"Move or die," I hissed, slapping at the swarm with the heel of my hand. They came in a dark cloud, teeth and wings and a hunger that smelled of rust and old oil. One found my mouth and I spat it out, tasting metal and fever. I wrapped my sleeve over my face, tied the torn edge with a strip of strap, and lurched forward. Every step kicked old bones of satellites and pipes. The sun over T-12 was a garbage sun—hot enough to burn skin through fabric if you stood still. "Can't keep running forever," I muttered to myself, the words more order than thought. Breath fast, legs burning, I counted the silhouettes ahead: a stack of shipping crates, a half-buried drone carcass, a distant gate. My fingers fumbled at a pack strapped to my belt. It squealed when I tugged it free, the old seal finally giving. Biscuit blocks, vacuum-cured and past their prime, blinked at me under a coat of dust. My mouth went dry in a new way. "You stupid," I told the biscuits and ripped one open. Crumbs fell on my tongue like coins. I ate fast. Pain stabbed both calves; the flies loved the broken skin. A trap came to me on reflex. I had no time for science notes, no classroom that taught this. Field tricks, stitched together with botany smarts and a lifetime of not dying. I pushed a shard of metal into the dirt and set