“The landing pad was cracked. Not damaged — neglected. The kind of cracks that formed when maintenance schedules were ignored for years. Weeds had pushed through the gaps — alien weeds, thick-stemmed, with leaves that were more blue than green and a faint bioluminescence that pulsed in the ambient light like a slow heartbeat. The pad was ringed with landing lights, but half of them were dark. The ones that still worked flickered with the arrhythmic desperation of equipment running on borrowed time.”