Flipping through Vladoff's gun catalogs has driven me into a depression. The main selection of barrels on offer, of "white" and "green" quality, were, frankly, raggedy crap. Or rather, the "white" ones are crap from any manufacturer, and the green ones are not much better, but... Man, the performance is mediocre, and no "zest". The rate of fire is good, but I'm probably too steeped in Mordecai's "an extra shot is an extra shot" philosophy. A deluge of bullets has its uses if you can afford it, but it wasn't turret guns I wanted to stock up on; I wanted good guns for myself.

  It wasn't the lack of good guns that upset me, though. Rather, the exact opposite.

  Vlad's elite models had sharp increase in quality. Hell, a few purple and a couple of orange snipers would make even me, even though I'm not a sniper, drool if I didn't already have a very, very decent (though still mysterious) Nutcracker in my inventory. Several excellent grenade launchers with economy technology that allows you to save some of the antimatter in the cartridge block with the same explosion effect. There were no really good shotguns, though, and there were only a few "green" models, but there were some pretty good pistols, and the selection of assault rifles and machine guns - to suit all tastes, of quite good quality, albeit with a focus on speed and reliability rather than accuracy or damage.

  The problem was the prices.

  The prices of the really good specimens... Not so much biting, but pointing their set of barrels at the potential buyer, ready to fire. Hell, a handheld sniper anti-tank rifle that can pierce light vehicles through and through is worth it, but I just don't have that kind of money! Same goes for all the other guns that caught my eye. The Groza machine gun from the special series of elemental weapons, for example.

  And by the way, from what I've seen, from what I've seen, it's the speed of fire that will be effective against the Eridian guardians. But money... I could buy this machine gun with almost all of my finances, but that's obviously stupid.

  ...For some reason, I have a strange feeling that money shouldn't be an issue. Perhaps I'm missing something...?

  With thoughts like that, I absentmindedly pursued what I can do for now - armor, for example. The plates from the armored skags were not bad in terms of strength, but too heavy to use for personal armor (and it was difficult to change their shape; it was not possible through the ECHO, the material is protected by the license). However, it was quite possible to close the car with them, which I did. For his own armor used his bonus from the "club of the reckless" - gained enough achievements to purchase. And still, what to do with guns...? Wantwantwantwantwantwantwantwant!

  ...Okay, okay, that's enough. I'm not a kid who saw a shiny toy in a store. I'm a serious businessman, a grown man who's been through a lot of scags, gangbangers, and other Pandora's Day stuff, including Moxie. All I did was see a cool gun in a catalog, and, like,

  ...wantwantwantwantwantwantwantwantwantwant!..

  ...Oh, here we go. I think I need to save up money.

  Money's money, it's always good, but it's not gonna earn itself, unfortunately. I've had enough to do, whole ocean of work. I can hardly believe there's one on Pandora. I had steppes, deserts and mountains, though in principle with the FTS it's no problem to be anywhere in the world... of those where there are old hacked stations, yeah.

  Now, though, the sea was right there, right at my feet. Or rather, the ocean.

  I sneezed at the cold and peculiar odor.

  In fact, the cold felt strange. The icy wind tingled my skin, and the ice and snow around me smelled like bitter frost - but my body felt more psychological discomfort than physiological. Biotechnology and genetic engineering rulezz... Even with the shield off, it was no problem, and with it on, it was almost comfortable.

  I picked at the ice with my foot and kicked a piece of it toward the low dark waves, watching it disappear into the distance. Depressing... But there's not much choice of available stations, and this one was the most suitable.

  The answer to the question "what am I doing here" was simple: I needed water. Seawater, to be precise, in rather large quantities. Or rather, not the water itself, but the Mendeleev table dissolved in it. Although the composition of the water of Pandora's seas is somewhat different from Earth's (sort of), the abyss of the sea on both planets contains a lot of treasures. I mean, I'm talking about chemical elements dissolved in the water, not pirate treasure. Why would there be pirates here?

  - Yoo-hoo-hoo! - came from the wind. I raised my eyes tiredly to the sky.

  ...But okay, I admit it was funny.

  The fun, however, quickly evaporated at the sight of the approaching black-flagged vessel. Even if this is just another one of AlBa's jokes, pirates can be trouble.

  However, bandits - and pirates - are not only potential problems, but also trophies and exp.

  I probably wouldn't have waited for them to approach - caution and prudence above all! - but I actually had not a just bare, icy shore here. In the past twenty-four hours, I'd managed to build a basic distilling station, extracting goodies from the water for the fabricator. Give it time, and I can get grenade production up and running... So far, I'm still just getting started, but it's already attracting a lot of attention, so the pirates won't miss it, and seven to three, they'll tear the place apart for me. I put four turrets, but even without onboard guns - which the pirate boat fortunately didn't have - dismantling it won't be a big problem. In the future, I'll put a grenade launcher in one of the turrets; that might be enough to sink a ship like this.

  Too bad my AI only support a limited number of objects at a time, otherwise I'd just make the whole place a forest of turrets. A forest of turrets... That sounds Pandorian.

  Well, four should be enough to take out the pirates since they don't have artillery. I'll put my new shield to the test.

  Contrary to my expectations, the pirates were in no hurry to dock or open fire. The ship, which really looked like a metal trough with a thick column of mast in the middle, stopped a hundred meters from the shore; one of the punks on deck raised a horn to his lips.

  - Hey, there on the shore! Don't you dare steal our sea!

  - Pardon? - I said perplexedly. I slapped myself on the forehead, searched a little, and digitally built my own loudspeaker horn. - Pardon? What are you talking about?

  - I say this is our sea, and we walk it! - replied the pirate. - And not any land rats to pump it out! Arrgh!

  I "listened" to myself, and realized that if something surprised me, it was the fact that the pirate began to talk about something, not the content of his speech. Pandora, what are you doing to me?

  - Anyway, get the hell out of here and put the water back where it belongs. This sea is for pirates only!

  - So I'm a pirate too! - i call back - Here, I have pirated licenses for ECHO. ECHO, send him a confirmation.

  "Found addressee. Sending," the machine's AI responded. The pirate looked down at his belt and made some manipulations with his own ECHO, then raised his hand, suggesting that I wait, and gathered a few more people around him, with whom they began to confer.

  - The situation is difficult, but we decided to give you a chance, Yarr! - finally announced the pirate. - Pass the Trial to become a true pirate!

  Sidequest. I'll bet.

  - What is this "trial"? - I asked.

  - On Skull Island, in the Cave of Bones, get the True Pirate's Tricorn! - the pirate proclaimed in a pompous pose. - I'll send you the map right away.

  "Incoming message received!"

  - Okay," I shrugged. - It's a deal.

  It's time and effort, but it's exp. It's worth it, I guess.

  I'm not a sailor, not even close, but the place on the pirate map wasn't too far from shore, and navigation on Pandora wasn't really a problem. The harder part was negotiating with Scooter to rent a vessel; we eventually settled on a small hovercraft, complete with a single-seat inflatable boat with a motor. Me as captain, ECHO as navigator/navigator, and off we went....

  The icy gray sea was depressing, and the sight of greenery ahead was a treat for the eyes. Uh-huh, winter all around, and summer ahead, on a patch of land in the middle of the ocean. I even suspected for a couple of seconds that AlBa had either pulled me into One Piece or dragged to Pandora Island from there; he would do that, I suspect.

  That wasn't the point, though.

  "Skull Island Preserve." - announced from the shrubby board on the shore as I disembarked. And even before that, as I got closer, the transparent dome of a giant shield covering the entire island became visible. Not a combat shield, just a 'climate' shield, but a shield nonetheless. - "The population is elsewhere. Don't feed volcano! Don't taunt varkids! Don't forget write last will! Beware stalkers! Conserve ammo! Never, ever make deals with a dragons!"

  Huh. I couldn't have said it better myself.

  It was much warmer under the dome around the island than it was outside, and the climate control in my armor was long gone - and I'm not likely to fix it anytime soon, it is not the cheapest pleasure. Lots of vegetation, humidity, strange sounds - jungle as it is, except that there are no bird cries, as there are none on Pandora. Maybe there are wings here, though... Anyway, the jungle was usually a dangerous place, but still a nice change from the desolate scenery of the damn planet. I had little doubt that I'd have time to hate the jungle as well, but for now I welcomed the change of scenery.

  I got the impression that this island was, how shall I put it, bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. I mean, the area under the dome is bigger than the island looks from outside it. Change the name to "cursed island" and it would be perfect.

  Oh, and if I wasn't already an enemy of Pandorian eco-activists, now I definitely would be. Varkids, spider ants, a couple of skags... The local creatures were jungle-colored instead of the usual dusty-sandy, and a bit tougher than usual, which reflected the ECHO in their "threat level". I had to tread carefully, trying to lure them to the turrets prepared near the shore - the landing points - but it wasn't as easy in the jungle as it was in the steppe. I knew I'd hate this vegetation... It's a convenient place for ambushes, and an uncomfortable place to run. Plus the dampness reduces the effectiveness of fire weapons, the most effective against all these creatures.

  Still, caution, discretion, and firepower make the difference.

  It turned out that the jungle did not cover the whole island. I found this out when the trees finally ended and a hilly area covered with a variety of grasses opened up in front of me. Melancholy, but beautiful - and it makes you look around carefully. Something makes me doubt that if a place on Pandora looks calm and peaceful, it really is.

  However, contrary to my wariness, I did not notice any threats. There was a small flock of rakks in the distance, but they were no real threat, and they didn't attack unless they were close to their nests. There was a lot of grass, but it was low, so visibility was good and it was hard to hide.

  Oh, and I also discovered why the island is called that, it seems. On the highest hill in front (shallow against the smoking volcano in the center of the island, but still) lay - stood? - a large skull of an unknown beast, perhaps the same dragon that had been written about off the coast. I'd seen the skeletons of large creatures on Pandora more than once, but this was the largest. It was hard to estimate the size, but it was clearly visible even from this distance.

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  I also seemed to notice the cave mentioned in the pirate's map in the hillside next to the skull.

  Looking around again, I headed toward it... And rolled on the ground when I was hit in the back.

  Some creature that looked like a crazy mix of a lizard and a bat, with a dash of scorpion, was clawing at me and trying to chew through my shield... with a beak? Where the hell did that thing come from?

  Despite the fall, I didn't drop my shotgun, which was handy in the woods. Instead, I fired a volley of buckshot at the creature, point-blank - and the result was... not what I would have liked.

  Instead of being blown to pieces, or at least to die honestly from the excess of metal in its body, the creature just flew away, having time to hit me with its tail with a spike on the end. And the bullets, I mean buckshot... Crumbled to the ground, colliding with something transparent.

  "Ambush Stalker, threat level 12," the ECHO reported, and I found that it displayed not only a red health bar, but also a blue shield bar. Fuck.

  However, it immediately became clear that it wasn't that bad: it was, expectedly, even worse. Falling to the floor, the "stalker" bounced sideways and backwards in a sharp movement, and - disappeared. His image rapidly blurred, becoming transparent, and in a second the landscape was once again a peaceful absence of any presence.

  With one hand I fired another shot to where the beast was, and with the other I triggered the turret's digitalization. Fucking Pandora, fucking pirates, fucking stalkers, and the fuckin' fact that I was right again... If these things are pack animals, it's not a stalker, it's a bull-shit.

  The beast came out of nowhere, but I had time to react to a sound, a low rustle. A gunshot... and from the other side another one immediately jumped. My shield held, however, and I slammed the butt of my gun down, knocking the second enemy away. The turret rumbled, trying to catch the thing that was jumping in a broken trajectory; the one I had butted was already gone, but the one that had caught the shotgun volley and lost its shield was still visible, so I joined the turret. A volley, another... reload. The first two shots barely grazed the stalker, but then I adjusted to its movements and caught a good hit. The beast twitched, disrupting the rhythm of its movements, and the turret finished its work. Well, not so "finished"... At least one more stalker was still around.

  I started to create another turret, but this time I didn't have time: the process was interrupted by a new attack. However, my shield was still holding, the turret was still standing, and the effect of surprise was already exhausted, so this thing didn't pose a serious problem.

  I plopped my ass down on the ground and reloaded my shotgun. I looked around suspiciously, and started building another turret. I need some way to detect stalkers...

  The stalkers left no traces, and even their scent - yes, the ECHO can be equipped with a scent-analyzer program - was almost nonexistent. Mordecai would be consulted, but the hunter still does not have an ECHO... Only option remained to look in the network. The main thing is to sift out unreliable information and outright nonsense.

  Well... There was not much useful information. Perhaps only three more or less useful pieces. First, their cloaking is due to the refraction of light by their biological shields; if the shield is knocked down, invisibility doesn't work... until the shield recharges. Second, their invisibility is imperfect; if you look closely, you can see something like jets of hot air. Third, there are special goggles that allow them to be seen while cloaked. Unfortunately, they are no longer produced, Dahl used to make them for their fighters working in stalker zones, and the remaining glasses can only be bought for a lot of money. And that's half the trouble, they also come only as an additional module to the Dahl armor.

  That's a shame.

  I have an idea, though. The smell and the image are gone, but these things aren't silent. Quiet, but not silent, both stalkers made a sort of low rustling noise. If recorded, it could be used as a sample for ECHO as a sign of threat. The AI should be able to handle picking out from the background sounds; it wouldn't give a direction, except roughly, but it could sound an alarm. Even with false positives, it would be useful.

  All that's left is to blindly capture a stalker and record the sound.

  An hour of time and a dozen stalkers later, I was convinced that the idea was working. It's not perfect, but it works, and my crooked application - rather, just a script - even allows me to determine the direction. Unfortunately, the sensing distance was still very small, but still it was much easier to deal with local animals, especially after calibrating and eliminating extraneous sounds.

  Carefully, from turret to turret, I made my way toward the cave.

  Hmm. That mossy rock at the entrance isn't a rock, it's a container.

  Indeed. Beneath the scraped moss was a typical Dahl container, with their symbol on it. Empty, unfortunately. But more interestingly, inside the cave I noticed a section of flat wall protruding from the stone, with a broken line on it. Eridian architecture.

  ...And an Eridian guardian.

  The constant wariness, because of the stalkers, made me jerk to the side and shoot before I realized I'd noticed any movement in the shadows of the cave's yawn. The first ball of lightning passed within centimeters of me... the next one caught on.

  This guardian was flightless, whether by design or damage, and larger than the ones I'd encountered so far - or rather, taller. It was also much more rapid-firing. The previous ones had a pause of a second or two between shots, but this one was firing in bursts.

  Fortunately, his weapon was less powerful, and my current shield more so. Still, I was in a tight spot. Despite my maneuvers, I'd already been hit a couple of times, taking out more and more of my shield, and there was no cover nearby; my own return fire didn't seem to bother the guardian, and the strip of his shield showed no cause for concern.

  ...Of course, I wasn't going to get myself killed. And I still had some trump cards left. Namely, the shield.

  I mean, I had already killed one guardian using a physical shield. Now I had something better, Dahl's officer trophy shield from that sweep of the outpost on Moxie's tip.

  A man-sized plate of composites extracted from the digital vault appeared in my hand, and I lunged forward, covering myself with it and changing my grenade modifier. A series of ball lightning bolts splattered against the surface of the shield, but it held....

  ...or not quite. I noticed a dark spot appear on my side - immediately appearing in yet another spot with the guardian's next shot. It's holding up better than a force shield, but how long it'll last is an open question.

  It's good enough for me, though.

  ...Or not. The Guardian was already right in front of me, visible through the undamaged transparent window in the shield, and then it turned out that the Eridian construct had more than one weapon. The left "arm" ended in an electrified cannon - and on the right, there was an electric sword. The lightning blade with a blinding flash crashed into my shield and shattered it, severing a triangular piece with the upper right corner.

  No, I'm not going into hand-to-hand combat with one of those. What kind of sacrifices are not made in the name of victory... In this case, sacrifices like this.

  The guard's limbs, and body, were as thin as matchsticks - well, almost - and he wasn't easy to hit, but the shield surrounding him was a sphere of considerable size. Although I still have no idea what the nature of these shields are, the grenade with the "sticky" modifier didn't care: the small sphere stuck to the surface of the large one. I fired a burst of Shock SG - the strip of shield shrank a little - and stepped aside, spinning around. Another chunk of shield, sliced off by the lightning blade, fell to the ground, and then there was a boom and a crackle.

  There was no explosion as such. Instead, the antimatter energy in the grenade, if it could even be called that, went to power a small analog of the Tesla Tower from the Red Alert game. The lightning bolts continuously struck everything around the little generator stuck to the shield of the Eridian guardian, including the shield itself; the energy would only last for two or three seconds, but it should be enough to fry even a really powerful shield.

  I hope so.

  ...almost enough.

  The Guardian kept firing at me, and I was half-blindly trying to fire back, as sections of my shield became more and more clearly charred until they began to crumble to ash and dust. When the crackling and rumbling of grenade lightning finally subsided, the guardian's shield, or rather its ECHO scale, flickered at the edge.

  Then it began to recover.

  An insanely powerful shield, with insanely fast regeneration.

  ...And yet, I didn't panic. Instead, I simply stepped to the side again.

  For the seconds that the grenade worked, I didn't just take cover and shoot at random. I was also digitally building a turret behind me.

  A pause between the guardian's bursts, and the turret and I opened fire together.

  The shield regeneration stopped before it could replenish the strip in any significant way, and then it just as quickly crept back to the left. A second, and the guardian's shield finally disappeared.

  For a moment I was afraid that I was about to find out that the guardian also had armor, but no - without a shield he was fragile, and this specimen showed neither high mobility nor the ability to fly. His "skinniness" helped him avoid some of the bullets - but not all of them.

  The 'health' streak had also dried up.

  "Level up!" - reported the ECHO.

  Ugh. I've need to select skill again. Ans also I think I need a drink, too.

  I'd be glad if this was the end of Skull Island adventure. Alas, no.

  No, luckily for me, there was no second guard in the cave. It was not very large at all, and if there were any eridian structures there, they were buried under the thickness of ordinary stone. However... Pandora never ceases to amaze: I found out that treasure can be frustrating.

  The cave was filled with containers of various valuables. Weapons, including a couple of "blue" guns, and even one "purple" one. Jewelry. Money in bills and in digital vaults. Even a case of condensed milk cans, an incredible rarity.

  Oddly enough, a pirate's tricorn was also found here, among other things. But it was obvious that I'd been sent here to deal with the guards, and after that... I grabbed a telescope from the table (antique, I could sell it), left the cave, climbed to the top of the hill, and looked around.

  Of course. A black-flagged tub was sailing toward the island. Me should prepare for defense.

  I looked down at my feet, where there was a collection of good weapons.

  ...Idiots. Letting a Vladoff engineer into the weapons vault was like... well... doing something stupid.

  ...Now I have my own ship. Too bad it's crewless. What am I supposed to do with it, anyway?

  Although...

  - ECHO, look through the sites where they deal with barter and exchange - I commanded. - The criteria are as follows...

  A few hours later, I was happy, as can be happy only a man, who finally got the desired gun. My happiness was not dampened by the realization that Pandora had gotten me with her madness, nor by the fact that the Thunderer machine gun was only an unlicensed copy of Vladoff's Groza. Even the fact that I had to pay extra didn't spoil my mood.

  I had condensed milk, I had a machine gun - what else do you need to be happy?