It was Zey's sleep-talking that woke her up.

"Hello," Apollonia heard, jarring her to consciousness.

The two shared quarters on the outpost, space being at a premium. And usually Zey's talking did not bother her.

But tonight, the woman seemed nearly lucid.

"I want some more," she said. "It tastes so good . . . mmmm . . ."

Apollonia made a face in the night. Zey was enjoying some tasty snack, but now she was actually making a munching noise that was strangely disturbing.

She got up and dressed, stepping out into the night.

The wind was as bad as ever, but not the worst it had ever been. She went to her favorite spot at a railing, peering down, and feeling glad again for the fencing that made falling off an impossibility.

The water below was terrifying.

The waves were so dark as to be nearly invisible, only the white caps could be seen.

There were no porpishes playing down below, but they were about; she could hear them breaching and making an oddly mournful call.

Strange creatures lit up in the water, showing bizarre shapes that seemed truly alien. Sometimes she thought they were squid-like, but the next moment they were an entirely new shape. They seemed drawn to the pylons that held up Outpost Alexa.

The porpishes were hunting them. She could tell when one was caught, because the glow would suddenly turn into a huge cloud that took time to dissipate.

She heard footsteps approaching, just barely, over the wind.

Turning, she saw it was Alisher. He looked tired, but smiled pleasantly.

"I was going to wake up Nurse Boziak," he yelled. "But since you're already awake, want to go inland?"

Apollonia only caught about half of what he said, but it was the right half. "Sure!" she called back.

Ten minutes later, they were in the undersea crawler, preparing to head ashore. It was just her, Alisher, and Hawa, and the lieutenant quickly explained the situation.

"We've got a vital node that's gone out," he explained. "Something big bumped it, we think."

Apollonia's heart beat faster. "Is this something big still around?"

"Maybe. We've got defensive drones around the area, so it's nothing to worry about. Protocol says we have to bring a medical tech with us on a night mission, since there's more hazard of injuries like falls. But don't worry, we're going to be in a well-lit area, so you probably won't have to do anything."

"I'm not stepping one foot out of the defense ring," Hawa promised. "It's well-lit and safe."

"So what do I do?" Apollonia asked.

"Just stand there and look cool," Alisher replied.

The crawler came ashore and they transferred to the hovercraft.

It was the pre-dawn time, she saw as they lifted, with the edge of the sky just turning a lighter blue.

"How far are we going?" she asked.

Hawa glanced at her. "I forget you don't have a HUD sometimes," she said.

In her still-sleepy state, Apollonia found herself annoyed. "I make do. I just pester people," she said.

"About a hundred and fifty klicks. We might be there for a few hours, though. Don't worry, I brought snacks."

He actually had; the chips tasted funny to her, and when she looked at the package she saw they were green tea and onion flavor.

Who the hell ate those? She'd never even seen them for sale in the fancy marts on Hell Rock.

Nevertheless, they were chips, so there was only so bad they could be, and she ate up her bag.

The trip felt longer than before, perhaps just because she was tired. She was starting to doze off by the time they arrived.

"Apple, you can stay in the car if you want," Alisher told her.

Fat chance of that, she thought.

But she fell asleep almost immediately after they landed.

She awoke with a start. Sunlight was beaming into her face, and as she remembered where she was, she felt terror at the idea that she might miss a chance to see a dinosaur . . . -ish thing.

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It might even be her last chance, she thought, heart pounding. She clambered awkwardly out of the vehicle.

She didn't see Alisher or Hawa, but her tablet told her they were on the other side of . . .

Her eyes were drawn to the massive carcass. In life, it had been a super-giant, one of the six-legged, huge herbivores that wandered these jungles. Now, bones jutted out of ripped flesh, and half of its side had been torn out. The entrails would be on the other side from her, but she could smell their stench already. It was so much worse than she had expected, and the flies!

There were carrion creatures all over it. Nothing larger than her hand, and she wondered where the bigger ones might be, but then remembered the security drones. They must be driving off a lot of things.

Checking her system, she saw that they were indeed working overtime. In six spots, animals from about the size of a cat to bigger than a human were being kept back.

Looking around, she saw no such creatures. But the cause of the damage to this station was apparent.

The ground had been churned up, turned to mud. There were footprints all over.

Some were the big, strange prints of this thing. It must be of the same species as the one she had caught a glimpse of on her first trip out.

Others were from something with equally-huge, splay-toed feet. Like a dinosaur, one of the big predatory ones.

This thing had been hunted, had been killed, and then the killer had eaten its fill. In the struggle, their tiny little station of equipment had been damaged.

She walked around the carcass, waving away flies as big as her finger, and tried to find its head.

It had a long neck, like a sauropod, but the head was different - like a star-nosed mole, with scads of tentacles that were already swelling under the hot sun.

Its mouth was open, and the stench coming out of it was even more rancid than she could have imagined. One of its eyes had popped, the other a gross milky-white, and she quickly walked away.

As she rounded the head, she saw piles of horribly yellow entrails spilling out far beyond. They looked like any earth animal's, at first glance, except for the fact that they were yellow - and so was all the blood. In many spots it had dried to a sickly brown color, almost green.

The stench again prompted her back. But why was she trying to get past it, anyway? Alisher hadn't called her.

She was free to do as she liked.

She looked out. There was one direction the scavengers weren't coming from. She could go to the edge of the security zone and peer out. Maybe she'd see something.

The jungle edge was clear, the plants straining to grow past the cuts into the empty terrain, but held back by regular sweeps of drones.

Stopping at the edge of the cut zone, she picked a path and went through.

The jungle was immediately dense, the humidity raised significantly, and she felt mushroomy bits and leaves rub against her clothes as she pressed forward.

Wow, this was a dumb idea, she thought. But she kept going.

The ground seemed to be sloping down, and when she looked back, it seemed that her entrance had been much higher up than she expected.

She'd just go a little deeper, she thought, though a sliver of fear was starting to creep into her stomach.

She took another step - and found no ground.

Letting out a yelp, she fell, tumbling awkwardly, just avoiding landing on her head, hitting her shoulder instead.

Tumbling, she felt a sharp pain in her ankle as she tried to catch herself. She kept falling, her leg hitting repeatedly, the pain spiking to blinding levels every time her foot hit. Thorns ripped at her, catching on but not tearing her uniform.

Then she came to a stop. The ground was flat, mushy even. When she put a hand into it to push herself up, it sunk in.

Please be mud, she thought.

Something was on her face, and she reached up despite the awkward angle and grabbed at it. It felt insubstantial, strand-like, and a handful of it felt like holding a marshmallow, but with something hard inside.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that it was webbing, and that she was holding some kind of creature.

It snapped sharp jaws and thrashed in her grip.

She flung her hand out, trying to get rid of it, but the sticky strands of silk stuck it to her hand.

It was going to get those fangs into her! She thrashed her arm, until finally the thing flew off with a thunk onto the muddy ground.

It scrambled away noisily, and she sat a moment, panting.

Where the hell was she?

She was in a dip, a meter or so below the level of the rest of the jungle. A dense copse of trees stood off alone, slightly ahead of her, while the opened area extended a few meters to her right, collapsed in, then spread out again, out of sight behind the copse. Off directly to her left was a swampy area, part of what she was in.

Pulling her hand out of the muck, she saw that there were little creatures writhing in the mud that was stuck to her. She shook her hand to get them off.

She must be in that mud. Standing up, she stumbled out of it, towards a drier patch. Light from above filtered through, leaving a strangely bare spot of yellowish soil. She moved towards that, each step sending sharp pains through her ankle. She thought she felt something hot running down her skin, but her suit and ankle seal at the top of her boot was still intact. Without breaking it, exposing her skin to the many creatures and germs out here, she couldn't check it.

Fumbling on her belt, she found her tablet, still there. She'd felt herself land on it several times as she fell, and she feared to see how much she'd busted it up.

The screen had to be cracked at least, and she'd be lucky if it worked at all.

Wiping mud off the screen, it lit up, and turned to her normal desktop view. It was working!

There was a red alert on the screen, telling her that she'd passed the security perimeter, and to stay still, waiting for help.

"Apollonia?" she heard in her ear, Alisher's voice.

"Yeah, I'm here," she said.

"Apollonia, are you there?" the call came again.

"Yeah, I'm here!" she called louder.

Part of her sensed the movement off to her left, but she didn't register it consciously.

"Apollonia, if you can hear me, stay where you are, we're coming," Alisher said.

"I said I can hear you!" she yelled. Then she saw that there was mud over the mic on her tablet.

She started to wipe it, but then movement caught her attention. It was still not conscious, but she turned to look, the scale of movement triggering something in her. It was big, far too big.

Huge.

The creature was huge.

As it raised its head, it towered twice her height. And its body was still laying on the ground.

It had a long muzzle, and through lipless jaws she saw the teeth, as long as her hand, protruding.

Two eyes, focused straight forward, were fixed upon her, watched with a cold curiosity.

It was not a Tyrannosaurus Rex. But it looked enough like one.

It considered her, a mere three meters away.

This had killed the creature above, she thought. Then it had come down here to rest. She had awoken it, stumbling through the jungle like a buffoon, yelling while right next to it.

"Help," she said, her voice barely audible.

Its jaws were longer than her whole body, she realized. The skin on them was mottled, a disgusting yellow, and she realized it was dried blood.

It started to rise. She stumbled back, and its interest visibly increased. When it was on its feet, it took a step forward, into the light.

The stench came with it. It was so powerful it made her gag. Hordes of flies, disturbed by the movement, took off from it. In the light, she could see how disgusting it was; vermin crawled across its skin, burrowing into dirty crevices. Snot ran from its nostrils, and large flaps of skin dangled from its throat.

It was wrinkly, she thought. Thick folds of extra skin around its neck reminded her of a turkey, but any amusement at that thought could not last, in the face of it taking another step forward.

She felt the ground rumble. It was not from its step; that had been shockingly almost silent. It was making a sound, but so deep that she could not hear it. She could only feel it in the ground itself.

She was about to die, she realized, her legs turning to jelly. Primal fear of the predator, developed across the endless span of evolution, was thrown to a level she could not imagine at the sight of something so much larger than any predator humanity had ever encountered. She felt she had no control of herself, and time moved in simple flashes, without thought.

The creature's head snapped up, as a group of things flew in. They were small specks the size of her hand, but they circled the beast's head. It snapped at one, the movement impossibly fast - but the flying thing avoided it easily.

They were drones, she realized.

The beast took a step back, and one of the drones crackled, a bright light jumping from it to the animal. It let out a sharp sound and backed up more.

"Apollonia," a new voice said. It was Cenz. "Do not worry, I am here. Try not to move, movement will only draw its attention away from the drones."

The massive thing she could only think of as a dinosaur backed up more, into the jungle.

"It is retreating," she heard Cenz say. "Apollonia has only a minor injury to her ankle. However, her audio pick-ups are not working."

"Oh thank you, Commander!" Alisher said.

Apollonia automatically tried to say again that she was okay, but even if her recorder had been working, she could not make herself make a sound.

She was on the ground again, she realized. She did not remember falling, but she had.

And she'd peed her suit.

The suit had cleaned it up, but she knew she had done it all the same.

The line clicked as something changed.

"Apollonia," Cenz now said. The channel had switched to private. "I do not know what you were thinking, walking into the jungle on your own like this, but it was an extremely foolish move. This large predator could have killed you, very easily. It is a wild animal, and I suspect the only reason it did not kill you is that it recently ate. It was too tired to even play with you - which I assure you would have been just as lethal as if it had wanted to eat you."

He paused. "I know that you are young, and that you have had a difficult childhood, Apollonia. But this was beyond irresponsible. There are consequences to actions, and regardless of how great our technology is, it does not mean that we are immune from harm - or nature."

Apollonia tried to reply, to say that she understood. But she still could not talk.

A sound from above came as the hovercraft approached. It lowered quickly down through the tree line, and when it landed, Alisher came out.

"Apple! Are you all right?" he asked.

She still could not talk. She only nodded.