Vow of Silver Dawn Chapter 8

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STAR WARS: Silver Vow
Chapter 8: A Change of Plans
By 国王陛下, Translated by 74translations
Notes at the end

	Once again, the Mandalorian, and a squad of guards, armed to the teeth, barged into the kitchen, only this time, rather than guns loaded with anesthetic darts, they brandished silvery blasters that could fry their targets, and given where their muzzles were aimed, the rather naked willingness to kill had everyone in the kitchen a bit on edge.

	"Where's that dessert chef?" came the muffled yet awfully threatening voice from under the helmet.

	"He said he was just heading out, through the back door there..." offered the waiter droid, replying with a calmness no organic could possess.

	At the droid's answer, most of the guards ran off to chase their poisoner, whilst three remained in their kitchens.

	The watchman used his heavy stomping to cover the frenetic beating of his heart. He had held his position at the estate for five years, and there had never been and major slip-ups or accidents, and yet it was because of his status as a "Mandalorian" that he could not afford to falter——after all, he was a member of the galaxy's greatest warrior race, his mere presence was supposed give his employer calm, and yet his employer, Jamie Blassen, had been poisoned right under his nose!

	Even though he hadn't died, the fact that he had suffered from a rather severe allergic reaction in front of his guests still represented a considerable loss of face. As he was the one who had let the poisoner into the estate to begin with, the blame was sure to fall on him!

	It'd be difficult enough for a Jedi Knight to escape the President's wrath, to say nothing of the Mandalorian. He had to catch that young human before the President regained consciousness.

	——

	But every action he took had already been accounted for by Shawn. Shawn was standing beside the kitchen's garbage chute, having just thrown the wreckage of a security camera into it, while watching a small, immaculately-detailed holographic projection of the kitchen, delivered to Shawn through the eyes of the FX6.

	The chip the master had obtained for him was quite incredible; It could spin straw into gold, or spin gold back into strawa.
	Shawn took a moment to feel greatly moved, before quickly moving on to the next stage of the plan.

	The next step was going to be more difficult than anything prior.

	He had set up an ambush at this spot the staff liked to take smoke breaks at, so that he might change his identity from an assassin who absconded after poisoning into that of an honourable guardsman who could walk back into the estate.

	It was going to be quite difficult, bare-fistedly bringing down a fully-armed elite soldier without using the Force, and then to perfectly impersonate the guard without alerting anyone... this was going to be the most challenging part of the plan.

	Shawn inhaled deeply, and spoke to himself from the bottom of his heart: The Force is with me.

	His Master had said that this mission was not one in which to frivolously use the Force. Partly because evidence obtained by the Force would be considered questionable, especially by those from remote regions, where the Jedi and the Force already seemed like witchcraft, and it wouldn't do them any good to alienate or foster a sense of distrust for the Jedi in people. More importantly, however, was the fact that this mission was Sean's trial, a test of what the Jedi Apprentice had learned over the years——Aside from the Force, what other tools had he at his disposal?

	Shawn hadn't intended to put his own personal trial above the well-being of three billion people, but neither did he want to give up on that trial, so for this next bit, he was going to have to make quite the effort.

	That was the way of the Jedi Apprentice; "Hard work" was no mere platitude: Hard work was their code. In less than 10 seconds, the gaggle of guards had left the FX6's field of view, and Shawn could hear more distinctly their heavy (and disorganized) footsteps.

They were finally here!

The young man quickly swept his eyes over the scene to ensure that all was as designed: In the garbage chute was the bloodied fragment of a chef's uniform, as though in a rush to remove it, he had nicked himself on a sharp edge; a line of shallow shoeprints led from the chute to a narrow ventilation duct, whose metal grate had already been removed, and whose dimensions could allow for the passage of a slim human male; And finally, the doors to the electrical room were left strangely ajar, and its interior entirely unlit.

That was going to probably be confusing enough. Given the intellect of the estate guards, it was likely to keep them perplexed for a while, and the more time they took, then the more easy this stage would be.
After five minutes, the watchman and five guards burst into the room, and immediately found themselves at a loss.

"Boss, there's no-one here," said a tall guard, stupidly.

The watchman only grunted in response, and began to use his helmet's visor to perform an infrared scan for the escaped child, but the results were not what he had anticipated, for all he found were three incomplete sets of footprints, all leading different directions.

The watchman didn't believe that the boy could just disappear, there had to be some evidence of his flight, and considering the traces left, it was fairly obvious which of the two trails left behind were meant to obfuscate. Neither the electrical room nor the ventilation duct were likely to be the escape route, as both were dead ends——At a point, a ventilation duct would simply be too narrow for a human to pass through. Only the garbage chute was wide enough, and it led directly led to the estate's exterior, but the trash chute had something of a shredder installed, to directly jump in was suicide, only…

	"Boss, the control room's got news for us, turns out someone threw something heavy into the shredder, it's completely broken."

	"Huh, I was right, have three squads sent over, try to track him down. The rest of you..."

Though before he could finish, one of his underlings suddenly piped up from inside the electrical room, "Hey boss, something's not right here, you wanna have a look for yourself?"

The watchman's brows furrowed, but he still decided to have a look, seeing as his underlings probably wouldn't bother him for no reason. There had to be some kind of clue in the electrical room, at the very least.

Well, it was still worth being cautious, so first things first…

"Boss, help!"

With a grunt, the voice from within the electrical room abruptly cut off. Suddenly quite alarmed, the two nearest guards seemed to be quite shaken.

Cursing under his breath, the watchman took a step into the room.

The moment after he stepped into the electrical room however, the room's barrierb suddenly came crashing down, causing the watchman to instinctively turn his head around, only to feel an incredibly sharp and surprisingly powerful sharp blow get delivered to the back of his neck, causing his world to go dark.


——

Gently putting down the unconscious watchman, Shawn began to help himself to his armour. Moving with great speed, he freed the gatekeeper of his armour almost instantly, and at the same time, he didn't forget to steady his voice, and placing a metal bucket over his head, made his voice as gruff as possible to inform the other guards, "nothing to worry about, I've dealt with the trap."

Afterwards, Shawn steeled himself and donned the armour, doing his best to ignore the smell, his arms and legs both extended with mechanical attachments to compensate for the difference in his and the watchman's statures.

After taking a moment to straighten himself out, Shawn looked no different from the original owner of the armour. Thanks to the watchman's Mandalorian appearance, he was completely concealed within the armour, which would allow Shawn's infiltration to go that much more smoothly, Next, as long he could deal with the now-stripped watchman, the most dangerous step of the plan was done and dealt with!

Seeing the dark-skinned, bald-headed man lying unconscious on the ground filled Shawn with regret: His body was well-built, and he had armour to match. If it had come to a fight, trying to take him down while unarmed would've been quite tricky. A shame that when all was said and done, he was a Mandalorian only in spirit. Ultimately, his awareness was lacking, and his ambush had instantly brought him down. Had this been a fight for life and death on the battlefield, he'd be a corpse.

How fortunate for the watchman that this wasn't a battlefield, then. Even if he was aiding and abetting a tyrantc, he was to be judged by Bergamore's law, not Shawn's personal will.

While he pondered the subject, Shawn opened a cabinet in the electrical room that he had cleared out ahead of time, tied up the middle aged man, propped him up inside, and locked the doors shut.

He then picked up the worn-out sound emitter he had hid in the electrical room, and opened up the barrier that had fallen.

"Waste of my damn time."

Saying this, Shawn threw the sound emitter to one of the men, which continued to weakly produce garbled speech, "Boss, help!"

"I find it strange though, did none of you notice that the voice coming from inside the room was coming from nowhere?"

The men lowered their heads, and even if they had doubts, they dared not speak.

Just now, their response was a bit stupid. They could all see each other clearly, so what could the voice from the electrical room have been but a trap? In the end, it'd been their boss who had to risk his own neck.

Having subdued his underlings, Shawn activated the watchman's communicator, and asked, "Squads, have you found our man yet?"

The reply came quickly, "He's vanished without a trace, boss. There aren't even any footprints!"

Shawn mimicked the watchman as best he could, and proceeded to rage into the communicator, "Absolutely useless, the lot of you. Our poisoner isn't stupid, what makes you think that they'd be so foolish as to just leave behind footprints for you to follow? Go look if any of the manor's aircraft are missing. After going through the garbage chute he's likely to have tried to escape by stealing one. And also get the control room back on the line, tell them to check for any unusual movements in the vicinity of the garbage chute. I don't believe for a second that he could've just grown wings and flown off!"

At this command, even if the watchman's underlings were suspicious of the order, there were none who dared to suspect their boss——Though in reality, from the start, not a single man suspected that in the space of 20 minutes, their actual boss had been replaced!

In fact, most of them only wondered who would be left the honour of taking the blame for this huge security blunder?

Given the calmness of the boss, most also thought that even if the President were to demote him at some point, it would still be possible for him to reclaim his original position. After all, a Mandalorian who would deign to be a mere guard dog out here at the fringes of the galaxy was about as rare as a Jedi.

After giving his order, Shawn paced in place for a moment, before suddenly ordering, "To the control room!"

His underlings seemed perplexed, "The control room? Why?"

Shawn, uncaring, loudly replied, "Simple, I doubt that our poisoner was working alone! The dessert chef was merely bait, use your heads and think about it! There was the FX6 at the door, just what kind of poison would be able to even get to the dining hall?"

"That, boss, you don't mean..."

"And, the President merely suffered an allergic reaction, hardly anything life threatening. If this really was an assassination attempt, then we'd not have gotten off so easy I think!"

Having finished, Shawn couldn't care less if the underlings understood what he had said——in fact, perhaps it was better if they didn't. Setting of with large strides, Shawn made for the control room.

Just as he began to set off, however, a weak voice came over the comms, but the voice was nevertheless undeniable in its source.

"You are correct, this plot goes much deeper. Come to me, immediately. I've already sent people to the control room."

Shawn's footsteps came to an immediate halt.

That had been the voice of the President, and once again the plan would have to change!





























Translation Notes

a 能变宝为废，也能变废为宝 - Can turn treasures into trash, and trash into treasures. Didn’t literally translate it since I figured there was an appropriate equivalent idiom of sorts.

b This was described literally as a sluice gate, and I don’t know if that’s actually a thing that people have installed over doorways for people. At any rate, it’s a metal barrier that falls into place and blocks passage, I think “Barrier” is sufficient for the context.

c 助纣为虐 - zhuZhouweinve - literally “helping tyrant Zhou,” this idiom just means to help the enemy or side with the villain. I went with a more generic phrasing here since I think it would be bizarre for a character in Star Wars to use a description that’s a very specific allusion to real Human/Earth history. It’d be a bit like Leia describing an Imperial as being Hitler-like.

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Thanks for reading!