Steampunk Era: Mad Abield

Before Jason’s satellite was in position, Malin had discussed the drone issue with Jason, who said it was no problem, as long as the drone factory could be restarted, he could replace them with cheaper and more reliable drones.

Then Malin, being nosy, asked where the drone factory was located.

"There are three factories in the European region, one in Madrid, one in Oslo, and another in Moscow," Jason answered.

"I shouldn’t have asked." Malin rolled his eyes—Madrid was now who knows whether under the sea or in some godforsaken place; Moscow is now at the heart of the Dark Zone; Oslo’s still there, but that damned place now has an average daily temperature below minus one hundred degrees. The issue with the workshop isn’t whether it can be used but whether workers can even survive there, let alone work.

Unless there was a way to dismantle the entire factory and bring it back, there was no chance of resuming operations.

Malin had to put that aside for now and start preparing for the upcoming battle—since it was going to be a large-scale array battle, an assault rifle would be somewhat inadequate. Malin made a trip back to Carterburg, took four shotguns and four long-barreled precision rifles, the latter for the girls to use, and as for the former, since the shotguns were firing buckshot, he could let Jessica use one—simply have her spray fire into the Chaos crowd. He gave two to Matilda and Nova; these two girls were strong, so having a shotgun each wouldn’t hurt.

Malin kept the remaining one for himself.

There were only six of the clip-style shotguns that Malin had made in total (mainly due to the high material requirements), after giving some away, using some himself, and selling some to acquaintances, he only had two left: one was with Matilda, and the other Malin had given to Colin to use.

So, these few were the pump-action shotguns that Malin was preparing for mass production.

The one for Jessica’s use was an M3Super90, 7+1 long chamber, with a modified 10-gauge. The choice of 10-gauge shot was to still allow for inertial loading by personnel with great strength (if it was a truly powerful giant, Malin would recommend to them a recoilless gun, the 40MM caliber kind), like Professionals or Transcendent Sequence holders. Malin prepared a portable rack (2X10 portable board) for Jessica, as well as a shoulder bag that could hold 30 shots, and he even attached a large red dot sight to the gun.

The one given to Matilda was a Benelli M4Super90, with a gas-operated system, and a short barrel 4+1 loading, 12 gauge. Both Matilda and Nova had used this gun and found it extremely effective whether for hunting or dealing with those fast-moving pests.

These two types of guns couldn’t be produced with the specific alloy but could use heavier materials. The good thing was that there were weight-reducing Arrays in this world; with one of those marked on a gun, it became suitable for human use.