasers, but I’ll put something together for you.”

“Well, whatever you make, I’ll be happy, especially when Sekka and Jack are finished making some armor. After that, we’ll be unstoppable.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Drew warned. “You can still be hurt.”

“Your concern is sweet, but I think we’ll be fine, thanks to you.”

“Well, I look forward to seeing what you make. There are parts for a Gatling laser for a Sentry, though I want to keep those around for spares.”

“It doesn’t have to shoot things,” Axa said. “A spear would be better than nothing.”

Veronica laughed. “Wow, could you imagine Kiki or Lotte with giant spears? They’d be like sharpened trees flying at you.”

“That would be scary,” Gemma said.

“For those they were aimed at, yeah,” Axa said.

Drew rubbed his chin as he thought for a moment. “That might not be a bad idea. But Kiki and Charlotte would have to carve the point themselves. Making tree spears is a tiny bit out of my ability.”

“I want more than a spear anyway,” Axa said.

“And I plan on making you something. But, first, I want to test what I made Gemma and Veronica.”

Axa followed them as they continued outside through the front doors before Drew led them around to the rear parking lot. He then points towards some rusted-out cars parked on the far side.

“You think you can shoot one of them from here?” he asked.

Veronica adjusted her grip on her weapon before she squeezed the large trigger. The top laser cannon on the barrel began to charge.

“Wow, it certainly takes its time,” Axa commented.

Finally, the heavy beam erupted and struck the car, causing it to explode in a fiery inferno.

“Wow,” Veronica muttered. “Only fired once, though.”

“That’s because I set it to single-fire mode just to test,” Drew told her. “But even with one shot, it’s pretty powerful.”

“I’ll say,” Gemma said, glancing nervously at the weapon in her hands.

“I could feel the heat coming out the exhaust,” Veronica told him. “Do you think it might overheat?”

“Very possible,” Drew said. “So I guess my advice for when we put it in full auto is don’t keep the trigger pulled down for too long.” He looked at Gemma. “You’re turn.”

She looked nervous as she pointed her weapon at another rusted-up car and pulled down the trigger. Then, like Veronica’s, the top laser cannon began to charge.

“It’s vibrating,” she said.

“Mine did, too,” Veronica said. “It should be okay, right Drew?”

“Yes, it’s okay,” Drew assured her. “I tested everything before putting it together, so it should be safe. Well, as safe as it can be.”

“Just as he finished talking, the beam of energy erupted from the end and missed the car, striking the metal fence in the distance. It didn’t take long for the fence to start melting, though with Gemma readjusting her aim, it finally found its target. Still, the beam fizzled out a moment later, only managing to scorch the rear quarter.”

“You almost hit the car,” Veronica said.

“She wasn’t that far off,” Drew defended.

“It was fun, regardless,” Gemma said. “Axa is right, though. It does take a while to charge.”

“Well, with six Assaultron laser cannons attached, they will be a force to be reckoned with in auto mode. Theoretically, it should be a constant stream of energy once it’s charged. The only issue is heat.”

Veronica looked at her weapon. “So how do I make it auto?”

Drew stepped over to Gemma and flicked two rocker switches. Following what Drew did, Veronica did the same before pointing it at the truck trailer.

“Hold on,” Drew said, glancing at her. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Why not? I wanna have some fun.”

“Do one full cycle, and we’ll see how the heat is.”

Veronica grinned as she pulled the lever that acted as the trigger, and the top laser on the barrel once more began to charge. Finally, when it was halfway, the second one, clockwise along, began to charge. Then, as the top fired a beam of energy, the third cannon started its charge.

The near-continuous rotating pillars of energy slammed into the side of the trailer, punching a hole through it before Veronica began to carve it up.

“This feels great,” she said before stopping. “But I can feel a lot of heat coming from it.”

Drew nodded. “Might have to adjust the timing to let them cool off more. Or figure out a way to cool them better. Might have to reduce power output.”

“Do you want me to test mine?” Gemma asked.

“I want to make a few adjustments to the timing first,” he said as he pulled a screwdriver from his pocket and stepped over to her. He made the adjustments and took a step back, but not before he flicked the switch to make it fully automatic.

“Can I try it now?” Gemma asked.

“Yeah, give it a go,” he said.

The top energy cannon began its charge. It wasn’t until it had finished and erupted in a stream of concentrated energy that the second began its charge, the first stopping several seconds before the second fired.

Finally, with the trailer utterly destroyed and having gone through one and a half cycles, Gemma released the trigger with a grin.

“It’s only a little hot,” she said, “but it feels strange to have gaps between shots.”

“Might reduce charge time and energy flow to keep it cooler,” Drew said. “But that will take some time and a lot of tweaking.”

“Won’t that make it weaker?” Veronica asked.

“Yeah, but you’ll be able to shoot longer with less heat.”

“There should be a way to make it continuous and have the same power without overheating,” Veronica said.

“Should? If you have any ideas, lay them on me,” Drew said. “Because I have no idea.”

“Well, we grab the cooling rods from one of these old cars.”

“The lasers already use cooling rods,” Drew said. “Mini ones built into the coils, but I think I could rig up some extra cooling. Not with a cooling rod with one of the cars, though. If I try and take one of them apart, I’ll be irradiated.”

“I could do it,” Veronica said.

“You could, but it would probably be better to grab some cooling rods from the head lasers that failed my safety checks.”

“If they failed, why use them?”

“The rods are fine, and it was the flow transmission coils in the beam focuser that failed.”

Gemma stared at him. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means the cooling rods are fine,” he answered.

“Yeah, that would be better,” Veronica agreed.

As the group turned to head inside, they saw Amy and Glower running towards them.

“What’s up?” Drew asked. “We didn’t scare you with all the explosions, did we?”

“No, we have a bigger problem. A much bigger problem!”

Her tone suggested that it was something serious. Very serious.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as she came to a breathless stop.

“We were up on the roof when we saw a large crowd heading this way.”

Drew felt his stomach drop.

“How big?”

“Big. Maybe twenty to thirty people.”

Drew’s first thought was that Jarik had told someone about the Greenclaws, but he dismissed it as quickly as the thought had come.

He turned and looked back at Veronica and Gemma. “We need to get you out of sight.”

“What do we do?” Amy asked.

“We grab Jack and some weapons and meet them at the gates.”

“And do what?” Amy asked. “Shoot them?”

“Find out why they’re here,” Drew answered as he started towards the main factory building. “And hopefully, we can find a solution without any bloodshed.”

“How far away were they?” Gemma asked as they all began to follow Drew.

“Maybe half a mile,” Amy answered.

“So we have a little time to prepare,” he mused. “But not much.”

As they stepped inside, Amy branched off to get Jack while Drew headed to grab the laser weapons he had recently bought from town. He then gathered two Assaultrons and two Gutsy’s before meeting up with Amy and Jack at the bottom of the stairs.

Drew handed them both a laser rifle, keeping the scoped one for himself.

“What’s the plan?” Jack asked.

“The plan is to find out what they want and get them out of here before Charlotte decides to make an appearance and have a three-course meal.”

“You think she would?” Amy asked.

“I wanna get them out of here before we have the chance to find out.”

Drew led the others out the front doors, where they saw the large group moving through the security gates. As to why they were there, it wasn’t anything good as it was clear that not only were most of them visibly injured to various degrees, but some of which were being pushed on modified shopping carts. There were also children with them and not only that, but Drew recognized them.

“They’re from Riverside,” he said.

“Yeah, I think they are,” Amy whispered. “What do we do?”

“Come on,” he said

Jack, Amy and the robots followed as he walked forward slowly to try and appear as non-threatening as one could be while armed and with a robotic escort.

One of them, a man that looked like the Riverside mayor, stepped forward with a limp. “Did you scare it off?”

“What?” Drew asked.

“We thought we saw a Deathclaw,” he said.

“Sure,” Drew said, glancing at Jack and then Amy. He could already tell this was not going to go well when they found out who their guests were. “What’s happened?”

“We were attacked,” the mayor said. “Men in big metal armor.”

“Shit,” Drew muttered. “How bad?”

“They came in heavily armed. They demanded we give them our robots and allow them to dismantle our machines as they needed the components. When we refused, they attacked.”

“We’ve lost everything,” another said.

Drew rubbed his face with his palms. “Okay, stay here for a moment,” he told them as he glanced back at the factory. “I need to deal with the defenses to give you access.”

The mayor nodded. “Thank you, thank you.”

Drew turned and rushed back inside. In truth, none of the defenses would hurt them, but he couldn’t just let them inside. Not with Greenclaws wandering about.

Never before had Drew been in such a precarious position. As he had with the Greenclaws, he couldn’t just turn them away, not when they were in need. He wasn’t stupid, though. He knew allowing them to stay would turn the place into a powder keg. It was certain that the Greenclaws would be discovered, and he wasn’t looking forward to dealing with the fallout from that.

“This is fucked,” he muttered as he reached the front doors.

He wasn’t looking forward to what was to come.