by Steve Cole
“Phew!” Teggs grabbed the blushing Gipsy and hurried away up a hillside. “Nice work, Gipsy.”
“Thank my bottom,” Gipsy whispered. “I was so scared I couldn’t control it – luckily for us.”
Teggs nodded. “Let’s hope our luck holds.”
As the astrosaurs reached the crest of the hill, Teggs surveyed the carnivore camp. It was a far cry from the rusting, fume-filled, high-rise cities of his time. These primitive meat-eaters had set up a sprawling mess of grubby big-tops and tents and tepees stretching out for miles, all in the shadow of the line of chunky blood-red rockets.
Stealthily Teggs and Gipsy made their way down the slope and into the noisy, smelly heart of the camp. It was like a colossal carnivore carnival, with tribal drums booming and barbecues blazing.
“Trust this brutal bunch to be celebrating the end of the world,” Gipsy muttered.
“I can’t see Loki’s death-flyer,” said Teggs. “We’ll have to search the whole area.”
All breeds of meat-eater were crushed into the grotty tents, drinking swamp beer and fighting over food. The stench of dung and meat was everywhere. A T. rex came staggering out of a tent. “Roll up!” he rasped. “See Trixie the belly dancer! She’ll be dancing with the chopped-off belly of a diplodocus!”
Teggs felt sick. “No, thanks.”
“Have your future told by Madame Hagburger,” leered a wrinkled oviraptor. He gestured to an old dinosaur in a filthy cloak with a cracked crystal ball, talking to a megalosaurus.
“I see you is going to be hit on the head,” said Madame Hagburger – before socking her customer with a big stick.
As the megalosaurus groaned and fell over, Teggs and Gipsy jumped over his body and hurried on.
But suddenly there was a fanfare of trumpets close by and the loud music stopped abruptly. “Make way for the King!” came a growling shout. “Behold, King Rokol . . . and the Great Star Raptor!”
“Great Star Raptor?” Gipsy cringed. “That can only be—”
“Loki!” Teggs hissed as the crowds parted to reveal two dinosaurs sprawled on huge crimson sedan chairs, each carried by a pair of sweating T. rexes.
Loki lounged in one, resplendent in his black leather uniform, and in the other lay a vast maroon spinosaurus, a golden crown perched on his head and scarlet robes tight about his body. Slowly he rose to his taloned feet.
“Hear me, my subjects,” King Rokol shouted. “It’s the last night for Planet Earth. And our honoured guest, the Great Star Raptor, has shared with me a fiendishly flesh-licious plan.”
“Indeed I have!” Now Loki rose from his seat. “As you know, I have already given you amazing weapons for your rockets that will allow you to conquer anyone you meet in space. How cool am I?”
“Very cool!” came the riotous response.
“Exactly!” Loki flung open his arms. “Now I say to you – why not test them out here on Earth – by using them against the plant-eater camp?”
Unhappy murmurings went up about the camp.
“Use machines to slay plant-scoffers instead of our teeth and claws?” cried a troodon. “That’s not the meat-eater way.”
King Rokol stood up with some difficulty. “The Star Raptor means that we can destroy their stupid electric fence with the new weapons.”
Teggs and Gipsy swapped worried looks as the snarling, spitting crowd around them grew snarlier and spittier.
“That’s right!” Loki yelled. “And while the plant-eaters panic, we shall attack. Why should those puny plant-eaters get away from the meteor when they can get in our stomachs?”
“Begin the bombardments!” boomed Rokol as the carnivores waved and cheered. “Once the way is clear, we shall catch and scrunch every last leaf-licker we can find!”
As Loki and the king were swept triumphantly away at the head of the braying meat-munching mob, Teggs put his communicator to his lips. “Arx, Iggy, can you hear me?”
“That won’t work,” Gipsy reminded him. “We’re in the past, remember?”
“Of course.” Teggs scowled. “Well, if we can’t warn the plant-eaters, our only hope is to smash Loki’s weapons before they smash the camp. Come on!”
He and Gipsy started pushing against the tide of carnivores rushing towards the exit.
“Get out of my way!” growled a huge allosaur.
“You get out of ours!” Teggs tried to barge past the brutal meat-eater, but there was a scuffle – and the chunks of mud hiding Teggs’s backplates started crumbling away.
“Look out, Captain!” Gipsy couldn’t help but shout – and as she did so, her false fangs fell out.
“Hey!” The big allosaur frowned at Teggs and Gipsy. “You’re pretty funny-looking carnivores.”
A young T.rex bundled up. “They not meat-eaters. They is leaf-nibblers!”
“We’ve been rumbled,” squealed Gipsy.
“Plant-eaters!” someone bellowed. “Spies! Here in our camp!”
“Catch them!” came a blood-curdling cry. “Eat them!”
“Quick, Gipsy!” Teggs dragged her away and barged through the crowd of scowling, snarling meat-eaters all around them. His tail brushed against a huge flap of fabric – and he quickly tore it open. “Into this tent!”
Only once Teggs had ducked inside did he realize the dark and stinking tepee belonged to Madame Hagburger the fortune-teller. She was flossing her sharp teeth with a rusty hacksaw and scowled at her unexpected visitors.
“I’m having a tea break,” she snapped. “Push off.”
“But we’re here to read your future,” said Teggs quickly. “I see a big tail approaching your face at high speed . . .” Madame Hagburger frowned – and Teggs conked her on the head.
“Hey,” said the grizzled old dinosaur. “You’re good!” Then she slid to the ground in a deep snooze.
“Hide her under the table,” Teggs told Gipsy as he grabbed the fortune-teller’s smelly cloak and wrapped it around himself. No sooner had Gipsy dragged Madame Hagburger under the tablecloth than a blood-red baryonyx burst inside with a rabble of other tough carnivores just behind him.
“Seen a couple of plant-eaters come in here?” he growled.
Teggs tried to impersonate the old fortune-teller and peered into the crystal ball. “Er . . . yes. I see them now . . . they are sneaking out of this camp. They are nearing the exit.”
“We’ll see about that,” growled the baryonyx, as he turned and charged away. “Come on, you lot – let’s go!”
Gipsy poked her head out from beneath the table. “Looks like meat-eaters were even stupider sixty-five million years in the past!”
“Lucky for us.” Teggs got up. “Now, we must reach those carnivore rocket-ships – and make Loki’s future weapons history!”
Back at the plant-eater camp, Iggy had taken a break from repairing Shuttle Alpha to check out the Soar-a-saurus’s whopping engines. The super-ship’s power systems were an incredible lash-up, using random spare parts from dino-cars and trucks and cycles – but Iggy could find no reason why they wouldn’t work. Once the six tug-ships had helped to tow the Soar-a-saurus into space, it would give thousands of plant-eaters the chance of a new life out among the stars.
“Hello, Mister.” Zac’s friend, Gazell the yellow stegosaurus, came into the power room, her hatchlings still squashed between her backplates. “How’s it looking here? Find anything wrong?”
“No.” Iggy smiled. “This ship should handle well, Gazell. I’ve checked the systems and they’re all in working order. They just need a little oil.”
“Aha.” Gazell looked at her hatchlings. “Kids? Oil time!”
Iggy blinked as the babies on her back produced oil-cans from under their blankets. Holding them with their tails, they eagerly squirted the ramshackle workings.
Gazell smiled to see Iggy so astonished. “I’m from a whole family of mechanics,” she said. “Fixing engines is in our blood!” Suddenly one naughty hatchling started squirting without a can! “Henri, that is not oi
l – don’t be so dirty!”
Iggy smiled. “What are your nippers’ names?”
“Henri, Jim, Terry, Morris and . . .” She frowned. “You know, I just can’t decide on a name for my youngest boy. It bugs me day and night . . .” She sighed. “You know, I think I’m just trying to distract myself from how scary everything is right now. I used to fix up broken buses – now I’m supposed to fly the biggest spaceship in history!”
“Have you had a chance to test-drive the Soar-a-saurus?” Iggy wondered.
“Nope,” Gazell admitted. “I’m just gonna close my eyes, cross my legs and hope I don’t do what Henri just did!” She shook her head. “We dinos should’ve prepared for space travel a whole lot sooner.”
Iggy remembered what Arx had said. “Some dinos went to Venus and Mars, didn’t they?”
“Sure, the Triassic beasts struck out into space,” said Gazell. “And the sea-reptiles left to live on the moons of Jupiter a couple of centuries back, fed up with the carnivores trying to get them all the time . . . But I’m talking about deep space travel. We’ve already exhausted the solar system. And after the meteor hits, the Earth won’t be back to normal for ages and ages. Zac says we’ve got to fly much further out, into the unknown . . . on a journey that’ll last more than a million years . . .”
“And which will lead you into the Jurassic Quadrant,” Iggy murmured. “Zac is right. It’s what you have to do.”
“Of course he’s right,” Gazell said. “He’s brilliant! Since my husband was eaten by a gang of T. rexes last year, Zac has looked after me and my kids really well.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Iggy with a smile. “Good mechanics are hard to find!”
“So are test pilots.” Arx came in, looking pleased. “Luckily, Zac is great! He and I have been testing the other five tug-ships. Once you’ve helped finish repairs to that one we hit, this amazing craft should be ready to fly!”
But suddenly a deep, muffled thunderclap shook through the Soar-a-saurus. Gazell jumped and her hatchlings nearly fell off her back. “What was that?” Another, louder explosion rocked the room, and metal tiles clattered from the walls and ceiling.
“Something’s wrong,” said Arx, charging from the room. “We’d better get outside. It sounds like we’re under attack!”
Chapter Eight
CHAOS AT THE CAMP
When Iggy and Arx emerged with Gazell from the depths of the Soar-a-saurus, they found the sky alight with mega-bright streaks of ruby-red destruction – coming from the direction of the carnivore camp. Fires were breaking out all around. Distressed dinos were running round in a panic.
“Loki’s firing his weapons,” Iggy realized grimly.
KA-ZIZZ! The electric fence shook and sparked as red rays zapped against it. THTOOM! One whole section of the fence was blown apart . . . and the pieces smashed down on the cockpit of one of the tug-ships.
“No!” cried Gazell. “We can’t lose our only way off this world . . . We can’t!”
In the middle of the smoke and flames, a frantic Zac was directing the survival effort. “Pterosaurs, try to blow out the flames by flapping your wings really hard . . . You plateosaurus there, beat back the fires with blankets. Diplodocus, stamp out the flames – or try a well-aimed wee!”
Iggy, Arx and Gazell rushed up to help. When Zac saw Gazell he frowned. “It’s not safe here. Take the children and find somewhere to hide.”
Gazell shook her head. “I’ll fetch the first-aid supplies and the doctors and nurses.”
As she bravely ran off into the smoke with her hatchlings, Iggy and Arx watched the huge electric fence spit blue sparks high into the night and start to collapse completely.
“What are we going to do?” asked Iggy. “Loki’s weapons are already taking out the fence.
They could wreck the Soar-a-saurus too—OOF!”
A laser blast nearby threw Arx into Iggy, knocking them both to the ground. “We’ve got to reach Shuttle Alpha,” said Arx. “Quickly! It’s our only chance.”
“But the shuttle doesn’t have any weapons,” Iggy protested. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to hope my wild plan works out,” said Arx grimly. “If it doesn’t, this entire place will go up in smoke . . . and all our futures with it!”
Teggs carried Gipsy on his back as they made their way towards the rockets. She made sure to keep Madame Hagburger’s enormous cloak wrapped around them both. Luckily – if you could call it that – most carnivores had already fled their camp to get to the plant-eaters . . .
“I can’t see a thing,” Teggs complained through the smelly material. “Are we nearly there, Gipsy?”
“Yes.” Gipsy could see the giant rockets towering ahead, their bolted-on weapons spitting laser bolts. “But there’s no one firing the guns.”
Teggs peeped out and saw a heavily armoured ship parked beside the red rockets. “There’s Loki’s death-flyer. Perhaps there’s something inside we can use to destroy those weapons.”
They hurried across to the death-flyer. The door was locked – but couldn’t withstand a combined attack from the two angry astrosaurs. Once inside, Teggs scanned the controls. A black-and-yellow box had been wired messily into the main systems.
“That looks like a remote control unit,” said Gipsy. Looking more closely, she saw that one button was labelled LASERS – and that it was switched on. “Hey! Loki must be controlling those weapons from here!”
“Makes sense,” said Teggs. “Loki wouldn’t want to hand over control of his weapons to Rokol, in case Rokol decided to get rid of him. So he’s running the show from here.” He fiddled with the black-and-yellow box. “But if we can just get those lasers to reverse their fire . . . ”
Gipsy grinned. “You mean, so they fire into themselves? That would make them go—”
BANG! One after the other, Loki’s lasers blew themselves apart, scorching the rockets they were bolted to. Then Teggs clobbered the remote control unit with his tail – and it exploded in white smoke.
“You did it!” Gipsy cried.
“But those lasers are bound to have done some damage, and there are still hundreds of carnivores racing towards the plant-eater camp,” said Teggs worriedly. “How can we possibly stop them?”
Back at the plant-eater camp, Iggy was running through the smoke-filled camp, helping dinosaurs to safety – either getting them inside the Soar-a-saurus or hiding them behind the hunks of scrap metal lying around. No one in this time had ever seen a laser before or felt its effect. To them, such sheer power was terrifying – almost as terrifying as watching months of hard work being wrecked in minutes.
“Come on, Arx,” Iggy muttered. “Your plan has just got to work!”
Then Iggy heard Zac’s voice booming through the darkness. “It’s not fair! Stop!” Suddenly he saw the stegosaurus, bellowing up at the smoky sky. “We were so close to escaping, so close to a new life. Stop raining fire on us! Stop!”
Iggy ran to him. “Er, Zac? I think the bombardment has stopped. Listen!”
An eerie hush had settled over the camp. There were no more zaps of energy, no more explosions. Timid plant-eaters began to poke their heads out from their makeshift shelters. Mothers and fathers comforted their frightened children.
“Thank goodness.” Zac saw some large pterosaurs flap overhead. “Grab some torches and check out all the tug-ships and the Soar-a-saurus,” he yelled. “Whatever’s been damaged, we have less than a day to get it fixed.”
Then a breathless pterodactyl swooped in to land beside them. “Carnivores sighted!” she squawked. “I spotted them from the air. Hundreds and hundreds of them – looking really fierce and headed this way!”
“But . . . the electric fence is all in bits.” Zac groaned. “What can we do? First the carnivores softened us up. Now they’re moving in for the kill!”
Iggy turned and shouted back the way he’d come. “Arx! Don’t stop the work! The camp’s got some uninvited dinner guests on the way
– and we’re the dinner!”
“What work?” said Zac. “What do you mean?”
But before Iggy could reply, the pterodactyl squawked at ear-splitting volume: “They’re coming!”
Iggy and Zac peered through the haze of smoke and saw a seething sea of shadowy shapes surging down the hillside towards the camp. At their head were two elevated figures being carried on grand chairs.
“There’s Loki,” Iggy muttered. “There’s nothing he loves more than a bit of destruction.”
“And King Rokol too,” said Zac. “So the meat-eaters win at last.”
And then a small silver shape shot into sight over the dark haze of the hillside.
It was Loki’s death-flyer!
Inside the stolen raptor ship, Gipsy peered out of the window while Teggs fought with unfamiliar controls to keep their flight steady.
“Carnivores right below us, Captain,” called Gipsy. “They’re almost at the camp. What are we going to do? We’ve blown up all Loki’s weapons – now we’ve got none to use ourselves.”
“We can use this whole ship as a weapon!” Teggs gave her a dangerous grin. “I’ll take us in low . . .”
Gipsy gulped as the flyer dipped sharply and accelerated away – heading straight for King Rokol and Loki on their elevated sedan chairs. Both meat-scoffers turned in angry astonishment as Teggs gave a cheeky wave through the windscreen – then whooshed right over their heads. The enormous rush of wind as he passed by knocked both his targets out of their portable thrones. They landed with twin crunches on the ground below. “YEOWW-OOF!”
“Result!” Teggs cried.
“What about the rest of this rotten rabble?” asked Gipsy.
“Take the controls and I’ll see what I can do.” As Gipsy gripped the flight stick, Teggs jumped up and crossed over to the flyer’s cargo hold. “I think it’s time those meat-heads learned what it’s like to be bombarded from above!”
He opened the hold’s outer doors. Then, bracing himself in the fierce gale, he curled his tail around a crate full of frozen meat and emptied it over the carnivores racing at the front of the pack. Some were struck and fell, others skidded to a stop and started chomping down the free food – only to be trampled and tripped over by the mass of meat-eaters behind.