Astrosaurs 20

by Steve Cole

“They no longer exist.” Teggs could hardly take it in. “So . . . how come we’re still here?”

  “We must have been inside the space tunnel at the moment history changed,” said Arx, “and so we were protected.”

  Teggs gazed out at the terrifying pictures on the scanner. “The last survivors of our own time . . .”

  Suddenly the Sauropod rocked as carnivore missiles exploded all around.

  “We won’t survive much longer if we don’t get out of here!” yelled Gipsy.

  “Call Iggy and tell him to fire up Shuttle Alpha.” Teggs whistled to the dimorphodon leader. “Sprite, take evasive action. Keep those Martian meat-guzzlers distracted while Arx, Gipsy, Iggy and I take the time machine – and get on Loki’s trail.”

  Sprite saluted. “Eeep!”

  “Thank you.” Teggs gave him a crooked smile as the ship shook once again. “I hope I see you again too.” As Sprite chirped out orders to his chittering team, Teggs turned to Arx and Gipsy. “Quickly, you three – grab your exo-suits and let’s get to the shuttle bay.” He took a deep breath, his heart pounding. “I hope that pyramid’s fully charged. Our next stop has got to be Earth – in the distant past!”

  Chapter Five

  DOWN TO EARTH

  “It’s going to be a bumpy ride,” Iggy told Teggs, Arx and Gipsy as they bundled on board Shuttle Alpha. All four were now wearing exo-suits and ready for action. “Stand by for blast-off!”

  As the Sauropod’s exit hatch slid open, Teggs saw the blackness of space lit up by streaks of laser fire and mega-bright explosions as the carnivore craft continued their attack. “Think you can steer us safely through that lot, Ig?”

  “The shuttle’s force field took a walloping in the space tunnel. But I’ll do my best,” Iggy promised. “With luck, those Martian meat-chompers won’t even notice us go.”

  “Activating time machine.” Arx switched on the metal pyramid that sat at the back of the shuttle, and it glowed red. The gold discs on the astrosaurs’ exo-suits – and on the outside of the shuttle itself – began to glow too. “Power building . . .”

  A huge explosion just outside nearly knocked them to the floor. “That was close,” said Gipsy shakily. “We could be blown to bits before the pyramid has even warmed up.”

  “So let’s find somewhere a little quieter,” yelled Iggy, releasing the brake. “Here we go!”

  The shuttle shot away. Gripping the flight stick, Iggy steered with fierce concentration, looping the loop around incoming missiles, veering left and right to dodge the barrage of blasts from the carnivore warship . . . Finally Shuttle Alpha broke free of the conflict and zoomed away through the blackness of space towards the green-blue disc of the Earth.

  “Well done, Ig.” Teggs clapped him on the back and looked down at the pulsating pyramid, which had started to steam. “Arx, how’s the time machine doing?”

  “Power systems are reaching critical,” cried Arx.

  “What does that mean?” asked Gipsy.

  Arx stared helplessly at the machine. “Either it’s about to explode and blow us to bits . . . or we’re going to make the time-jump!”

  Teggs wasn’t sure which option was scarier. But the next moment a massive flash of red lightning zapped through his senses. It was a thousand times more powerful than his last little hop through time. The world around him seemed to melt like hot wax. Teggs felt as though he were riding the fastest rollercoaster in the universe, spiralling through the cold infinity of space . . .

  BLAMM! Again the crimson light-flash shocked through the shuttle, and suddenly everything seemed back to normal.

  “First the space tunnel, then the time tunnel,” Gipsy groaned. “My poor tummy needs a holiday.”

  “The time machine’s power cells have blown a fuse,” Arx fussed, waving at a wisp of smoke coming from the back of the golden pyramid. “I hope I can fix it. If I can’t, we’ll never get back again.”

  “We can’t waste time worrying about that now.” Teggs took off his helmet and exo-suit, and his friends did the same. “The important thing is, we made it!”

  Through the windscreen, up close, the Earth hung in space like a perfect blue marble.

  “Just think,” Iggy murmured. “This is the world where dinosaur life began, all that time ago.”

  “But we don’t know much about our last days on Earth,” Arx mused, “or the next few centuries for that matter. The records were long since lost . . .”

  Suddenly a vast shining shape swooped down out of nowhere.

  “Look out!” Teggs yelled. There was a wrenching CLANG! and a metal spike tore through the side of the shuttle, missing Gipsy by millimetres. Like a mouse seized by a supersonic steel eagle, Shuttle Alpha was snatched away – and the astrosaurs were flung in all directions.

  “Our air’s escaping!” Teggs yelled. “Sealing foam, Iggy!”

  “On the case.” Iggy was already squirting special airtight foam over the hole to seal it.

  Gipsy glared at the spike. “What is this thing?”

  “It looks like a primitive probe for absorbing star energy,” Iggy told her. “We’ve been speared by a spaceship!”

  “But whose spaceship?” Teggs scrambled up. “Can we talk to them?”

  Gipsy was already tapping at the shuttle’s controls. “No reply.”

  “The space satellites that carry our communications didn’t exist sixty million years ago,” said Arx gravely. “So our communicators won’t work.”

  “Look!” Iggy pointed to the windscreen, which was now completely filled by the seas and continents of Earth. “The ship’s coming in to land – and taking us with it.”

  “It looks like we’ll soon be meeting the Earth dinosaurs of this time,” Teggs murmured. “But who are they, and what are they like?”

  Gipsy swallowed hard as they whooshed through the atmosphere. “Looks like we’re going to find out – any minute!”

  Skewered like a tiny sausage on a colossal cocktail stick, the shuttle broke through a thick bank of clouds and sailed low over a patchwork land of forests and lakes, hills and plains, winding rivers and snow-capped mountains. Teggs guessed it was towards one of these mountains that they were headed. He glimpsed hundreds of huts and cabins – some kind of settlement. Then the thick whirls of smoky exhaust blocked his view as the spaceship that had spiked them landed on the mountainside.

  Almost at once he heard a loud clunk from outside, and then mutterings and whispers.

  “What’s out there?” hissed Gipsy. “If only this stupid smoke would clear.”

  Then a spiky figure in a quilted suit and space helmet appeared at the window. The astrosaurs jumped in surprise. Teggs saw that the figure stood on a platform carried by four stout pterosaurs – a kind of flying taxi. Slowly the figure removed his helmet . . .

  To reveal a dark green stegosaurus!

  Teggs stared in wonder. Dinosaurs had gone on evolving over the last 65 million years, and this stegosaurus was clearly less advanced. He had no hands as such. His legs were thick and solid, his body was bulkier and his backplates were bigger. He looked a formidable sight – but his smile was warm and friendly.

  “Hello,” the stegosaurus called through the window. “I’m sorry we crashed into you. We didn’t see you. It was like you came out of nowhere!”

  Teggs smiled wryly. “I suppose we did a bit. Who are you?”

  “I’m Zac Stegosaur – community chief, inventor and adventurer.” Zac peered in through the windscreen. “Hey, this is quite a ship you have, Mr . . .”

  “Teggs Stegosaur,” said Teggs. “And I like adventures too! Open the doors, Iggy.” He lowered his voice. “And remember, we can’t let anyone in this time suspect we’re from the future – if they believed us, it might change history – so act primitive!”

  Iggy flicked a switch and the door slid open. Coughing on exhaust smoke, the pterosaurs carried Zac round so he could climb inside Shuttle Alpha. “Wow, I’ve never seen technology like this before. Where did you get it?�
�� He frowned thoughtfully. “You look kind of different from other ’saurs. Where are you guys from?”

  “Er . . . we’re from all over the place,” said Teggs. “Iggy built our ship.”

  Iggy nodded. “Um, yes. With help from Arx and Gipsy, here.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you all,” said Zac. Then he noticed the crumpled spur of metal sticking out through the wall. “Oh no! Look at my ship’s energy-probe. Without that, we can’t recharge our power systems in space.”

  “Don’t worry, I can soon mend it,” said Iggy. “But what about our poor ship?”

  “Well, I don’t mean to be rude,” said Zac, “but while this little ship might look flashy, it’s not going to take you far from old Earth, is it? Where are your food supplies? Where are your thousand-years’ worth of spare parts? It’s just too small – you should think about joining us plant-eaters in the Soar-a-saurus.”

  Teggs frowned. “What’s that?”

  “The last great hope for all veggie dinosaurs to escape Earth before the meteor hits,” said Zac grimly. “I just hope we get her finished before we’re finished. Six months ago, our telescopes picked up the giant meteor headed our way and we’ve been building the Soar-a-saurus ever since.”

  “How long before the big rock hits?” asked Gipsy.

  “You mean you don’t know?” Zac stared in amazement. “We have just a day and a half left. In thirty-six hours, the Earth goes boom . . .”

  Teggs nodded grimly. “And if Loki isn’t stopped, we’ll all go boom with it!”

  Chapter Six

  CRAFT OF THE FUTURE

  “Well, Zac,” said Teggs, “I’m not sure we can come with you – but we will certainly help you get your Soar-a-saurus ship-shape.”

  “I can’t see at all what shape it is,” Iggy complained, peering out through the fading smoke. “But we’re a long way up. Are we stuck right at the top of it?”

  Zac gave a friendly snort of laughter. “This isn’t the Soar-a-saurus, Iggy. This is just one of the six tug-ships needed to tow her out into space.” He pointed through the mist, past the mountain and into the valley beyond. “Look . . . there’s the Soar-a-saurus!”

  Teggs and Gipsy joined Arx and Iggy in the doorway – and all of them gasped. In the distance, a humungous heap of metal sat wedged between two hillsides – an angular spaceship as big as a city! Dinosaurs swarmed over it like specks – fixing, welding, loading, installing . . .

  Gipsy boggled. “That thing’s ma-hoosive!”

  “It needs to be,” said Zac. “It’s got to hold thousands of plant-eaters as well as eggs from every species, kept frozen and ready to hatch on distant worlds.”

  “Now I see why you need six super-speedy space tugboats to drag it out of Earth’s atmosphere,” said Iggy. “It’s so big, it could never take off by itself.”

  “But it’ll get all us plant-eaters away,” said Zac fiercely. “You’ll see. It will work!”

  Gipsy put a gentle hoof on his shoulder. “Do some dinos think that it won’t?”

  Zac sighed. “The carnivores laugh at us because the Soar-a-saurus won’t run on clockwork power like every other spaceship.”

  “Clockwork?” Iggy spluttered. “That’s crazy!”

  But Arx nudged him in the ribs. “This far back in history, most dinosaur machines ran on clockwork.”

  “You’re right, Iggy, it IS crazy,” said Zac. “My idea is to run spaceship engines on dung! By burning dung you get powerful gases that can push a spaceship five times as fast . . .”

  “Spaceships that run on dung, eh?” Teggs smiled. “You know what, Zac? I think your idea is going to catch on!”

  “The carnivores don’t think so. They’re all leaving the planet in a fleet of clockwork rockets.” Zac pointed through the porthole on the other side of the shuttle. “You can see for yourself – their camp’s on the other side of the mountains.”

  Now that the smoke had faded, the astrosaurs could see clear across the landscape in the opposite direction. Giant spires of blood-red metal stood hard against the sky – and bolted onto the sides were gleaming metal tubes.

  “Um . . .” Iggy lowered his voice. “Is it me, or do those tube things look like laser cannons – modern laser cannons, from our time?”

  “They certainly do,” Teggs agreed.

  “But the history books say that on Earth our ancestors built no weapons,” Arx muttered. “They battled with teeth, tails and claws as they had always done.”

  “There’s only one dinosaur who could stick modern lasers onto ancient rocket-ships,” said Gipsy.

  Teggs nodded. “General Loki. And we’re running out of time to stop him!”

  Zac and his four powerful pterosaurs took the astrosaurs down to the plant-eater camp on the rickety platform. Teggs thought of the dimorphodon and the rest of his crew, thousands of miles and millions of years away, trapped in a terrifying future that should never have been.

  Hang in there, guys, Teggs thought. We’ll put things right.

  As the platform was whisked through the sky, it offered a good view of the whole camp. Different dino-breeds of all sizes were working together in the fields, gathering a humongous harvest.

  Young hatchlings and old dinos were doing their bit, carrying supplies on board the Soar-a-saurus or shovelling dollops of dung into the gigantic engines built into the back of the super-colossal craft. Other pterosaurs were helping too, swooping about with things to be packed and passing messages between different groups.

  Teggs was glad to see the Soar-a-saurus was well defended. The steep sides of the valley helped to shield it, and a tall metal barrier ran along the hills that faced out over carnivore territory.

  “That’s an electric fence,” Zac explained as they glided over it. “The carnivores used to sneak in and raid our camp, stealing supplies for their rocket fleet. So I designed that to keep them out.”

  “You’re quite the inventor,” Arx observed as they came in to land over a field picked bare of all but a few blades of grass.

  Zac shrugged modestly and checked his watch. “I’m just trying to make sure we all get out of here before that meteor hits.”

  “No wonder everyone’s working so hard,” said Gipsy as they landed in the mud with a bump.

  “I’ll arrange another flock of pterosaurs to lift your shuttle off our tug-ship and bring it down here,” said Zac. “But I’m afraid I can’t spare anyone to help you fix it. I need to repair that tug-ship and test out the other five.”

  “I’ll help you,” said Iggy, clambering off the platform with his friends. “I’m good with engines.”

  “And I’m clever with machines,” added Arx.

  “We’ll take any help we can get,” said Zac gratefully.

  “And in the meantime, I’d better pay a visit to the carnivore camp,” said Teggs.

  “What?” Zac gasped. “Are you crazy?”

  “I have to go,” Teggs told him. “You see, when you ran into us in space we were on the trail of a bad-news raptor named Loki. We think he’s going to try to stop you leaving.”

  Gipsy turned to Teggs. “I’d like to go with you, Captain. Loki’s too tricky to tackle alone.”

  “He won’t be alone,” Teggs reminded her. “He’ll have thousands of carnivores with him!”

  “I still want to come,” Gipsy insisted.

  “Really, guys,” said Zac. “Tomorrow we’ll be leaving Earth. The meat-munchers will be too busy preparing for their own rocket-ride to safety to bother with—” He broke off at the sound of a crash from across the field.

  Teggs turned and saw that a pretty yellow stegosaurus with little hatchlings tucked between her backplates was trying to pull a heavy crate with her tail.

  “Gazell!” Zac’s face creased with concern and he hurried away. “Don’t try to carry those spare parts by yourself. Let me help you . . .”

  “Arx, Iggy, you try to help too,” Teggs said. “Gipsy and I will head off to the carnivore camp and do our best to stop Loki – b
efore something terrible happens!”

  Two hours later, as the moon hung like a chewed silver claw in the perfect black of the night, Teggs and Gipsy were nearing their destination. Pausing beside a stream, they noticed a large sign, the words scratched into a sheet of metal:

  “Do you think they’re trying to tell us something?” said Gipsy nervously.

  “I think we need a disguise.” Teggs crouched down beside the stream and picked up a couple of sharp stones. He stuck them under his lip so they looked like fangs. “How’s that?” he mumbled.

  “Those backplates are a dead giveaway,” Gipsy informed him. She reached into the stream and scooped out some mud, then smothered it over Teggs’s back like brown cement. Soon his spiky back was hidden beneath a smooth ridge of dirt. “Now, if you walk on your back legs . . .”

  Teggs reared up and offered Gipsy a couple more pointed stones he’d found. Gipsy slipped them in place. “I look like a walrus!”

  “Let’s just hope no one looks at us too closely,” said Teggs. “Try to act like a meat-eater.”

  Together they stomped and swaggered past the sign, with the air of dinosaurs who owned the place. Before long, they spotted a pair of huge carnotaurs.

  “Guards!” hissed Gipsy.

  “Stop!” The biggest carnotaur lumbered over, his friend just behind him. “Who’re you?”

  Teggs gulped and tried not to lose his teeth. “Er . . . Us come from far away. Want to ride in rocket.”

  “You’re nearly too late,” snarled the second carnotaur. “What’s the password?”

  “Um . . . password?” Gipsy looked nervously at Teggs.

  “All meat-eaters know the password. No password, no rocket-ride off the Earth.” The biggest carnotaur loomed over them, his claws twitching. “And we will eat you alive for wasting our time. What is the password?” His drool-soaked jaws opened wider. “WHAT?”

  Chapter Seven

  CAMP OF FEAR

  As the two carnotaurs hissed and growled, Teggs racked his brain for a possible password . . .

  Suddenly Gipsy’s bottom made a rude noise!

  The biggest carnotaur stopped snarling, sniffed – and grinned. “Yep, that’s the password all right!” He and his friend stood aside. “You can go.”