by Steve Cole
“Wait! The stegoceras aren’t here,” cried the shot-putter. “They were in the shower when the alarms sounded.”
“Oh no!” Teggs groaned. He charged back down the corridor and through the shower doors. Then he stuck his head inside. “Anyone there?” he asked as he peered through the steam.
But his only answer was the mournful drip of water on to the floor. There was no sign of the stegoceras athletes. The showers were empty.
Teggs stomped back to the communicator in the wall. “Captain to flight deck,” he growled. “You were right, Arx. This wasn’t just a raid. It was a kidnapping!”
Chapter Four
A DEADLY MESSAGE
Captain Teggs sat tensely in his control pit, chewing on twigs.
Arx had found images of the two stegoceras and Gipsy had put them on the scanner. The athletes were perky orange creatures, each about the size of a goat. One was named Hank, the other Crank. They had feeble forearms, long, straight tails and ran about on two legs. But their heads were truly eye-catching: a solid lump of bone the size of a football bulged above their snouts.
“What sport do they play?” wondered Gipsy.
“They were hot tips to win the head-butting contest,” Arx said.
“I’m an idiot!” sighed Teggs. “Two days to go until the Great Dinosaur Games, and I let a bunch of raptors sneak on board and take our best butters. I must have a brain the size of a ping-pong ball!”
Arx cleared his throat. “Er, you do have a brain the size of a ping-pong ball, Captain,” he said delicately. “You know, being a stegosaurus and all.”
“So I do!” said Teggs, cheering up a bit. “I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.”
Just then, Teggs’s personal communicator beeped.
“Uh-oh,” he said. “Here’s someone who will be hard on me. It’s Admiral Rosso!”
“Captain Teggs!” boomed Admiral Rosso. “I’ve read your report. I can hardly believe what has happened. It’s a disaster! A mess! A total foul-up!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Teggs. “Perhaps … perhaps I’m just not good enough to be captain of the Sauropod.”
“Piffle,” said the admiral sternly. “Everyone makes mistakes, Captain. It’s how you make up for them that counts.” He paused. “Just make sure you sort out this mistake fast – before the Great Dinosaur Games begin!”
The communicator switched off.
“Are you all right, Captain?” asked Arx gently.
“Never mind me,” said Teggs. “It’s those poor stegoceras athletes I’m worried about!”
Gipsy raised her snout in the air and whistled and hooted at the dimorphodon flight crew. A few of them flapped down at once and massaged their captain’s spiky back with their claws. “So, what do we do now?” she asked.
Iggy was pacing up and down the flight deck in a foul temper, clicking his thumb spikes. “I say we hunt down these velociraptor vermin and make them give us back our athletes!”
“The Jurassic Quadrant is a big area to search,” Arx reminded him.
“Why did they only take the head-butters out of everyone on board?” wondered Gipsy.
“You’ve got something there!” Teggs rose up suddenly, and the dimorphodon flapped off in fright. “The raptors looked in the athletes’ room, but kept searching till they found the stegoceras in the showers. Why?”
“Well, if the raptors have taken the stegoceras for a reason,” Arx said, “we can only wait and see if they tell us what it is.”
There was a sudden creaking, squeaking noise from Gipsy’s communications console. “I’m getting a message, Captain. Picture and sound,” she reported briskly, checking the readout. “It’s from a raptor!”
“Put it on the scanner,” Teggs ordered.
The screen showed the hateful features of a big, scaly raptor. Clearly it had been in many battles over the years. Its pointed jaw was scuffed and scraped, and it wore a black eye-patch over one eye.
“I am General Loki,” said the raptor in a silky smooth whisper. “Commander of the Seven Fleets of Death! Ruler of the meat mines of Raptos! Eater of edmontosaurus, devourer of diplodocus—”
“And all-round pain in the tail,” Teggs cut in before the raptor got really carried away. He had heard of General Loki – the nastiest, meanest velociraptor in the Jurassic Quadrant. “At least you’ve got less of a lisp than your raptor crew. What do you want?”
Loki narrowed his one remaining eye. “It’s what you want that we should be discussing, Captain Teggs . . .” Loki moved aside from the scanner cameras to reveal the two stegoceras athletes hunched up behind him. Both of them had grubby bandages wrapped round their heads.
“Hank! Crank!” Teggs reared up out of his control pit. “Are you OK?”
“We’re cool!” Hank and Crank chorused, and lightly tapped their heads together as if to prove it. “Ouch!” they both yelled.
Gipsy frowned. “Have the raptors hurt you?”
“Nah,” said Hank. “We just woke up with a headache.” He waved his feeble forearm at his bandage. “Look! Some raptor doctors checked us out, then gave us these headbands!”
Crank nodded enthusiastically. “Cool or what!”
The stegoceras were about to bash heads again when two raptor guards restrained them.
Loki came back into view. “So you see, Captain,” he said. “Your athletes are fit and well. And they’ll stay that way if you agree to our terms.”
Teggs glared at him. “And just what exactly are your terms?”
“You must pay us a billion pieces of purest gold!” Loki laughed nastily. “And if you refuse, your athletes become my supper!”
Chapter Five
SHOWDOWN ON PLANET SIXTY
Iggy, Arx, Teggs and Gipsy stared at each other in disbelief.
“A billion pieces?” Teggs spluttered. “You’re crazy! It would take years to gather all that gold!”
“Oh. Really?” Loki looked a little downcast, and clicked his claws. “All right then … call it twenty.”
“Twenty?” echoed Teggs.
Loki nodded. “But throw in a nice flat-screen satellite monitor too. Mine’s just broken.”
Iggy, Arx, Teggs and Gipsy stared at each other once again, in still deeper disbelief.
“From a billion pieces … to twenty?” Teggs started counting on his toes, then frowned. “That is quite a drop – isn’t it?”
“Raptors are totally rubbish at doing deals, Captain,” Arx said in a low voice. “They normally sort out any squabbles by biting each other.”
“Mind you,” said Iggy grudgingly, “that Loki’s smarter than he looks. Those flat-screen satellite monitors are brilliant!”
“Oh, and we want some moss too,” Loki added as if the thought had just occurred to him. “It goes so well with raw apatosaurus.” He licked his leathery lips with a forked tongue. “The exchange will be made at noon tomorrow on Planet Sixty.”
Teggs frowned. “Planet Sixty? Isn’t that on the way to Olympus?”
“Yes, Captain,” said Arx. “It’s a small, swampy planet just outside the Vegetarian Sector. It’s so dull, no one could be bothered to name it!”
Loki smiled. “I trust your . . . flimsy new ship can reach Planet Sixty in time?”
Teggs narrowed his eyes. “We’ll be there.”
“Splendid. But no tricks,” said the grizzled general. “You’re to come unarmed, Captain, with just one member of your crew. Until tomorrow …” He nodded his head in farewell, and the screen went blank.
“What do we do, Captain?” asked Gipsy.
“What can we do?” Teggs uprooted a fern from the floor and chewed it grumpily. “You heard the admiral. We need to sort this out fast. Next stop, Planet Sixty – full speed ahead!”
*
And so the Sauropod sailed through space towards the pick-up point.
“Planet Sixty is coming into range, Captain,” announced Gipsy at last. She blinked her wide eyes at him. “Iggy says the shuttle is ready to depart.�
��
Teggs came out of the control pit. “Those raptors are up to something,” he said. “I feel it in my tail spikes.”
As he stomped off towards the shuttle, Teggs had an uneasy feeling that something was badly wrong. He felt naked without his electro-tail armour. He bet Iggy felt the same without his stun claws. But Loki had insisted they must come unarmed. Teggs couldn’t risk crossing him while the two athletes were prisoners.
Even so – would the raptors keep their side of the bargain?
Iggy saluted Teggs as he came aboard the shuttle. “Dung burners set to maximum, Captain!”
“OK,” Teggs nodded. “Blast off!”
The shuttle – shaped like a giant egg with two noisy motors on the fat end – began to shudder and shake as the power began to build. The engines ignited. Soon, the sweet smell of dinosaur manure filled the air as the shuttle thundered away into space.
Within minutes they were flying through the grotty green skies of Planet Sixty. With a slithering bump and a rattling roar, the shuttle skidded to a stop on the swampy surface.
Teggs opened the doors and led the way outside. Iggy waddled close behind him carrying the ransom on his back.
They hadn’t walked far before they saw the raptor death shuttle – an enormous, pointed spike with a blood-red tip. Next to it stood General Loki and three of his raptor guards, watching over the athletes with hungry eyes.
“Welcome, Captain,” sneered Loki. He eyed the bundle on Iggy’s back. “You have met my demands, I see.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” said Teggs. He swished his enormous tail from side to side menacingly. “Give us back our athletes!”
With a hiss, the raptor guards herded the stegoceras over to Teggs. One of the guards came towards Iggy, its claws raised and ready to slash. It cut clean through the thick twine that bound the ransom bundle to the iguanodon’s back and paraded the package back to its ship in triumph.
Teggs peered at the athletes with their bandaged heads. “You two OK?”
“We’re cool,” said Hank.
“Just glad to be out of that fleapit,” added Crank, nodding at the raptor shuttle.
“Farewell, Captain!” called Loki. “Enjoy the Great Dinosaur Games! I’m sure they’ll go with a bang!” With a nasty chuckle, he scuttled into his ship, which took off at once.
“Good riddance!” yelled Crank.
“Totally,” Hank nodded. “That ship stank of meat, man!” He tried to mime being suffocated, but his little forearms couldn’t reach his neck.
“Wait a second,” Iggy said gruffly. His nostrils were twitching. “Did either of you sit in any of that meat?”
Hank and Crank shook their bandaged heads.
Teggs sniffed the air, and wrinkled his snout. “I can smell it too ...”
Suddenly the swampy ground began to shake. “Whats that?” Hank squeaked.
‘Something big,” shouted Iggy, looking around as the pounding on the ground got louder. “Coming this way!”
Teggs lumbered up a small hill to see what it was – and froze in his tracks.
A terrifying creature was bounding up towards him – a real giant, at least three times the size of Teggs. It stood upright on powerful legs as big as tree trunks. Its massive mouth brimmed with dagger-like teeth. Hot on its scaly heels, another ten of the monsters were approaching fast.
“Back to the ship, quick!” called Teggs as he thundered back down the hill. “ There are T. rexes on this planet!”
Chapter Six
DANGEROUS FLIGHT
Teggs led the charge back to the shuttle. The ground shook like it was going to open up beneath their feet. T. rexes didn’t normally hunt in packs – unless they were scouting out new planets to take over …
“You’re welcome to this dump,” muttered Teggs. Then he skidded to a halt. Iggy and the others almost crashed into him.
Another T. rex, the biggest yet, was looming over their shuttle.
Teggs squared up to the ferocious carnivore. “Iggy, I’ll lead it off. Get those athletes inside the ship!”
Iggy hesitated. “But, Captain—”
“Do it!” growled Teggs.
He ran to the edge of a cliff, and the T. rex chased after him. Then Teggs faced up to the monster. He swung his tail around so fast that the spikes on the end of it became an ivory blur.
The terrifying tyrannosaur roared and lunged forward, but Teggs’s tail whacked it on the side of its head. Staggering sideways in surprise, the T. rex fell over the edge of the cliff and into the swamp below.
But there was no time to celebrate. Teggs rushed back to the shuttle to find the whole snarling gang of T. rexes were now blocking his way.
“This our planet,” growled their leader. “You in big trouble, plant-boy.”
“We were just visiting,” Teggs told her. “We’ll be off now. Leave you to it.”
The T. rex shook its head. “No.”
“Er, can’t we talk about this?” asked Teggs hopefully, edging towards the shuttle.
“No,” it said.
Teggs suddenly remembered what his astrosaur trainer had taught him: T. rexes hate talking. They’ve never learned how to do it properly. Ten seconds into a conversation and they usually eat the person they’re speaking to.
“We HUNGRY!” roared the T. rex leader. It opened its jaws and lunged at Teggs. He rolled clear just in time – and the creature crunched down on one of the shuttle’s motors. Its teeth tore the engine clear off!
“Take off, Iggy!” yelled Teggs. “Never mind me! With only one engine you’ll have a bumpy ride, but you might just make it!”
The T. rex leader roared in anger. The engine was jammed in its mouth! It lumbered towards Teggs and tried to stamp on his tail.
Teggs backed away. “Missed me, loser!” he called bravely. But deep down he knew there was no hope of escape. Already the other tyrannosaurs were drawing closer, roaring and snapping their gruesome jaws …
The shuttle still hadn’t taken off. Teggs guessed Iggy couldn’t bring himself to leave his captain behind.
“Go now, Iggy!” he yelled. “That’s an order!”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” said Iggy sadly.
The shuttle’s remaining engine burst into life – and made a very rude noise. The T. rexes all turned round in shock.
While they were distracted, Teggs pushed past them. The shuttle doors heaved open and he leaped inside, scattering the stegoceras like scaly skittles.
“Welcome back, Captain!” beamed laggy.
“You didn’t make that dreadful noise, did you?” gasped Teggs, warily sniffing the air.
“Not me!” said Iggy, revving the engine. “There must have been a build-up of dung gas trapped in the exhaust pipe. It’s clear now.”
Teggs sighed. “If only we were clear of these T. rexes …”
The shuttle took off wonkily. It was meant to fly with two engines, not one. Unbalanced, it started to spin in all directions.
“Cool!” yelled Hank and Crank happily, as if it was a fairground ride. The shuttle bumped and bounced against the ground, and soon the ship’s floor was flooded with swamp muck.
“I can’t control it!” Iggy shouted.
To Teggs’s dismay, the T. rexes were running after the spinning shuttle.
“They’re catching up!” yelled Crank.
The T. rexes loomed up, gnashing their jaws in triumph – all except their leader, who still had a mouthful of engine. The shuttle made another rude noise as it dipped down again.
“I know how you feel,” muttered Teggs.
Then, suddenly, his little brain was filled with a big idea.
“There’s just one chance,” Teggs cried. He scavenged through the swamp muck until he found a big, sharp stone. “Try to hold her steady, Iggy!” he yelled. Then he picked up the stone with his beak and tossed it in the air.
With a noise like a whip crack his tail lashed out and struck the stone, sending it flying out through the shuttle’s doors.
The stone smacked against the engine caught in the T. rex leader’s teeth. With a fiery bang, the engine exploded!
The T. rex fell backwards with an angry roar of pain. And to everyone’s amazement, the other T. rexes toppled over too!
Iggy hooted for joy. “What happened, Captain? What did you do?”
“The rude noise reminded me – our engines run on gas made by burning dung,” said Teggs. “They’re full to bursting with it! And that gas is explosive stuff …”
“It sure is!” Iggy grinned. “There’s a lot to be said for a good, healthy vegetarian’s diet!
Hank and Crank clapped their tiny hands together.
“Awesome!” Hank laughed.
“The fumes alone were enough to knock those uglies out cold!” Crank added.
Just then, the shuttle’s crazy course smoothed out. Iggy beamed at the others. “You know what? I think I’m learning to fly this thing with one engine!”
“Oh!” Hank looked crestfallen. “Can’t you go back to shaking us round and nearly crashing like before? That was the best!”
Teggs frowned. “You’ve had one knock on the head too many, Hank!”
The others all laughed, but Teggs had to force a smile. He felt strangely tense from tail to toes. Why? The danger was all over now …
Wasn’t it?
On board the raptor shuttle, General Loki was rubbing his hands with glee. “Everything went exactly as planned!” he chuckled. “That idiot Teggs has no idea what we’re really up to …”
“Excuse me, your horriblenessss,” rasped one raptor “We have just detected T. rexes on Planet Sssixty.”
“T. rexes?” Loki’s single eye narrowed. “Why didn’t you check before? Those brutes could have eaten the lot of us!” He swiped at the warrior, who yelped and fell to the floor. “Did that stupid stegosaurus get away safely?”
The raptor nodded quickly. “By the ssskin of his teeth.”
“Good,” said Loki. “I should hate for anything to happen to Captain Teggs.” He chuckled nastily. “At least, not until he’s done what we need him to do!”
Chapter Seven
MYSTERY
When it was learned that Captain Teggs had rescued the stegoceras athletes, there were celebrations all over the Sauropod.