Kai'el Brat "Guardian of the Light"
Grant Navarro
Building a sphere of influence was slow work, costly in ways few ever saw. Building sequestered Jedi training vaults scattered across the stars demanded more than vision; it required trust, resources, secrecy, and the patience to lay each foundation. Acquiring building materials for the repairs and the initial vault, restoring the Dantooine temple, and coaxing that wounded place back into purpose had already asked much of him. Recent operations against underworld networks and the recovery of liberated spice were presently providing the means to keep such work moving.
Unfortunately, that also meant the Mudduck, Braze's usual heavy freighter, was occupied elsewhere transporting those reclaimed stores. For now, he was left aboard the Fugu, a smaller frigate, to collect building materials himself. Not all of those acquisitions had come through clean and comfortable channels. Some had been gathered through hushed trade lanes and less reputable exchanges, the sort of places where salvagers, brokers, and freight handlers asked fewer questions than they should have. Enough of what now sat in the Fugu's hold was expensive, specialized, or difficult to replace that discretion had become a necessity.
The port itself was no grand thing, just a worn spread of duracrete and stained loading lanes boxed in by squat docking towers and weathered service gantries. Dust moved in thin veils across the ground whenever the wind stirred, dragging around scraps of grit and the dry smell of open land beyond the port's edges. Closer in, the air changed; warm metal, engine fuel, scorched wiring, and vented steam pressed together beneath the steady noise of working berths. Somewhere off to the side, a loader whined as it hauled a pallet into place. Further out, voices rose and fell in rough bursts, dockhands shouting over the churn of idling engines.
The Fugu rested behind him on its landing struts, smaller than the Mudduck by enough to feel wrong every time his eyes passed over it. Leaner in the hull, less imposing on the pad, and far less comforting with a cargo hold full of things worth stealing. The kind of shipment that could look ordinary enough on paper, yet shine like a hoard to anyone with the sense to guess at its real value.
Braze stood near the foot of the boarding ramp, posture easy at first glance, though there was little softness in the way he held himself. One hand rested near his belt while his gaze traveled across the flow of arrivals and departures moving through the port. Pilots in worn jackets, freight crews pushing repulsor pallets, traders with sharp eyes and guarded expressions, hired muscle lingering where there was shade to be found… faces passed, none yet the one he was waiting for.
He had put out a simple notice, nothing grand, only a request for extra security on a run that might invite trouble.
