That morning in the port's Worker District, the air felt suffocatingly thick.
The stench of burning coal, synthetic lubricants, and hot iron hung heavy inside the massive, low-ceilinged workshop. The deafening clang of sledgehammers striking steel echoed relentlessly.
CLANG! CRASH!
Yara wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm. Her thick leather gloves were already blackened with motor oil. The young woman's pale face was smeared with soot, and her black hair was tied up high to keep it out of the way.
However, no matter how hard she cranked her wrench on the steam pipe, her mind was elsewhere.
Yara's dark brown eyes repeatedly stole glances through the workshop's grimy windows. In the distance, cutting through the military barricades, the dark silhouette of the foreign vessel loomed rigidly. The ship was perfectly seamless, devoid of a single speck of rust.
