by Steve Cole
As Teggs spoke, the heavy doors that stood between the shuttle bay and outer space bent and buckled and burned away – to reveal an enormous dark and glittering eye pressed up close.
Teggs gasped. “Heelum’s here!”
“Where is the swine who hurt my brother and tried to hurt me?” boomed the familiar voice in Teggs and Gipsy’s heads.
Gipsy shut her eyes and thought as loudly as she could. “We have him here and will make him pay for his crimes – but first you must stop Grakk from eating Hawn’s last remaining sun.”
“If Grakk eats much more star-fire, he will go pop!” Heelum agreed. “Very well, dinolings. I will try to stop him. But I don’t know where Hawn is.”
“We do,” Gipsy yelled in her head. “It’s due north from here. Take us with you and we will guide the way.”
For a long, frightening moment, nothing more was said. Then a thick, black, hairy, vine-like thing curled into the shuttle bay. Teggs gasped. “What in space is that?”
“One of my eyelashes,” Heelum rumbled, curling it around the shuttle. “You are so puny and small, any other part of me would squash you flat. Now – let us fly!”
The astrosaurs yelled as the shuttle was yanked away in the grip of Heelum’s enormous eyelash. The starry skies blurred about them as they shot off in hot pursuit of the solawurm’s brother . . .
Clinging on grimly to his chair, Teggs knew that hungry, hypnotized Grakk had a huge head start. Could they possibly stop him in time?
Chapter Ten
GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!
The heat was stifling on board the Sauropod as the spaceship soared ever closer to Hawn Sun Three. Although it was small as stars went, up close it was still far hotter than the most powerful furnace. Nobody spoke – they were all too tense and sweaty. Rosso was squeezed into Teggs’s control pit, Noss and Serras were squashed up in Gipsy’s place, and Arx, Iggy and the dimorphodon stood at their controls.
“Solawurm dead ahead!” Arx reported, studying his space radar.
“I see it!” Iggy pointed an oily claw at the scanner. The wriggling, squiggling figure was unmistakable. It was heading for the sun.
“We must distract it,” said Rosso.
Arx nodded grimly. “I shall fire all our dung torpedoes at once.”
“And I’ll try the laser cannons at the same time,” said Iggy.
Rosso nodded. “Fire!”
The torpedoes and lasers zeroed in on Grakk’s pale, bloated form. KER-BOOOOOOOM! There was a searingly smelly explosion and a cloud of dense brown smoke.
Then the smoke cleared, and Serras and Noss both screamed. The angry solawurm was now coming straight for the Sauropod!
“It worked!” cried Arx. “We distracted him from eating the sun!”
“But now it’s two thousand per cent certain he’s going to eat us!” Noss whimpered.
“Or turn us into blazing wreckage that will rain down all over Hawn,” said Serras, more imaginatively.
Sure enough, a seething ball of star-fire shot from Grakk’s throat and came sizzling towards them.
“We’re not going up in smoke just yet,” Iggy promised her. “My souped-up engines will get us clear!” He pulled on a brand-new lever and the Sauropod surged with power – power enough to propel them clear of the giant fireball.
Rosso cheered. “Well done, Iggy!”
“But that thing is still after us!” warned Serras. “How long can our luck last?”
“Cheer up,” said Iggy brightly. “At least our flaming remains will warm up the poor woolly rhinos down below!”
Arx suddenly jumped in the air. “Iggy, you have given me an idea,” he cried. “Put the Sauropod into a high orbit above Hawn, quickly.”
“Why do you want us to go in circles around the planet?” asked Rosso, pointing to the solawurm growing ever larger on the scanner screen. “That monster will keep coming after us with its fireballs.”
“No time to explain now,” Arx muttered, frantically working out some sums. “Just do it, Iggy!”
“No sooner said than done,” Iggy replied. “We are now three hundred miles above the centre of the planet.”
“Good. Put on the brakes!” Arx commanded.
“Have you gone space crazy?” spluttered Rosso.
But Iggy did as he was told. He trusted Arx with his life. “Slowing to a stop over Hawn’s equator,” he said.
A gulp travelled down Rosso’s long throat as another ball of star-fire seared towards them on the scanner screen. “Incoming!”
“Move, Iggy!” Arx cried.
Iggy pulled his special lever once more, and the Sauropod sped away as a huge ball of solar energy engulfed the space where they’d been sitting. The star-fire hung there, sizzling.
“Right,” said Arx. “Travel twenty degrees north and stop again.”
“He has gone space crazy!” cried Noss. “It’s like you want the solawurm to fire at us.”
“I do! It’s your planet’s only chance!” Arx cried, as yet another fireball came scorching towards them. “We just have to hope we can stay ahead of the starfire. Move again, Iggy – another twenty degrees north, ten degrees east . . .”
Iggy wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow and steered them onwards – trying to ignore the scary sight of the bloated solawurm on the scanner still steaming after them . . .
“Look, there in the distance!” cried Gipsy, pointing through Shuttle Alpha’s window. “It’s Grakk. He’s flying around Hawn!”
“My poor brother,” said Heelum, propelling himself through space even faster, still dragging the astrosaurs along with his eyelash. “The planet’s last sun is still shining, but see – Grakk has been burping star-fire in all directions!”
Teggs nodded. The space around Hawn was ablaze with balls of dazzling white energy. Then his eyes almost stood out on stalks as he saw the Sauropod come whizzing out from under Grakk’s smoking, bloated belly. “Look!”
But Gipsy was already speaking into the communicator. “Shuttle Alpha to Sauropod, can you hear me?”
“Gipsy!” Arx’s delighted voice rattled out through the shuttle’s speakers. “Is Captain Teggs all right?”
“Just about.” Teggs pushed up beside Gipsy. “What’s the situation, guys?”
“We’ve been keeping the solawurm busy, Captain,” said Iggy. “But it’s not easy— Whoops!”
Teggs and Gipsy gasped as they saw Grakk lunge and snap at the Sauropod with his smoking jaws. The egg-shaped ship escaped being crushed by a split-second.
“I’m not sure we can keep dodging this thing for ever,” panted Arx.
“But we will try,” Iggy added bravely.
“You’re the best,” Teggs told them. He quickly crossed to where Lord Rawhead lay in the corner and shook him awake. “All right, Lord Knucklehead – how do we set Grakk free from your hypnotic spell?”
“Ha!” The carnivore lord sneered at them. “I’ll never tell. Never, never, NEVER!”
Gipsy walked calmly up to him and rubbed her hooves together. “I am a luminous green belt in dino-judo,” she informed him. “If you don’t tell us, I will jab you somewhere extremely unpleasant – and so hard that your eyes will still be watering several months later.”
“Ah! Well, in that case,” squeaked Rawhead quickly, “you need to strike Grakk between the eyes. That will shock him out of his trance.”
“Thank you,” said Gipsy sweetly.
Teggs charged back to the communicator. “Teggs calling Arx – you must hit that solawurm with a dung-torpedo right between the eyes.”
“Sorry, Captain,” said Arx, dodging yet another ball of star-fire launched from Grakk’s gigantic jaws. “We’ve fired all our weapons. We’ve got nothing left.”
“And we don’t have any weapons either,” wailed Gipsy.
A slow, dangerous smile spread over Teggs’s face. “You’re forgetting one weapon. The shuttle itself . . .” He grabbed the communicator. “Arx, we are approaching you with a friendly solawurm. Fly s
traight at us and make sure Grakk follows you. OK?”
“We will do our best, Captain,” said Arx.
Teggs jumped up. Already, the vast, thrashing figure of Grakk was zooming towards them in pursuit of the Sauropod. “Heelum, we need you to throw this shuttle so that it hits Grakk right between the eyes,” he shouted. “It’s the only way to shock him awake before he eats that sun.”
“I haven’t thrown anything since I was a wurm-cub playing meteor marbles,” Heelum protested.
“Please, Heelum,” Gipsy begged him. “You must try.”
“No, he mustn’t!” screamed Rawhead. “If Grakk spots us coming, he will burn us to ashes! And if Heelum misses, we will plunge into the sun!”
“Do it, Heelum,” Teggs shouted. “NOW!”
The next moment he and Gipsy were flung to the floor as Heelum’s eyelash unfurled at high speed – propelling the shuttle through space towards Grakk’s pale and furious face . . .
Chapter Eleven
A NEW DAWN
Whoooosh . . . THUNK!
Shuttle Alpha flew through the fire and smoke surrounding Grakk’s face and struck him precisely on target – right between the eyes. Then the shuttle bounced off again and whizzed away into space.
“Whoaaaa!” yelled Teggs and Gipsy. Lord Rawhead could only yell “Mfffffffh” because the astrosaurs were sitting on his head.
“Good thing I was ruling champion at meteor marbles, eh?” Heelum told Teggs and Gipsy.
“But we’re not out of the woods yet,” cried Teggs. “We’re out of control!”
Gipsy nodded, clinging onto his tail as the shuttle spun wildly about. “And if we crash into one of those balls of star-fire . . .”
But the next moment, the shuttle stopped spinning and started to slow down. “What’s happening?” wondered Teggs.
He and Gipsy peered out nervously through the window to find . . .
The Sauropod was right outside!
“We are using our emergency shuttle magnets to draw you in, Captain,” Iggy explained over the speakers. “See you soon!”
Teggs grinned at Gipsy as the shuttle floated gently inside the Sauropod’s launch bay. They opened the door to find Arx, Iggy and Rosso waiting with broad smiles on their faces, and rushed out to say hello.
But in their happy haste, they had forgotten Lord Rawhead.
“You soppy sap-slurpers!” he growled, shoving them aside and running for the main doors. “You’ll never stop me. I’m going to steal your ship, and then I’ll—”
Suddenly, a skinny, woolly leg stuck out from behind the doorway to trip him up. With a loud “Argh!” the megalosaurus went flying again, and fell flat on his face.
“Wow!” said Noss, shuffling into sight. “The odds against me pulling off that trick must be at least ten million, three hundred thousand and twelve to one!”
Arx beamed. “I told you there was more to life than calculations!”
Serras appeared behind him. “Even so, I’m one hundred per cent certain that I will now give you a huge hug!” And she grabbed Noss in a brief but woolly embrace.
“You tripped up Lord Rawhead, Noss – the mastermind behind this evil scheme,” Teggs announced. “He wanted the entire DSS fleet to come here – now, when they arrive, they can escort him to the nearest space prison!”
“But what about Grakk?” wondered Gipsy, crossing to the launch-bay windows. “Will Heelum be escorting him away from Hawn, or did the shock of our sock on the head not work?”
The others joined her, peering out through the thick glass. They saw that Heelum had wrapped his golden tail around Grakk’s swollen middle, as if getting ready to squeeze.
“I am truly sorry for all that my brother has been forced to do,” boomed Heelum’s voice in their heads. “He has eaten too much and is quite unwell. But now he has been shocked out of his hypnosis, I think I can make everyone feel better . . .”
He tightened his tail and squeezed on the stuffed solawurm’s tummy. An enormous, skull-shaking burp echoed in their heads, as the dazed Grakk belched out clouds of solar gasses at Hawn’s one remaining sun.
Serras gasped. “Our little sun . . . it’s getting bigger!”
The astrosaurs and their friends gazed in wonder. As the dazzling stream of brightness flowed out from Grakk’s giant jaws, so Hawn Sun Three kept inflating before their eyes. Finally, the unbelievable burp ended, leaving both Grakk and the sun looking a good deal brighter.
“Farewell, dinolings,” said Heelum solemnly. “We shall go now to the depths of space, never to return . . .”
“Goodbye, Heelum,” said Gipsy fondly.
Teggs saluted him through the window. “And if you ever come across another pendulum – look the other way!”
The two solawurms disappeared into the endless night of space – taking Lord Rawhead’s dreams of conquest with them.
Admiral Rosso breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Well, all’s well that ends well.”
“Are you sure?” asked Teggs. “Hawn’s sun is much bigger and brighter now – but will it be warm enough to make the buttercups grow again?”
“Not on its own, no.” Iggy smiled knowingly. “But each time Grakk tried to hit the Sauropod with his starfire, Arx made sure we were parked in carefully-chosen spots . . .”
Serras nodded eagerly. “Thanks to Arx, we now have dozens of burped-up star-fire balls in orbit. They are like baby suns, shining in key positions right the way around the planet.”
Teggs looked out over the bright lights circling Hawn, and grinned. “So while you may have lost two big suns, you have found lots of little ones!”
Gipsy kissed the blushing triceratops on his head-frill. “Arx Orano, you are a genius.”
“It was nothing, really,” Arx mumbled. “Poor Iggy had the difficult job of steering us about.”
“Difficult?” Iggy smiled. “I had a right laugh!”
Noss wriggled out of his jumper. “And now, with our main sun bigger and brighter and portable suns warming the sky, Hawn will once again become the buttercup capital of the Vegetarian Sector!”
Serras nodded excitedly and turned to Rosso. “We must arrange a feast for your entire fleet when they arrive.”
“A short break and a bucket of buttercups would go down very nicely!” said Gipsy.
“You’ve hit the nail on the head there,” said Arx.
“And soon we’ll hit the jail with the Rawhead!” Iggy quipped, patting the battered carnivore beside him.
“What a dreadful joke,” Gipsy groaned. “But what an amazing adventure.”
Rosso nodded. “You all deserve to take things easy for a while.”
“Afraid not, sir,” said Teggs with a grin. “You see, there are two things in life that are absolutely certain. The first thing is that we shall soon be off on another amazing adventure . . .”
Gipsy smiled. “And what’s the second thing?”
“That the sun will rise again tomorrow!” said Teggs with a wink.
THE END
About the Book
Born in 1971, Steve Cole spent a happy childhood in rural Bedfordshire being loud and aspiring to amuse. He liked books, and so went to the University of East Anglia to read more of them. Later on he started writing them too, with titles ranging from pre-school poetry to Young Adult thrillers (with more TV and film tie-ins than he cares to admit to along the way). In other careers he has been the editor of Noddy magazine, and an editor of fiction and nonfiction book titles for various publishers. He is the author of the hugely successful Astrosaurs, Cows in Action, Astrosaurs Academy and Slime Squad series.
ALSO BY STEVE COLE:
Read all the adventures of Teggs, Gipsy, Arx and Iggy!
1 Riddle of the Raptors
2 The Hatching Horror
3 The Seas of Doom
4 The Mind-Swap Menace
5 The Skies of Fear
6 The Space Ghosts
7 Day of the Dino-Droids
8 The Terror-Bird Trap
&
nbsp; 9 The Planet of Peril
10 The Star Pirates
11 The Claws of Christmas
12 The Sun-Snatchers
13 Revenge of the Fang
14 The Carnivore Curse
15 The Dreams of Dread
16 The Robot Raiders
17 The Twist of Time
18 The Sabre-Tooth Secret
19 The Forest of Evil
20 Earth Attack!
21 The T. Rex Invasion
22 The Castle of Frankensaur
Read all the adventures of Teggs, Blink and Dutch at the Astrosaurs Academy!
1 Destination: Danger!
2 Contest Carnage!
3 Terror Underground!
4 Jungle Horror!
5 Deadly Drama!
6 Christmas Crisis!
7 Volcano Invaders!
8 Space Kidnap!
Meet the time-travelling cows!
1 The Ter-moo-nators
2 The Moo-my’s Curse
3 The Roman Moo-stery
4 The Wild West Moo-nster
5 World War Moo
6 The Battle for Christmoos
7 The Pirate Moo-tiny
8 The Moo-gic of Merlin
9 The Victorian Moo-ders
10 The Moo-lympic Games
11 First Cows on the Moon
12 The Viking Emoo-gency
If you can’t take the slime, don’t do the crime!
1 The Fearsome Fists
2 The Toxic Teeth
3 The Cyber-Poos
4 The Supernatural Squid
5 The Killer Socks
6 The Last-Chance Chicken
7 The Alligator Army
8 The Conquering Conks
Visit www.stevecolebooks.co.uk for fun, games, jokes, to meet the characters and much, much more!
THE SUN SNATCHERS
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 17357 0
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,