Jabia City was quite noisy but also lively.
Dockworkers shouting in three languages, cargo loaders beeping warnings at pedestrians, the constant grind of repulsor engines fighting gravity to haul crates onto hovering freighters. The air smelled of fuel, sweat, and salt from the distant coastline.
Kael stood at the edge of the Verin Shipping complex and let his gaze wander.
The facility was large but unremarkable. Warehouses arranged in a horseshoe around a central loading yard. Office buildings clustered near the main gate. Security checkpoints at every entrance—standard commercial stuff, not military grade. The kind of place where a thousand legitimate businesses operated across a hundred worlds.
Nothing about it screamed human trafficking front.
Which was the point.
"Casual inspection," Kael said. "Spread out. Don't cluster. We're dockworkers checking out a potential employer. Yenna, take the eastern warehouses. Cassian, the office block. I'll circle the loading yard."
