Vow of Silver Dawn Chapter 53

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Bish bash bosh
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Chapter 53: Ace Pilot
By 国王陛下, Translated by 74translations

	The Hongxing Squad's flight had been rather eventful.

	After the Hongxing and the freighter with 27 people aboard left the surface, Dui-4399 was thrown into chaos.

	Lü Nan and Uncle Xu had stirred up some manner of revolt, and fighting had broken out between them and those who remained loyal to Ning Tao and those dissenting.

	Though the latter were far outnumbered by the former, they retained a tight grip upon the area around the signal repeater, significantly slowing down the dissenter's ability to occupy the entire base.

	This had the effect of preventing any information from escaping Dui-4399, which also enabled Ning Tao to quietly slip away.

	The only question was...

	——

	"An Ping! This is not is not what we discussed!"

	From the cockpit of the Hongxing, Ning Tao's voice, ear-splitting in volume, shouted out from the communicator.

	"Li Yu guaranteed my safety! You Silver Knights had better not go back on that!"

	An Ping rubbed his ears, and asked his communicator, "How exactly are you currently unsafe?"

	With fury, Ning Tao answered, "How dare you force me to go with *these people*...."

	Before he could get it all out though, a clamorous scolding from behind him cut him off.

	An Ping seemed to be enjoying himself, "I don't think it'd be wise to earn the ire of your shipmates. We, of course, are pledged to ensure your safety, but should you choose to invite suicide with your words, then we will be unable to do anything but mourn your passing."

	When Ning Tao spoke again a moment later, his voice was much more timid, "If you really wanted to keep me safe, you should've let me ride with you!"

	"You couldn't be more wrong. Our ship has got a 6 head limit, and we're already full. It'd be bad if we overloaded it. Besides, the Qinglong will be throwing everything they've got at us, do you really want to be with us for that? Of course, if you did, I could find a spot for you in the cargo hold maybe..."

	Ning Tao grit his teeth, but didn't respond.

	An Ping might've been facetious, but was ultimately reasonable enough that there wasn't really room for a counterargument.

	Given the current chaos on Dui-4399 and information blackout, the Qiankun Security Bureau didn't know anything about what was happening on the planetoid, and by the time they learned of Ning Tao's defection, he would be relaxing in a jacuzzi aboard one of Kongzhang the Hutt's more luxurious smuggling vessels.

	The only question was that of the Qinglong. Longtou was a cunning one, and wasn't liable to just let the Hongxing Squad casually walk out, nor sit idly by as those 27 survivors escaped——They were witnesses, to both the Security Bureau's corruption, and the Qinglong's blatant flaunting of the law. If word got out, there'd be little doubt the Security Bureau would arrange for the Qinglong to take the fall.

	With that at risk, they weren't going to risk those testimonies ever coming out.

	Once the Qinglong got to work, their escape would be fraught with danger. The Hongxing Squad might've been able to find a way to sneak in, but on the way out there were still a number of fighters around the asteroid.

	If the Hongxing Squad were going to escape from the Qinglong, now already aware of their presence, then the Hongxing would have to cut a bloody swathe through them.

	And that was not a path Ning Tao was keen to walk.

	"I know a secret exit," Ning Tao said, "I happened on it by accident, and there's only a few people in the base who know of it, I made extra sure to keep knowledge of it out of the hands of the Qinglong."

	An Ping laughed, "Guess you never really trusted the Qinglong then, eh?"

	Giving such an idiotic question only a token grunt, Ning Tao continue on, "The coordinates are..."

	An Ping carefully took note of them, before saying to Lü Nan at the helm, "Got that? Wait a minute, then take us near."

	"You don't trust me?" Ning Tao asked.

	An Ping laughed hard at that.

	Ning Tao was quick to defend himself, "I'm on your side for now, and if  you guys go down, I do too..."

	"But, we don't want to go down with you," An Ping said, cutting him off. "A secret exit? Hidden right under the Qinglong's noses, how did you discover it? Would you believe that there are twenty fighters there, waiting for us to step into their trap?"

	Ning Tao didn't say anything for a moment, because that was a very real possibility.

	"Then what do we do?"

	"We'll kill 'em," An Ping said, nonchalantly, "Thanks to you, we know what we're not doing, so assuming our luck isn't too bad, we can rush on over and intercept the Qinglong before they're in too great a quantity, and the Hongxing can cover your escape. Of course, you'll need to pull your weight, as well."

	Suddenly alert, Ning Tao asked, "Me? Now how are you trying to screw me?"

	"I heard that when you were sub-bureau chief, you were quite the ace pilot, their best, even. When the shooting starts, we'll be leaving the safety of that ship to you."

	Ning Tao felt as though he'd start vomiting blood.

	Quite an ace pilot? The best? An Ping knew those were things said of him in the Qiankun Security Bureau's weekly magazine. They once interviewed him, and made him out to be as like he were a god made flesh, but he also figured that surely anyone with a brain could take one look at him, a man with hutt-like fatness, and tell that he'd never even fit into a fighter's cockpit, right? Ning Tao had to pay someone for that article, it was just a self-advertisement!

	The job was very stressful, and if he could pay someone to write an article that'd make him happy, there was nothing wrong with that was there?

	While Ning Tao was busy grumbling, An Ping had already shut off the communicator.

	"Captain, are we really leaving the freighter to that half-hutt?" Uncle Xu asked.

	"The alternative is we leave in the hands of one of those civilians who've never seen a battle," An Ping replied, "I know we can't rely on him, but Ning Tao's background is with the Security Bureau, he's at least a better bet than an ordinary person."

	"Why complicate things?" Lü Nan asked, "Why not just blow up every fighter in our way?"

	"Right, I'll leave responsibility for saving the world to you then..." An Ping replied.

	Their chat got interrupted by their newbie sounding the alarm.

	With his eye on the radar, Shawn first read the data given, and after some quick mental math shouted out a warning.

	"Contacts ahead! No less than ten!"

	"Damn, that fast?" An Ping snapped to attention, fully alert now, "Luck's not in our favor today, looks like we've kicked the hornets nest, and they're angry!"

	In the few seconds An Ping took to speak, all inside the Hongxing took to their posts.

	Lü Nan sat down in the Pilot's seat, and grabbed the controls with both hands. Immediately, the Hongxing made an evasive maneouver, accompanied by the intensified roar of the engine, as the cup of water she had put down splashed its contents all over the cabin.

	An Ping sat in the co-pilot's seat and managed the guns, and at the press of a button the ship's 6 laser cannons and secondary systems sprung to life.

	Shawn remained fixed on the radar, rapidly coordinating with the shipboard computers to keep tabs on contacts, and feeding that data to the pilots.

	Zhuang had entered the cabin at some point, exposed a section of rather complicated-looking piping, and affixed herself to it by tether to her belt. Arcs of electricity spilled forth continually from her multitool.

	The Hongxing was a highly specialized vessel, designed to be highly manoeuvrable, but such specialization had a cost. Under stress, the ship could perform to a highly impressive degree, but require that a mechanic be actively repairing it. Otherwise, in less than three minutes, it would overheat, and explode.

	Uncle Xu, squad medic, sat clutching his first aid kit, ready to act.

Translation Notes
None!

肖恩 - xiāo'ēn - Shawn, Jedi Apprentice
莫斯提马 - mòsītímǎ - Mastema, Jedi Master
李钰 - lǐ yù - Li Yu, Commander of the Silver Knights
白 - bái - Bai, Li Yu’s droid
安平 - ānpíng - An Ping, Captain of the Hongxing Squad
吕楠 - lǚnán - Lü Nan, Hongxing Squad Sniper
许伯 - xǔbó - Uncle Xu, Hongxing Squad Medic
庄原瑛 - zhuāngyuányīng - Zhuang Yuanying, Hongxing Squad Engineer
宁涛 - níngtāo - Ning Tao, ex-Qiankun Corp Military big shot
龙头 - lóngtóu - Longtou, ostensibly a title more than a name; the Dragon’s Head of the Qinglong

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