Vow of Silver Dawn Chapter 44

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Et cetera, et etera
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Chapter 44: Feigning Failure
By 国王陛下, Translated by 74translations
Notes at the end.

	Shawn pressed the button without hesitation.

	An immense burst of luminous heat spewed forth from the gun, and like a lance made of fire it impaled the other turret, piercing its shields and armour, causing it to disappear behind a wall of fire.

	Having been blasted by another cannon, the expanding fireball that had been the other gun turret showered fragments of metal over the nearby security forces.

	So suddenly it had occurred, instantaneously all attention was upon the explosion. The dumbstruck gazes of all who were on the manor grounds were upon the expanding sea of flames, and not even the most experienced among them could pry their eyes away.

	"What happened? Was it an accident? Is this real?"

	Regardless, it was an unbelievable sight.

	Even the attention of the two airspeeders was drawn, having momentarily forgotten to continue sweeping the mountains for the sniper.

	A moment later, the 'victorious' gun turret quickly spun around and aimed skywards.

	The pilots of the airspeeders felt shivers run from the tops of their heads down to their feet.

	They were pilots of vehicles meant for small skirmishes, going on simple support sorties, or engaging in minor combat missions. They were relatively weak, and now they were the targets of a heavy ground-based cannon.

	At this moment, there weren't many who were still too concerned about the distant sniper——No matter how skillful, a sniper would only bring down individual and rather insignificant targets. But a heavy gun suddenly going crazy, that was cause for alarm.

	Without hesitation, Shawn grabbed the controls again, and brought the barrel of the  gun around to take aim right at the centre of the manor grounds, and fired upon the second floor of the command post.

	This time, even the slowest security personnel couldn't have failed to notice that something was amiss.

	There wasn't anything they could do about the sniper, but the sudden betrayal of the gun was close at hand, and soon each was providing their own report of what had just occurred into their communicators, creating quite the chaos in their internal network.

	The two airspeeders shifted their priorities from Lü Nan to the heavy gun turret, raking it with blaster fire, though given the gun's thick armour, it was only sufficient to scratch the surface.

	Shawn fired back immediately, and though as expected his shot went wide, it nevertheless served to further push the fact that he was actively being a problem.

	"The hell is wrong with the gun? Is this a mutiny!?"

	"N-no, I heard that we've got a saboteur disguised as one of us!"

	"Is our saboteur a ghost? How'd he get into a gun when we've got a dozen pairs of eyes out here!?

	"Where's our heavy weapons team? Hurry over and blow this damned thing up!"

	"Why haven't we heard from headquarters? They need to cut the power to the gun!"

	These well-trained soldiers had been thoroughly thrown into disarray, though a moment later, they were pleased to see the lights on the gun go off, and the turret that had been so recklessly swinging around come to a stop.

	"It's power's been cut!"

	There was a cheer from the crowd, followed by a missile delivered from one of the airspeeders, blowing the gun's door open, electricity arcing from its shattered hinges.

	It was quite the boon to the security personnel morale.

	"Quickly, fire another!"

	"We've got the saboteur, now let's blow him to bits!"

	Amidst the "heated discussion," another missile struck the door, blowing it off its hinges at last, letting all see inside.

	A number of the braver personnel rushed forwards.

A corpse, badly burned and mangled, so much so that only the emblem could serve to identify it, was slumped near the door——one of the guards assigned to the gun.
	In front of the controls were a  pair of unconscious gunners, and in their place was another, uniform a bit out of shape, but equally silent.

	The first to take a look were quite surprised, and were momentarily at a loss as to what to do.

	There was no fight to be had, just a bunch of bodies laid around.

	"Maybe when he saw things going south, the saboteur killed himself?" One of the guards suggested.

	"Feh, lucky him!" one of the veterans spat, angrily.

	One of the captains pushed his way to the front of the crowd, approached one of the unconscious gunners, and delivered a swift kick to rouse him. Then grabbing him by his collar, picked him up.

	"What the hell happened!?"

	Having been suddenly awoken, the gunner's ears were filled with a low drone, and had little information to offer other than that someone had suddenly appeared, and little else.

	The interrogating captain had learned nothing, and so full of anger moved to pull aside the body at the controls, if nothing else but to vent the anger out on it.

	He found however that the body was a man, over fourty years old, his dark face bearing the scars of a lifetime.

	"Yuan Ye...." The captain softly exclaimed, startled.

"How could it be Yuan Ye?" He thought. Yuan Ye was meant to be keeping guard, and yet here he was, dead at the controls.

	A moment later, the captain spun around, his gaze snapping to one of the bloodied corpses.

	"Kill him!"

	The other soldiers were quite confused by the order.

	The captain pulled his anger back for a moment to explain, "That corpse is our saboteur, he's trying to take advantage of the chaos to get away!"

	As he spoke, he had already raised his weapon, which proved a far more convincing argument, as the soldiers in front of him quickly moved to clear out of his way.

	Meanwhile, Shawn, who was feigning death by the door, finally gave it up.

	They really were the best that the Qiankun Corporation could offer if they managed to suss him out so quickly.

	Shawn's position was exposed and not particularly advantageous. As long as that captain was taking charge, he'd probably soon be met with a hail of blaster fire.

	With no other options, Shawn readied to put into action his last resort.

	Still feigning death, the Jedi Apprentice pushed down on the button that would set off a remote bomb.

	The explosives beneath the gunner's seat erupted with a bang, and with an expanding wave of heat, instantaneously all were swallowed by it.

	Shawn, still lying on the ground, covered his mouth and nose, and felt the heat roll over his back, which was quickly followed by a thick smoke.

	Though he was wearing the uniform and armour of Yuan Ye, it was still somewhat of a struggle for Shawn to keep his wits about him.

	Fortunately for him though, the heat quickly dissipated, leaving only the thick smoke.

	Shawn took the opportunity to grab one of the soldiers near him and shakily pull himself up, and hoarsely cry, "H-help me..."

	Applying the best of his acting ability, he did his best to play the role of a wounded man, in both appearance and posture looking all like he truly had been the victim of their saboteur. To help sell the effect, he used all the energy he had left to apply the effect of a mind trick.

	However, what met him were not medics and the care of his comrades, but blaster muzzles.

	"Who are you?" demanded an officer in an impressive-looking blue uniform, who led what looked to be over 30 personnel, who had surrounded Shawn, and were now leering at him with ice-cold stares.

	This time, Shawn really was a bit annoyed.

	Shawn had no idea what he had done wrong this time——even if these security personnel were possessed of such indomitable will that they were immune to mind tricks, he had still done his absolute best to look and act the part.

	But, Shawn had no time to think about the reason.

	The blue-clad officer raised a hand, and with waning interest said, "Nevermind, it doesn't matter. Let the coroner ID him during the autopsy."

	Shawn really was out of options this time.

	With dozens of blasters pointed at him, even if he were to grab one of the guards besides him, it'd just be another body reduced to swiss cheese. While it did appear that a number of them were confused at having been ordered to fire on what appeared to be one of their own, the orders of an officer were absolute.

	But as his life began to inch ever closer to the line between life and death, the officer suddenly raised a hand as his expression slowly changed to astonishment.

	Raising his other hand to his earpiece, he asked incredulously, "Sir? Are you sure? But... Yes, yes, I... I understand."

	After shutting off his communicator, the officer was silent for a long while, and although his gaze remained filled with ire, he eventually simply said, "let him go."

	All around came the confused murmurs to the tune of "Let him go? What's the meaning of this?"

	Some of the personnel with insider knowledge speculated amongst themselves, "could he actually be..."

	The blue-clad officer barked out his order again, "I said let him go!"

	This time, there were no sounds of protest or hesitation, just the silent lowering of blasters, and every kind of gaze on Shawn.

	Shawn finally let out a breath he had been holding in, and let go of the man he had grabbed while pretending to be wounded. Tidying himself slightly, he quickly made for the headquarters.

	The journey was made without any blasters being pointed at his face, just questions of his identity.

	With no more firepower reigning down on distant targets, the airspeeders hovered around for a short while before returning to base themselves.

	In what felt like an instant, the battle was over.

	For things to have reached this stage, for the battle to have turned out in such a manner, there was only one possibility.

	The Captain had been successful.

Translation Notes
No notes, I think

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