"Why cigars, Blue?" Piper asked.

"Hospitality," Rachel explained, and held up the box of San Francisco Sunlights in her right hand. She had not been happy about the brand that Gage had provided for her, given how they reminded her of Kellogg, but after she had yelled at him and sent him scurrying back to Nuka-Town like a beaten dog, she had taken a few deep breaths and composed herself, realising that there was something more important at stake than her own personal discomfort."Power, too; these things are expensive. We need to show these raiders we're not cheap or disposable. You know how raiders work – whoever has the biggest wallet or the biggest gun wins in the end. And since we don't have any big guns, we're going to have to work with what we've got."

"I get that, but… why cigars? Don't you hate them?"

"This particular brand? Yes," Rachel said. "You know why. But cigars in general? I don't mind them. Nate used to give them out at parties sometimes, like the one we had after Shaun was born." She saw the disapproving way Piper was looking at her and sighed. "Come on, Pipes, don't judge me. I'd spent nine months not doing anything. I needed to be a little wild again, just for one night." She paused, using a small hand-held guillotine to snip the ends off two cigars before handing one to Piper and opening a book of matches. "Now, you need to learn how to smoke one of these properly so you can look just like the new Overboss. We need a united front."

Piper frowned. "Excuse me, who's the smoker here? I think I know how to do this." She flicked open her lighter dismissively before applying it to the end of the cigar. She took a deep drag on it, before quickly dissolving into a hacking cough, small wisps of smoke trickling out of her nose. She dropped the cigar into the ashtray on the counter in disgust, where it continued to smoulder. "Jesus Christ," she spluttered, wiping at her streaming eyes. "You did this for fun?"

Despite herself, Rachel burst out laughing. "Don't blame me – I did try to warn you. Here, watch me." She placed her own cigar between her lips before striking a long wooden match and lighting it so that it glowed a rich, unique orange as she puffed on it, enjoying the aroma as the end ignited. "When you light it, use a match, not a lighter, and you should never inhale, even if you're used to doing that with cigarettes. Just hold it in your mouth for a little bit and then blow it out." She puffed on the cigar again briefly, pausing for a moment before letting loose a little stream of smoke from between her lips. "You're supposed to savour it."

"If you say so, Blue," Piper said sceptically. "Guess I'll try it again…" She picked up her barely-smoked cigar from the ashtray and took a more measured draw on it, this time taking care not to breathe it in too hard. Exhaling, she tipped her head to the side for a moment, her expression contemplative. "Huh," she said thoughtfully. "That's actually not that bad."

"See, what'd I tell you?" Rachel said, holding her hands out to either side. "You should listen to me more often."

Piper was about to reply when Gage's broken-glass voice emerged from the intercom on the wall. "You got visitors, boss – just like you asked," he said. "Shall I send 'em up?"

"Sure," Rachel replied, feeling a rising sense of dread knotting in her guts. She scolded herself for the moment of weakness and forced the feeling into a dark corner of her mind from which it could not escape. "The outside elevator should do nicely." She clicked the intercom off before she reached into her pocket and withdrew the cloth containing her spare optical implants, picking out the infrared lens and exchanging it for the regular one. After she had done so she noticed Piper staring at her in confusion. "I figure the red will make me look scarier," she explained simply. "These people need to be afraid of me or they'll eat us both alive." Crossing the room back to her wife she took Piper in her arms and murmured "We'll get through this, babe. I promise," into her ear gently, before the elevator ground to a halt and revealed Gage standing in front of a motley crew of raiders. There were at least two escorts for each of the four bosses, their wildly differing colours and attire marking visible divides in ideology. Rachel rolled her cigar on the edge of the ashtray to unburden its end, took a short draw from it and blew the smoke out in as leisurely a fashion as she could while she assessed what she was up against.

"Introductions would be nice," she said simply, before she took another casual pull. "One at a time, if you please." There was a murmur of protest from the assembled raiders before she held up the hand not cradling her cigar to silence it. "One. At. A. Time," she insisted, her tone sharp and cold.

Gage nodded and ushered forward a woman in tight leather clothing covered by spiky, haphazard metal armour and crowned with a bizarre bladed helmet which did not appear to have any visible eye-holes. She wondered how the woman could actually see anything, and then decided not to question it. From the looks of her and her similarly-masked retinue, her gang probably cut their own eyes out anyway, just for the sheer hell of it. "Nisha," Gage said, "head of the Disciples."

Rachel wasn't sure of raider protocol, so she stood still instead of extending her hand in greeting, at which point Nisha smiled thinly. "A little cautious, are we?" she said, a slight mocking tone sounding in her voice and one corner of her lips twitching upwards for a second. "Good. I like that. You might survive a whole week here yet, with that kind of attitude." She drew a long, wavy-bladed knife from its sheath on her hip and started casually digging under her ragged fingernails with it. "Don't waste my goodwill. I don't have much to spare."

"I'll bear that in mind," Rachel replied, making sure to keep any hint of indecision out of her tone. "Who's next, Gage?"

Gage moved along the line and gestured at a pair of smartly-dressed individuals, one male, one female. "Mags and William Black, heads of the Operators."

"Charmed," the woman named Mags said, a thin smile on her painted lips. "It's so nice to meet you." Rachel recognised her voice as the honeyed-murder tone she had heard just after killing Colter, and her icy demeanour certainly backed that attitude up. She offered her hand, which Rachel again did not accept. When she saw Rachel's reluctance, Mags' smile widened. "Come now, Overboss, don't be so coy. My brother and I are nothing like the Disciples. We actually treat people as something other than pin cushions." She chuckled as Nisha muttered something about having her killed later. "Oh please, dear," she continued, giving Nisha a contemptuous glance, "how many times have you tried that? I'd have thought you'd have learned not to bother after the fourth or fifth time we sent one of yours back in several pieces, but apparently not." She shrugged. "I suppose I'll see your representative tomorrow night as usual, then?"

"Oh, fuck you, rich girl," Nisha snarled, her knife raised in an instant. "I'll gut you right here and now, you –" She was about to throw herself at Mags when Gage disarmed her and trapped her in a full-nelson hold. She struggled for a few moments, cursing and thrashing like a cornered animal before she calmed down, her posture nevertheless showing that she was still full of barely-contained fury even after Gage cautiously released her.

"Enough!" Rachel snapped, smashing a bottle on the counter-top and forcing every eye in the room back onto her in the process, broken glass scattering across the counter and the floor. "Nobody's killing anybody without my permission. Now can we get on with the introductions? I'd like to discuss my options tonight, if that's all the same with you."

A contemptuous snort issued from the tall, redheaded slab of muscle with day-glow face-paint daubed across his craggy features that was standing to Nisha's right. Sensing the tension in the room was an eyelash's width away from boiling point, Gage moved quickly on to him and said "Mason, the Pack's Alpha."

The big man folded his arms across his barrel chest and took her in for a moment before he finally said "You're the new big dog, huh? You don't look like much."

"I survived the Gauntlet, didn't I? Killed your last Overboss, too, as I recall." Rachel expelled a short plume of smoke and stepped forwards, keeping eye contact with Mason as she did so, making sure not to let a hint of emotion show on her face. The last thing she needed was for this supposed alpha male to believe he had any kind of power over her, so a different approach would be necessary here. Something a little more… forceful. "Come here." She gestured to the counter in front of her. "Let me get a closer look at you."

Mason grinned, looking like a wolf which had caught the scent of fresh prey. "You got it, boss," he said, almost swaggering up to the counter and placing his hands flat on its surface. "Like what you see?"

"No," Rachel hissed, "but I do like being able to make a point." In an instant she had reached down to her belt and grabbed the dagger that Gage had found for her before stabbing Mason's right hand and pinning it to the counter. He howled with pain and struggled to free himself as she held onto the dagger's hilt and moved the blade left and right, making sure to twist it slightly as she did so. "Don't you ever disrespect me again, Alpha. I am the new big dog here and you will do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it. Are we clear?" With every emphasised word she twisted her knife a little harder. Mason didn't reply, instead simply fixing her with a furious glare. Rachel shifted the blade again, watching the man's jaw tighten as he resisted the urge to scream again. "I said, are we clear?"

"Clear as day, boss," Mason said through gritted teeth.

"Good," Rachel replied, going nose-to-nose with him and burning a mark into his transfixed hand with the end of her cigar, his flesh sizzling loudly. She watched a trickle of blood trail lazily down his chin as the lip he had been biting to stop himself from crying out finally gave way. "I'm glad we were able to clear up that little misunderstanding." She ripped the blade free and the man-mountain staggered backwards, clutching at his mouth with his uninjured hand before one of his masked compatriots offered him a rag with which to bind his wound. There was still a fire in his eyes, but it appeared dimmed for now – but Rachel didn't doubt in the slightest that it would only take a single spark to reignite it. Something else for her to keep in mind, she supposed.

As Mason stood cradling his hand close to his body, Rachel noticed Nisha smiling faintly, as if her show of strength had impressed her. Perhaps she had made an ally after all – although she was still unsure how Nisha managed to see anything out of her headgear.

"Now that we've got that unpleasantness out of the way," Rachel said, "maybe we can get down to the real business at hand here. You want me to help you out with the park. How do you propose I do that?"

Nisha opened her mouth but Gage held up a hand, one finger raised. "Hold up. I got this," he said brusquely, at which Nisha snorted before folding her arms. Rachel wondered what kind of information Gage had about these bosses that someone as obviously deranged as Nisha would defer to him so easily. "It's like this: Nuka-World is split into five different areas: Safari Adventure, Kiddie Kingdom, the Galactic Zone, Dry Rock Gulch, and the bottling plant with the World of Refreshment ride –"

"I know," Rachel interrupted. "I've been here before. Why are you telling me this?"

"I'm getting to that, boss," Gage replied, looking a little put out. "What we need you to do is help the gangs clear those places out so we can expand into them and give us all a little space of our own. Then when everyone's all nice and cosy in their new digs, we can see about getting into the Commonwealth and start squeezing the locals for their caps."

"Extortion? Is that all?" Rachel said, raising an eyebrow disbelievingly. "If I wanted to do that I could have stayed in the Commonwealth where it's safer."

"Not just extortion," Gage continued. "We're talking taking ground from the Minutemen, from the Brotherhood of Steel, from anyone who gets in our way. There's enough of us to get whatever we want, and we want you to be there to lead us. Play your cards right, you could rule the whole Commonwealth like a queen."

"Or be a convenient fall guy if this little scheme of yours comes apart at the seams," Rachel replied flatly, taking a draw from her cigar. "I've been around raiders enough to know not to trust any of you. I know you all already have your knives out ready to stick in my back if this all goes wrong." She walked around her counter to where Gage was standing and got right up in his face. "I don't trust any of you. Not a single one. But you know what? I like a challenge," and she grasped his right hand, "so you got yourself a deal, Gage. Let's take this fucking park back."

A thunderous cheer went up from the assembled raiders and Rachel knew she was in for a wild ride whatever was going to happen.

Hell of a honeymoon…