by Steve Cole
“It’s going to be an incredible adventure,” said Teggs, ushering his crew towards the exit ladder. “I wish we could share it with you.”
Zac looked puzzled as they started climbing down the rungs. “But you’ll come with us, won’t you?”
“We’ll, er, follow you into space in our own ship,” Teggs said. “You see, there’s somewhere in particular we have to get to . . .”
“A long, long way from here,” said Gipsy.
“Well, good luck.” Zac shook hands and feet with all the astrosaurs as he followed them outside. He took a last look around at the scorched valley and the mountains as a clutch of colossal, clunky rocket-ships tore across the sky like deep red scratches in the blue.
“There goes Rokol and his carnivores,” said Iggy. The rockets soon faded from sight. But the orange dot of the meteor burned ever more brightly.
“Time we were gone.” Zac looked round at the other enormous tug-ships, two on either side of his own. He held up a big green flag to them, and the pilots waved green flags back at him. “With just an hour to spare, we’re ready to go . . .” He climbed back up the ladder and waved to the astrosaurs. “So long!”
“So long ago,” breathed Teggs as Zac got back into his tug-ship’s control room. “And yet here we are, ready for—”
“BLAST OFF!” Zac hollered, and his tug-ship’s engines fired into life with an incredible roar. The astrosaurs clung together as the ground began to shake. The four remaining tug-ships started up their mighty motors. Finally the Soar-a-saurus’s engines ignited with a rumbling thunderclap that seemed loud enough to shatter mountains.
Awestruck, Teggs watched the fierce blue flames gusting from the tug-ships’ several jets, as each of them took to the air. Their towropes, tied to the sides of the Soar-a-saurus, grew taut and tightened as they strained to help lift the ark-ship’s titanic weight. Teggs whooped with delight as the Soar-a-saurus’s engines roared even louder and thick, dungy exhaust smoke swirled all around, while the giant jets’ flames turned incandescent white. Then, finally, the humongous craft rose into the sky, the tug-ships taking her higher and higher . . .
“Have a good trip!” Gipsy hooted at top volume, and Iggy waved as the unlikely spaceships slowly dwindled from view into the upper atmosphere.
“That was amazing,” said Teggs. “To think we saw such a historic moment with our own eyes.”
Arx nodded, eyeing the meteor in the sky. “But now it’s time we were gone too.”
“How true!” came a horrid hiss from behind them.
With a sinking feeling, Teggs turned to find that a familiar black-and-orange figure with an eye-patch had sneaked up in the storm of noise, smoke and dirt.
It was General Loki, a glint of evil relish in his only eye – and an atom gun clutched in his claws!
Chapter Eleven
A TRICK IN TIME
“You thought you could thwart my plans, didn’t you?” rasped Loki. “Well, you were wrong!”
“We have thwarted them.” Teggs squared up to the black-clad raptor. “You might just have noticed the Soar-a-saurus has taken off – with thousands of plant-eaters safely aboard.”
Loki chuckled. “Aboard perhaps, but not safely.”
“What do you mean?” asked Arx.
“You checked those plants for poison,” said Loki. “But you should have tested the soil in which they grew. Then you might’ve found the twelve bombs I’d hidden inside random pots!”
Gipsy and Iggy gasped, and Teggs stared in horror. “Bombs?”
“Magnificent micro-bombs!” Loki nodded gloatingly. “Super-explosive gunpowder sealed in a mega-metal shell. Completely tamper-proof ! Once set, they cannot be defused.”
Teggs scowled. “So Rokol was tricking us.”
“No! The soft fool really did wish to suck up to you sap-sucking stinkheads.” Loki spat on the ground. “He threw me out of his camp – I had to sneak back inside and plant my bombs in those baskets when no one was looking!”
“How long before the explosives go off ?” Iggy demanded.
“They are set to detonate just as the meteor strikes the Earth.” Loki sniggered. “The puny plant-eaters will perish at the same time as their planet!”
Gipsy looked pale. “Captain, that awful future we found at the other end of the space tunnel, where meat-guzzling dinos ruled the Earth and Mars and everywhere else, and plant-eaters don’t exist . . . It’s all going to happen, isn’t it?”
“You’ve seen this future?” Loki’s eyes widened, and he cackled with delight. “There you are, then – proof, astrosaurs, of your ultimate defeat!”
“No,” said Teggs. “That was how the future was before we travelled back here to stop you. Now we’re a part of history ourselves, we can put events back on track.”
Loki waved his gun. “While I’ve got this? I don’t think so.”
“You haven’t used it yet,” Teggs observed coolly. “Which means you must want something from us.”
“Correct.” Loki narrowed his single eye. “When you stole my ship you threw out three mega-metal crates. One of those crates contained food, one contained spare parts for my death-flyer . . . and the last contained my exo-suit.”
Teggs’s eyes widened. “And without that, you can’t escape in your stolen time machine, can you?”
“But I must!” cried Loki. “First I shall make sure Rokol and his fleeing carnivores know it was I who killed all the plant-eaters, so that I’ll become a legend throughout the universe. Then, when I return to my own time, I shall be a dinosaur god, worshipped by all! I’ll have power over everyone and everything! So – hand over my exo-suit at once.”
“But . . . we don’t have it!” Gipsy protested.
Teggs nodded. “We used that crate to cushion our fall – but we didn’t see your exo-suit inside.”
“Captain!” Iggy gasped. “I’ve just realized – Zac told his helpers to gather up all the spare parts they could find in case they were useful in the future.”
“But these parts are from the future,” said Arx. “If dinosaurs today discover the secrets of technology that won’t be invented until sixty-five million years from now . . .”
“It could change history as surely as those bombs will,” said Teggs gravely. “We’ve got to get up to the Soar-a-saurus and sort things out!”
“Bah. So sickeningly noble as ever.” Loki raised his gun. “All I care about is getting hold of an exo-suit. Give me yours, Teggs – or I’ll shoot your friends.”
“All right . . .” said Teggs slowly. “I’ll fetch it.”
“No tricks,” Loki warned. “Or the stripy girl gets it first!”
Gipsy, Arx and Iggy watched helplessly as Teggs trudged over to the Sauropod’s shuttle, went inside and shut the door. Loki chuckled nastily.
“What are you laughing at?” came a familiar voice behind them.
Everyone spun round . . . to find Teggs was somehow behind them, and wearing his exo-suit! He punched Loki in the snout, and the raptor general went down like a sack of potatoes.
“Captain!” squealed Gipsy in delight.
Iggy was baffled. “But we saw you get on board the shuttle. How can you be in two places at once?”
“The same way he could be in two places at once back at the space prison,” said Arx, smiling. “When he went to the shuttle he must’ve put on his exo-suit and used the time machine to send himself five minutes back into the past!”
“Exactly!” Teggs agreed.
“But the pyramid blew a fuse when it brought us here,” Gipsy remembered.
“I tried pressing the blue demonstration button as Zindi did,” Teggs told her. “There must have been just enough power left to send myself back to when the Soar-a-saurus was taking off. While we were busy watching it and Loki was creeping up . . .”
“You crept up behind us all!” Gipsy realized.
“And I’ve been hiding behind that rock ever since,” Teggs revealed, “just waiting to make a surprise reappearance
and come to our rescue!”
Arx looked forlorn. “If only I’d fixed the time machine right away, we could travel back to this morning when Loki was planting his bombs and stop him!”
“Can’t you do it now?” Iggy asked him.
“It might take hours and hours.” Arx shook his head. “Always assuming I can do it at all!”
“Then we’ll have to do things the hard way,” Teggs said gravely. “Come on, let’s drag Loki onto our shuttle and get after the Soar-a-saurus. The meteor’s going to hit within the hour.”
“And when it does,” said Arx, “those bombs on board will explode. If we can’t find them and defuse them in time, the plant-eaters will die, and Loki’s twisted future will become reality.”
Teggs nodded. “That’s why we’ve got to succeed – we’ve just got to!”
Minutes later the astrosaurs were taking off in Shuttle Alpha. Loki lay sprawled in a heap at Teggs’s feet, and did not stir as the small ship blasted away from the planet in a whirlwind of fire and dung-flavoured smoke.
“Step on it, Iggy,” Teggs urged his friend as the shuttle soared up and away and the sky turned to space around them.
“If only communicators existed in this time!” Gipsy lamented. “We’ve got no way to warn Gazell and Zac of the danger they’re in.”
“Look! There’s the Soar-a-saurus, up ahead.” Arx pointed through the windscreen to where the enormous ramshackle ship was speeding through space; the tug-ships had done their job and were now fixed to its sprawling sides just as Zac had described. “And there’s the meteor!”
Teggs swallowed hard. The meteor was close enough now to be clearly visible – a jagged rock miles across, tumbling out of the void on its deadly collision course with the Earth. “Head straight for the Soar-a-saurus, Ig.”
“But there’s nowhere to dock!” Iggy protested. “We can’t get on board.”
Teggs was already changing into his spacesuit. “I’ll just have to spacewalk across to the cargo hold and use Loki’s gun to blow a hole in the door. Everything’s strapped down in there, so it shouldn’t fall out into space.”
“You can use this sealing foam to block up the hole once you’re inside.” Gipsy passed Teggs a heavy spray can and he pushed it into his pocket. “Just like Iggy blocked the hole that Zac’s tug-ship made in this shuttle.”
“And since Loki hid the bombs in those baskets, he’ll be the best one to find them.” Teggs hauled the unconscious Loki to his feet and started stuffing him into another spacesuit. “Once he knows he’ll be blown up along with his victims when the meteor hits Earth, I think he’ll be willing to help.”
Iggy steered alongside the Soar-a-saurus. Keeping tight hold of the general, Teggs took a long white rope that was attached to a metal platform at the back of the shuttle and clipped it to his suit. “Space ejector ready?”
“Ready,” Iggy confirmed.
Teggs stood on the platform with Loki and took a deep breath. He had reached the final, desperate stage of the most vital mission of his life . . .
“Send me out there, Ig,” Teggs said. “Now!”
Chapter Twelve
DISASTER IN SPACE
Teggs gasped as the space ejector platform shot upwards on a big pole. At the same moment, a hatch in the ceiling slid open, and he and Loki were pushed out into starry darkness. The platform filled the hatch-space so perfectly that not a breath of air escaped from the shuttle. Teggs felt a thrill of fear – had it not been for the rope tethering his space suit to the shuttle roof, he and Loki would be left drifting helplessly through the cosmos.
And the plant-eater population would perish with us, he thought.
Like a determined diver, Teggs used the shuttle roof as a springboard and launched himself towards the Soar-a-saurus’s cargo hold. He held Loki’s wrist in one hand and the atom gun in the other.
But suddenly the tricky raptor twisted in his grip – and snatched the gun away!
Loki was only pretending to be asleep, Teggs realized. He tried to grab back the gun, but Loki kicked him in the belly and sent him crashing into the side of the Soar-a-saurus. Then, with an evil grin, the raptor put his gun to the space-rope and fired right through it.
Teggs’s worst nightmare had come true – he was floating helplessly in space! Desperately he scrabbled for a grip on the giant ship, and just caught hold of one of the cargo door handles. Clinging on, he saw Loki’s drooling jaws twist wide in a grin as he prepared to fire . . .
Back on the shuttle, Arx, Iggy and Gipsy watched the drama unfold in horror.
“Poor Teggs!” cried Gipsy. “He’s done for!”
But then, with his free hand, Teggs grabbed the sealant spray and fired it at Loki’s space helmet – SPLAT! Thick white foam covered the raptor’s faceplate, and left him blinded.
Gipsy, Arx and Iggy cheered – but then Loki started firing wildly. One blast almost hit Teggs in the leg, another narrowly missed his back.
“Hang on, you two.” Iggy twisted hard on the shuttle’s flight stick. “I’m going to spoil Loki’s aim!”
Gipsy and Arx gasped as their ship began to roll in a dizzying spin. Dangling from the rope like a conker on the end of a string, Loki was swung round and round the shuttle. But still he was firing wildly.
“Nice job, Ig,” said Gipsy as an atom-blast zipped past the windscreen. “But if he hits us, we haven’t got any more sealing foam to keep in the air!”
Iggy groaned. “How can we get the captain back inside?”
Arx watched as the massive meteor rolled ever nearer. “And how can we get Loki’s bombs out of the Soar-a-saurus?”
“If only there was more metal on the captain’s spacesuit,” said Gipsy, “we could use our space magnets to pull him back!”
Iggy shook his head. “We’d pull the Soar-a-saurus towards us too. It would crash into the shuttle . . .”
Suddenly Arx jumped into the air. “Maybe not!” he cried, turning to the main controls and jabbing them with his horns. “If I can only change the settings in time . . .”
Gipsy stared. “What do you mean? What are you doing?”
“Trying to solve all our problems at once!” Arx yanked a wire from one circuit and plugged it into another. “Keep everything crossed, you two. We’re going to need all the luck we can get!”
ZZAP! Dodging another of Loki’s laser beams, Teggs banged with all his strength on the cargo hold’s door. If only someone would let him inside – before it was too late. Already he could feel his grip on the handle begin to slip. If he let go now, he’d be lost in space for ever . . .
Suddenly something smashed against the doors of the cargo hold – from the inside. CLANG! CLANG!! CLANG!!! A series of little impacts sent vibrations through the metal. And behind Loki, Shuttle Alpha was starting to shake. Teggs saw that its space magnets were fully extended and shining an eerie blue. He frowned. Normally they glow red. What’s going on?
Then the cargo doors were smashed wide open by one of Loki’s crates, which had come whizzing out from inside. Teggs clung to the handle as a dozen gleaming metal spheres swiftly followed it out into space like big bullets in a cloud of frozen soil.
“The bombs!” he breathed. “Somehow they’ve been sucked out of the Soar-a-saurus!”
Hope swelled inside Teggs’s chest and gave him new strength to hold on. He watched in amazement as the shuttle switched off its magnets and shot upwards to avoid the deadly shower of bombs. Loki too was jerked up in the air like a puppet on a string as the projectiles hurtled past. Then the shuttle dropped back down again into position alongside the Soar-a-saurus and its magnets switched on again, shaking with power.
“Of course!” Teggs cried, his heart pounding. “Arx must’ve changed the magnets’ settings so they only attract mega-metal!”
Still holding onto the space-rope, Loki finally clawed the foam from his helmet. “Curse you, astrosaurs!” he screamed, his one eye bright and narrowed with rage. “Curse you all, throughout eternity!”
&nbs
p; “If I were you, Loki, I’d spend less time cursing and more time getting ready to dodge,” Teggs cried. “If I’m right about our magnets attracting mega-metal – and if I’ve counted correctly – there are still two crates packed away on board the Soar-a-saurus. Any minute now you should be able to see for yourself . . .”
Right on cue, both big metal crates came rocketing out from inside the cargo hold. Loki had time for just a single squawk of outrage – then dropped both his gun and the rope as the biggest crate slammed into him. Again, Shuttle Alpha turned off its magnets and steered aside before Loki and his cube of mega-metal could crash into it. Instead, the crate’s momentum carried the evil raptor out through space . . .
And straight into the path of the oncoming meteor!
SPLAMMMM! Teggs winced, his insides twisting in shock as the colossal rock roared past, snatching Loki, the crate and everything inside it from sight.
“Pulverized,” Teggs muttered in shock. “My oldest enemy . . . gone for ever.”
It was a terrible end to a terrible life, he decided.
But somehow, it seemed a fitting one.
Chapter Thirteen
GETTING BACK
Teggs was still dangling helplessly when two big, quilted, spiky somethings dropped down in front of his face.
They were stegosaurus tails – in spacesuits!
Gratefully, Teggs let go of the cargo door handle and held onto the tails as Zac and Gazell heaved him inside. Amid scattered plants and baskets, Teggs could see them both – and Gazell’s little hatchlings – all wearing space helmets and looking down at him with concern.
“Teggs!” said Zac. “I thought you weren’t coming with us?”
“We heard all the banging,” said Gazell. “What’s been going on? It looks like a bomb went off in here!”
Teggs gave her a crooked smile. “You’re closer than you know.” He pointed to where the Earth’s disc was slowly dwindling in the distance. “What’s about to happen there will tell us if we’re safe or—”
Even as he spoke, a pinprick of light flared on the surface of the planet: the nameless meteor had struck. Teggs watched, transfixed, as a dark cloud billowed up from the fiery spot and began to blanket the Earth.