Across the Nerezh basin salt flats, an infantry escort moves Soren Bale and his two children toward the tidal platform for extraction.

Under the mineral crust, crowns and rakebacks follow weight, heat, vibration, spilled water, and blood until the ground itself begins to feed.

Every step has to be measured across unstable salt, untreated nursery beds, drone lanes, credential checkpoints, and dust fronts that erase the route ahead. Bale is not just cargo; he is a defecting engineer trying to get his children out after their mother’s death. Then a damaged gate pulse wakes the flats...

This is "Hungry Ground" by Sascha Schmidt