- Hyperion is obsessed with elite status, - I said thoughtfully. - Jacobs maintains the "good old days" image. Atlas is just making money. And Vladoff makes adamantium into dishes, shovels, and dentures.

  - And Malivan's a rocker! - Claptrap put in, starting to dance - well, as he imagines it.

  - Uh-huh, - I agreed distantly. I kicked the skag's carcass, flipping it onto its back.

  The level increase provided me with a set of information of varying degrees of usefulness, including some information about the political situation in the immediate vicinity - immediate on a cosmic scale, I mean. Pandora was a neutral territory with zones of influence of several megacorporations, but most of the planet's territory belonged to no one.

  And yes, the main power and influence on this edge of this galaxy is held by megacorporations, not that they have swept up, but are replacing nations. Three of them have a major presence on Pandora - Atlas, Hyperion, and Dahl.

  I'm the only one from the Vladoff.

  Each of these technological colossi has its own army, and produces a lot of stuff, but the main necessities - I'm not even being ironic - that they supply to Pandora are weapons and shields. By the way, the Dahl are Vladoff's main competitors, occupying the same niche in the arms market: rapid-fire automatic weapons. By comparison, Jacobs' slogan is "If you needed a second shot, it ain't Jacobs." Specializing in one-shot kills and style, they even use real wood in the finish of their weapons.

  Actually, there's quite a long story to be told about all of this, so I'd better get back to my current endeavor. I sighed and chopped the belly of the skag with my shovel, cutting it open.

  Yeah, yeah. As Claptrap said - "Skags are Pandora's most valuable resource!" And in the belly of the second one I found a trophy: a half-digested hand, still clutching a Dahl pistol.

  The strangest thing was that it didn't even make me sick.

  At least this dirty work didn't go unrewarded: in addition to the gun from the guts, I got a submachine gun from the pile, with an unused half of the cartridge block in it. As Claptrap remarked, "these cartridges are not enough even to go to visit a friend", so I had to continue digging.

  There's a lot of ammo in skag shit. It's like they ate all those bandits who robbed the settlement, and those didn't think to digitize the loot, so they carried it around in their hands... I shrugged. Well, I'm better off.

  Strange as it may seem, I managed to adapt Claptrap to the useful business besides observing the surroundings: it turns out that in addition to his useful cowardice, he is quite good at searching for stashes, and he managed to find a couple of them in the ruined settlement and its immediate vicinity. It seemed like he should be trusted to pick through the shit, but he'd be harder to get rid of the smell than my shovel and armor, and I still intended to keep him around. Eventually my arsenal was replenished with a shotgun and a smattering of ammo. That's something...

  A couple words about guns. ECHO issued a certificate on the available samples, in the spirit of "Low kill rate, low accuracy, high rate of fire", but to everything I have added "Trash. Recommend replacing with a better weapon." Unfortunately, standing apparently outside my house a vending machine digitally building Vlad's weapons for sale was irreparably damaged.

  And, by the way, even without another level up, I remembered something. I - my character - had some friction with a local arms dealer named Marcus. He also claimed to know how to deal with competitors in one way or another... I wouldn't be surprised if he was involved in the bandit raid.

  Unfortunately, I was too weak and too poorly armed to even think about revenge. For now, I hope.

  ...Still, the broken vending machine was not useless.

  These machines, which look like the ones you can buy drinks in on Earth, don't actually store anything, all the goods are transferred from warehouses and digitally built, so there's no point in smashing them in the hope of getting to the contents... almost. There are exceptions, and it just so happens that my case happens to be just that.

  It's all about my trade scouting license.

  Oh, a license... It's a very catch-all term in this world. Man, my "class" seems to be about eighty percent consists of them...

  The thing is that although digitization allows for fairly simple editing of materials and consequently the creation of things, but almost all ready-made standard schemes are patented, licensed, and you can only use them with the appropriate license. Almost to the point of "Do you have a license to tighten this type of nut?" Combat engineers like myself are trained to use off-the-shelf generic solution sets, which is what they are licensed for.

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  They're usually tied to DNA, so it's impossible to lose or pass keys to someone. It was possible to check the available ones with the ECHO, but mine showed that most of the licenses available to me were locked, and would open with level up and "character skills".

  Still, some of my licenses were already active, and this allowed me to use the ammo supply and digitalization module forged from the machine.

  No, I didn't have a free ammo license (I had a monthly "ration", but it was already used up). I did, however, have a license for "Maintenance of Vladoff Equipment", and this allowed me to do the trick, especially when combined with a license for "Protection of Vladoff Equipment".

  At level three, I was given the ability to create a "Defense Universal Military Battleturret", abbreviated to "DUMB". Seriously, that's what it's called. And, well, by a little fiddling with the licenses, I was able to add a module from a vending machine to the design, registering the modification in my ECHO for quick recreation. If I had been under the control of Vladoff's inspectors, this would have been impossible, but as a Frontier Scout, I had some leeway.

  The result was unlimited turret ammo.

  ...Well, almost. If abused too much, the stockpile or accounting AI will notice a mismatch between ammo consumption in the stockpiles and projected profits, but that's a lot of spending to do. Without feeding money to the turret.

  Maybe in the future I can get the turret to issue ammo for my personal needs as well, but not now.

  In any case, the ammo problem appeared to be partially solved, and this was something to try out.

  Such field turrets are used, in general, by the forces of all corporations, but each has its own peculiarities. Atlas, for example, takes the "Turret is cover" approach, and their Scorpions are all equipped with force shields. Dahl's "Sabre" are simply rugged and have a pretty good cannon, plus allow for the addition of an optional mini-missile launcher and magnetic grapple, for quickly placing the turret on an awkward surface.

  The Vladoff's DUMB turrets are simply a chassis, an automatic control system for mounted weapon. Which the user selects.

  Plus - characteristics can be adjusted to the circumstances and available resources. Minus - efficiency is very dependent on them, and it takes longer to deploy than the off-the-shelf designs of competitors.

  The least amount of ammo blocks I had was for the shotgun, so I decided to use it since the turret has virtually infinite. Pick a configuration, register the result, deploy.

  ...What a load of crap.

  - Oh! Lady, are you free this evening? - Claptrap said, and I didn't immediately realize he was addressing the turret.

  That's so... DUMB.

  Of course, it's not nice to make the ladies do the work... geez. No time on this planet and I'm already starting to go crazy. Calling turret a lady... All because of Claptrap.

  Anyway, the plan worked out well, though I did replace the shotgun with an MG after a volley of wide shotgun blasts caught me and dropped my shield. Set up a turret near the skags' dens, get their attention, run back to the turret, repeat. A few hours and the neighborhood was cleaned up, and I was richer by a couple hundred bucks, some ammo, and a "grenade modifier" - a device that turns "grenade ammo" into grenades. Bonus from the late mayor.

  The meat in the basement where I woke up on this planet turned out to be skag's. Pretty crappy, but edible.

  - Well, I don't have any other uncompleted tasks here, do I? - I asked Claptrap, pulling him away from flirting with the turret. It felt like it was trying to bump him with its barrel... No, it was probably just my imagination.

  - Negative, boss! - he reported in. - I mean, "No way, there's none left," not "No way, you're wrong about "there's none left"." It's a subtle but important distinction, so I want to make it clear so there is no misunderstanding between us. There is nothing more problematic than a misunderstanding between a human and a robot, though on the other hand it can be considered an inherent feature of our natures...

  - Just shut up, - I said to him, rubbing my temples. - Okay, okay. The nearest settlement is thirty kilometers from here. What about transportation? I'm asking you.

  He mumbled something, pressing his manipulators against the front of the hull.

  - Claptrap! - I said menacingly. - Answer the question.

  - But boss, you told me to shut up, - he remarked, and I rubbed my temples again. It's going to be a complicated... A complicated life.