Kharven Cold-Chain

Kharven Cold-Chain handles Imperial medical freight from a cramped Admiralty contract desk on Khesret. He's a broad Crodoc with one tusk capped in dull steel, a regulation coat worn shiny at the elbows, and the careful hands of somebody who has opened too many condolence files.

He walks every manifest from top to bottom. Lot numbers. Case mass. Phase strips. Custody seals. Then he does it again, slower. Other factors call this nerves. Kharven calls it remembering that the far end of the lane is a clinic, not a warehouse. He hires outside hulls because the Imperial carrier pool is overbooked and because an outsider has fewer cousins in the procurement office.

What he doesn't put on the board is simple: three Aelithstone-bound consignments have shown tiny discrepancies after contractor transfer. Nothing large enough to stop a convoy. Plenty large enough to kill someone. He can't prove fraud yet, and accusing an Admiralty supplier without proof is a fine way to end a career. So he taps his steel-capped tusk, hands over the cargo, and tells the crew to watch the phase strips.