Vow of Silver Dawn Chapter 13

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STAR WARS: Silver Vow
Chapter 13: I have a bad feeling about this
By 国王陛下, Translated by 74translations
Notes at the end

Their ship's destination was to be the Qian System's capital planet Kun. According to the dossier, this was the birthplace of the Qian System culture, and was home to a third of the entire system's population.

The Qiankun Corporation's headquarters, the Cangqiongding Station, sat just outside the atmosphere, and looked down upon the populace below.

As the ship exited hyperspace, Shawn took the opportunity to peak out one of the ship's windows, and behold the sight of the gigantic dome that had appeared.

Shaped like a disk, even the thinnest portions were hundreds of metres thick. Within the immense disk were an unknown myriad of the Qiankun Corporation's secrets.

Viewed from directly above, one could see the centre of the dome, an area that drew in an astonishing amount of sunlight.

Shawn was just about to open his mouth and discuss with his Master the nature of the Qiankun Corporation's technological ability and aesthetic sense, when all of his sudden his vision went blurry.

Within his mind, a blazing sun ignited, and it was as though his entire world was burning; the entirety of the universe and its stars became like nothing, drowned out by the light and heat in his head!

As Shawn gently swayed back and forth, he found that the illusion vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving behind only the perfectly circular silhouette of a burning sun in his mind.

The design seemed to be faintly familiar, though Shawn did not have much time to ponder the question before he heard his Master asking "Are you alright? You don't look well."

"I... just hallucinated something for a moment."

Shawn hid nothing from his master, and described to her what he had just seen in as much detail as he could, got down a sketch of the design that had been left behind in his head, and as he did so, he couldn't help but lower his gaze, and felt as though the design he had recorded atop the holographic panel was somehow inexorably linked to design atop
Cangqiongding Station.
Mostima was silent for just a moment before instructing, "This is a revelation to you from the Force. Engrave it into your memory, but you mustn't obsess over it."

"Yes, Master."

Shawn immediately threw his many speculations back into the recesses of his mind.

It was not uncommon for the Jedi to receive a vision from the Force, and for those Masters who had become closely in tune with it, it was possible to rely upon the omnipresent Force to sense danger from a great distance, to receive clues to enlightenment, and even see the future to a limited degree.

	In the case of inexperienced apprentices however, the revelations of the Force were usually vague, and attempting to come to conclusions based on those subjective interpretations would quite likely be rather counterproductive.

"Master, did we come directly to Kun because you believe the assassin to be on the board of directors?"

	"It goes without saying that for such a high-ranking member of the Qiankun Corporation's board of directors, it'd be incredibly unlikely that his death was the result of an outside force," Mostima replied.

	Shawn put down his own communicator and attached the adapter the ship had supplied for a fee, and connected to the the Qian System's internal holonet: The XiaheNet. Looking over the news from specific topic columns to news in brief, there wasn't a single mention of Nan Heli's death anywhere.

	The lack of news was telling in and of itself though, and it was probably enough to validate the Jedi Master's theory.

	"The power of the Qiankun Corporation is greater than that suggested by the dossier," Mostima spoke from behind Shawn, where she stood watching him skim the news, "they have at the very least the ability to completely scrub their internal holonet."

	Shawn smiled. "So could Jamie Blassen."

	"What he could seal off consisted of a single barren planet's internet."

	Shawn nodded at hearing "barren."

	Bergamore's internet was completely one-note. Putting aside the constant appearance of the President's dolled-up old face, the ceaselessly repetitious speeches, and the unending flattery, there was very little else to see.

	But the Qian System's internal holonet was completely different, even if a similar political filtering system was in place. Apart from that filter however, there was still a myriad variety of content available, from that which was based upon the local galactic culture, to reports on the cutting edge of science and technology, to gossip about the Galactic Republic. It could very well have been described as encompassing "everything."

	That, combined with the sheer scope of the population of the Qian System, made the two 'nets entirely incomparable.

	“Therefore, in such a developed region, for the ruling party to have such a degree of control and awareness, makes Nan Heli's death during a robbery a rather difficult thing to explain."

	"Then in that case, shouldn't our undisguised arrival set off the real mastermind's alarms?"

	"Naturally, but that could be advantageous to our investigation; it's not always a bad thing to elicit such a response.a  Nan Heli has been dead for several days already, and in a place like the Qian System, if the mastermind is a member of the Qiankun Corporation's board, then several days would be enough time for them to cover up all trace of their involvement; Our investigation wouldn't be able to find anything of value."

	Shawn thought about it for a moment, before nodding in agreement with his Master's position.

	The Qian System was unlike Bergamore: they would not be able to rely on the abilities of a few individuals to tear a crack in the iron curtain. Were things really that simple, then it would have been unlikely that the Republic would have needed to call upon the Jedi.

	“Therefore, their learning of our arrival is likely to set off a chain reaction. Naturally, there is a risk to this, but it is a risk we will have to take."

	Shawn wanted to nod in agreement, but instead found himself with a furrowed brow , and said "I've got a bad feeling about this."

	"I share the feeling. This mission will be quite difficult, but we should not fear it."

	——

	Their ship landed at 7 in the evening local time, on the capital of the planet Kun, Xiajing.

	This massive passenger ship, over a kilometre in length, and with a capacity for tens of thousands of people, seemed to vanish into the port that stretched on as far as the eye could see, and appeared as little more than a humble insect. Yet from this insect streamed those tens of thousands of passengers, issuing forth from its various passageways like a torrent.

	"Welcome to Xiajing! We wish you a pleasant journey!"

	A droid, whose face was drawn into a smile from "ear” to “ear" was stamping his entry papers with a red seal while announcing both instructions and a heartfelt welcome.

	After Shawn had taken back his passport, he couldn't help but think that the Qiankun Corporation's droid's technology was even better than that described by Oslord's report; One generation more advanced was the very minimum.

	After a short while, the Master and Apprentice pair had already made it through both the border inspection and customs. Due to the Qian System's special status within the republic, it had its own monetary system, and so Shawn had gone to get some Qiankun currency.

	The two had then made their way to a public square outside the terminal. Shawn had been about to flag down an airspeeder taxi when he stopped, as his ears had just picked up something quite fascinating.

	"Master, there seems to be some kind of speech being given over there, may we go have a listen?"

	While Shawn asked, he had already started taking a few small steps towards the source of the sound.

	Mostima wrinkled her brow, and followed closely behind. Her sense of hearing was somewhat more keen than Shawn's, and so she had already heard the distant speech.

	It was an impassioned speech, displaying a disciplined tone, delivered in perfectly articular Qiankun.

	"As everybody knows, the foundation of politics lies in mutually beneficial reciprocity. We have been a member of the Galactic Republic for these past years, and when we get to the heart of things, how exactly have we benefited? Every year we pay them tax, so what exactly have we gotten in return?"

	"When we have need of them, they hide in their core world ivory towers, not deigning to set foot in our mortal world. When we have no need for them, their tax bureau dogs us as the shadow follows the body!"

	"Are we a member of the Republic, or are we it servants? When we were self-reliant and managed to make a number of scientific break-throughs, they wantonly, shamelessly, suppressed those discoveries!"

	Mostima's brow wrinkled ever so slightly more.

	Not a short distance away, Shawn too had stopped in his tracks, and was going over it again in his head with some astonishment, "Master, this is entirely unlike what the dossier described."

	Regardless of whether it was the Republic's galactic HoloNet, or the Qian System's own XiaheNet, the records of the relationship between the system and the Galactic Republic were consistent.

	The system and the Republic might have had somewhat of a lukewarm relationship, but it was peaceful and in good nature on the whole. Neither side had any grievance with the other, and while there were of course those within who wanted to leave, those voices were hardly mainstream.

	And yet, once they had actually set foot in the Qian System, here was someone giving an apparently contrary speech right in front of the spaceport in the capital.

"Perhaps these voices are a minority, merely amplified, or perhaps we're seeing a clue to Nan Heli's death right in front of us," Mostima said quietly.

Shawn nodded; He had been thinking the same.

Regardless of whether or not this was a coincidence, or how uninspired the speech itself was, this performance art-esque roadspide political speech was rich with information.

First of all, the capital of the Qian System allowed for public political preaching, which suggested that the system had relatively free speech, though it was possible that the content of permitted speech was all in line with the wishes of the rulers.

Second, from the perspective of the audience, it seemed that opposition to the Republic wasn't a terribly strange thing. Not much of the crowd seemed particularly interested, though it couldn't be said that they thought it was particularly bad either, just that it wasn’t particularly unique.

Lastly, and most importantly, of all the numerous accusations levelled against the Republic——the overwhelming majority were invented——and all seemingly ignorant of the existence of Nan Heli.

Nan Heli was the Republic's greatest supporter in the Qian System, it could even be said that he would be the perfect scapegoat for an opposing faction. When denouncing the Republic, how could you miss Nan Heli?

Surely it'd be in their best interest to try and discredit him in order to discredit the Republic as well?

	Shawn found himself sinking into a deep contemplation, but hadn't much time to dwell on it before his reverie was broken by the sound of his master calling him.

	"Shawn, let's go."

	A short distance away, Mostima had already hired an airspeeder. It was a blocky, yellow and blue thing, steadily parked in front of her, with a chubby R2-X7 droid plugged into the driver's seat, greeting them with a series of high-pitched beeps and whistles.

	To most people, the language used by R2-X7 would be little more than noise, so while it beeped, a display screen mounted on top of its head also displayed a translation in both Qiankun and Galactic Basic.

	"Welcome to Xiajing, we hope you're having a lovely day. Honoured guests, where might you like to go?"

	Shawn opened the door for his Master while pressing buttons on his bracelet communicator, whose multi-purpose functionality allowed him to beep out a response: "And a lovely day to you, as well. We're tourists, and we've only just arrived, we're looking for a high-quality pub of some sort, ideally somewhere in the core business district, so we can still appreciate the place after a drink, do you have any recommendations like that?"

	Atop R2-X7's head dome a series of lights flashed, and it beeped and whistled with a slightly greater speed. It was clear that this little airspeeder taxi pilot found organic visitors that could understand Droidspeak quite unusual, and was pleasantly surprised.

	This also had the effect of encouraging the droid to dedicate all of its processing power to his query, going through every data point stored on its maps, trying to find something that would fit his guest's parameters.

	By the time Shawn had taken his seat, R2-X7 had already finished its search, and gave Shawn its recommendation through a series of excited beeps and whistles.

"Many thanks, let's go with your recommendation then" Shawn said, putting a Qiankun coin on R2-X7's dashboard.



Translation Notes

a Originally, 打草驚蛇, dǎcǎojīngshé, beat the grass to startle the snake, is one of the 36 Stratagems, a Chinese military essay of somewhat vague origins (It's been variously attributed to Sun Tzu or Zhuge Liang but is unlikely to be from either). As a stratagem, it means to do something that is quite eye-catching to provoke some kind of response from the enemy, so they reveal their hand. It's also used as a warning, in the sense of "don't stomp the grass or the snake will get you."

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