Astrosaurs 18

by Steve Cole

  Once Sprite had safely landed Shuttle Delta, Teggs led his party into the outpost. The cavernous corridors were deserted.

  “Where is everyone?” wondered Gipsy. “Why aren’t the ankylosaurs on guard duty?”

  Suddenly, a distant, muffled chorus of cries and caterwauls started up. “That’s coming from the Data Room,” said Teggs. He ran up to the door, peered through the small window beside it – and got a shock. “Er . . . the Data Room seems to be doubling as the Room Where Staff Are Bound and Gagged!”

  The rest of Teggs’s group crowded round to see. There were over a dozen apatosaurus lying inside, all tied up with thick ropes and calling out through the towels and tablecloths muzzling their jaws. Their long necks were intertwined in a scaly tangle, and they looked very sorry for themselves.

  “How did this happen?” Teggs cried. “No wonder no one was answering my calls. We must get these poor dinosaurs out.” The door was locked, and he was about to try to smash it down when Fangal pressed a heavy paw against his side.

  “Wait,” she growled. “Someone is coming.”

  Teggs turned as Chief Spotter Speck burst into sight at the end of the corridor. “Help!” Speck yelled. “Arx and Alass and all your crew are in danger in the Star Chart Library. Is that Fangal? You must bring her quickly . . .” He tailed off at the sight of Wettus. “Hang on, that’s a meat-eater! Ugh! What’s it doing here?”

  “I’m a he, thank you very much!” Wettus shot back crossly. “I’m a veggie and related to one of the Jurassic Explorers, so there.”

  “Then you’d better come too,” said Speck, ducking out of sight.

  “Wait!” Teggs cried, galloping after him. “Your staff have been locked up – we must get them out. And what do you mean, my crew are in danger?”

  “Hang on, Captain,” said Gipsy, racing after him with Sprite at her side. “How did Speck know Fangal’s name?”

  “And how come he’s free when his workers are all tied up?” Iggy added, following on with Fangal while poor wheezing Wettus lagged behind.

  But Teggs was so worried about Arx and his team that he ran recklessly into the Star Chart Library, smashing open the door with a swipe of his spiky tail. He had no real plan – which was just as well.

  Because nothing could ever have prepared him for the sight inside.

  Arx, Alass and her ankylosaurs lay tied up and gagged just like the victims in the Data Room, their wrist-communicators smashed. Jodril lay helplessly beside them while Speck stood sorrowfully in the corner. And hanging upside down from the high ceiling were twelve of the biggest, nastiest-looking monsters Teggs had ever seen. They had huge leathery wings like giant pterosaurs, but their faces were bat-like, wrinkled with folds of flesh. Strange-looking headsets covered their big round ears, and stupendous pointed teeth poked out of their mouths like ivory stalactites, so long that they threatened to pierce the monsters’ three hairy feet.

  Fangal bounded in behind Teggs – and then skidded to a halt. “Oh, no,” she whispered, shaking with horror. “The Battalasks . . . they’ve found me!”

  Gipsy’s head-crest turned electric blue. “Those are the things that created you?”

  “Yes, puny dinosaurs,” hissed the largest Battalask, swooping to the ground. “I am Major Terrorkon. I assume the rest of the sabre-tooths are still on board the Lightning Bolt. Thank you for delivering them back to their rightful owner. Your reward will be a terrible death!”

  Chapter Nine

  BATTLING BATTALASKS

  “There’s no need to reward us, prune-face,” said Teggs coolly. “Just explain how you got into this outpost. My shuttle crew told me no spaceships had come this way.”

  “Fool,” hissed Terrorkon. “We came well before you arrived. Our ship is parked in secret beneath this space station. We have been hiding here all along.”

  “That vessel the triceratops ship spotted in the area . . .” Teggs groaned, and the bound-and-gagged Arx nodded sadly. “It was you and your ugly friends arriving.”

  Terrorkon wrenched the communicator from Teggs’s wrist, and took Iggy’s and Gipsy’s too. “We captured your crew one by one, and stopped them from warning you – like so.” He crushed the bracelets in his toothy mouth.

  Just then, Wettus lumbered in – and at the sight of the Battalasks he shrieked at the top of his lungs.

  The monsters flapped down from their perches, filling the air as they flew around. One of them knocked Wettus over with a mighty wing – whack! – and he fell silent.

  Taking advantage of the distraction, Fangal lunged at Terrorkon with her wicked claws. But two more Battalasks wrapped their wings around her, trapping her and squashing her inside.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Gipsy implored.

  “She cannot be hurt,” Terrorkon whispered. “That is why she and her kind are such a prize.” He turned to Teggs. “Really I should thank you for fetching Fangal for me, Captain. I was expecting to have to go myself, but you have saved me a tedious errand.”

  As the other creatures returned to their clawholds on the ceiling, Teggs realized he couldn’t see Sprite anywhere. Perhaps he flapped outside in the confusion, he thought. Perhaps he’ll warn the Sauropod and call in a DSS attack fleet . . .

  But would it come in time?

  “I don’t understand.” Iggy helped up Wettus and glared at Speck. “How could you let these things hide here?”

  Speck wrung his hands and feet miserably. “I had no choice. I . . . owed them my help.”

  “Yes, you did,” Terrorkon hissed. “We were searching for the sabre-tooths in deep space when we chanced upon Speck here, trying to build his telescope. We agreed to make it a million times better with Battalask technology . . .”

  “But only so you could use it to hunt for the sabre-tooths,” Gipsy realized.

  “They . . . they said they would leave peacefully as soon as they’d found Fangal.” Speck sighed. “At the time, hiding them here seemed a small price to pay for the best telescope in the galaxy.”

  “And you were happy to take all the credit for yourself,” sneered Iggy.

  “Enough of this noisy talking,” hissed Terrorkon. “I have spent the last three hundred years chasing the sabre-tooths. All the other Battalasks gave up on them a century ago, building boring battle-robots instead. They thought me mad to keep searching.” He smiled nastily, his giant fangs agleam. “But such a breathtaking army was well worth waiting for.”

  “Meeting you wasn’t.” Teggs pretended to yawn – and as he did so, out of the corner of his eye he saw Arx and Alass winking at him. What were they up to?

  Fangal wormed her head out from between the Battalasks’ wings. “We will never fight for you. Never!”

  “My Battalask brain-tools will change the way you think,” rasped Terrorkon. “When I control you completely, I shall turn you on the rulers of Battalask and take charge of our empire myself!” His bat-like troops rustled their wings as if in applause. “Then I shall breed millions more indestructible sabre-tooths – and their first act will be to invade the Jurassic Quadrant and turn the dinosaur empire into rubble!”

  “Rubble?” Arx cried, whipping off his gag. “Rubbish!”

  At the same time, Alass jumped up and whacked Terrorkon with her large club of a tail! He staggered in surprise and tried to take off – but Teggs hooked his tail round two of Terrorkon’s hairy feet and swung him like a baseball bat into the troops who were holding Fangal within their wings. As they crashed to the floor, the big cat pounced free of their grip with a triumphant roar.

  “Make a noise, everyone,” Arx boomed. “Battalasks hate a racket!”

  A horrendous hubbub started up as Wettus screeched, Fangal growled and Gipsy hooted at record-breaking volume. The Battalasks clutched their ears and flapped about like giant startled sparrows. Then Iggy started singing a very rude song about a diplodocus with five legs – and the naughty words alone were enough to make two of the bat-aliens crash into each other.

  “Arx!” Teggs beam
ed as the triceratops punched a Battalask right in the fangs. “How did you break free?”

  “Chirrup!” Sprite flew out from behind Jodril with ropes in his beak and flapped over to untie some ankylosaurs.

  Gipsy grinned. “Way to go, Sprite!”

  “Yeah, thanks, little guy!” Jodril jumped to her enormous feet and joined the fray. “I’ve no idea what’s going on or where the veggie meat-eater came from, but I do love a good noisy knees-up!” And, wailing like an opera singer, she kneed Terrorkon in the face!

  Iggy helped Arx wrestle another Battalask to the floor. “How did you guess that these things hated noise?” Arx shrugged. “They hang out in libraries, speak in whispers and wear funny headgear to protect their ears.”

  “And when Wettus screamed, it sent them scattering,” Teggs added, dodging a near-fatal fang bite. “I guess that explains why they need the sabre-tooths to fight for them even though they’re scary enough themselves – war is just too noisy for them!”

  But the Battalasks were still fearsomely strong. And now the astrosaurs and their friends had lost the element of surprise, the aliens were fighting back. Terrorkon swept Wettus aside with one wing and smashed Alass with a three-footed mega-kick. Winded, she hurtled into her ankylosaur troops like a bowling ball hitting skittles. Iggy found himself thrown into Jodril, who fell against Speck – the two apatosaurus almost squashed Teggs, Arx and Gipsy as they fell. Sprite pecked furiously at the stubborn knot holding the last ankylosaurs – only to be swatted aside by a Battalask’s fangs. He flew helplessly into Fangal’s left eye and bowled the big cat over.

  “Attention, Battalask troopers,” Terrorkon whispered eerily. “We must leave for our spaceship at once.”

  “Hey!” said Iggy. “We’ve got them on the run. They’re retreating.”

  “Battalasks never retreat,” Terrorkon retorted. “Once inside our ship, we will take off and destroy your various spacecraft. Then we will blow Outpost Q to bits. And then we shall collect the unkillable Fangal from the debris, lock her up with her friends and take the whole lot of them back to our war-world to fight.” He swept away, chuckling to himself. “Goodbye, fools. You are free to make as much noise as you like . . . as you die!”

  Chapter Ten

  SOUND AND FURY

  “We can’t just let the Battalasks get away,” Iggy protested.

  “How can we stop them?” groaned Jodril.

  Fangal shook her huge head. “With the Lightning Bolt’s engines not working, my fellow sabre-tooths cannot escape.”

  “And my poor family can’t steer my ship without me,” said Wettus. “They’ll be obliterated.”

  “So will the Sauropod,” said Teggs. “We must warn everyone.”

  “We can’t,” said Speck. “Terrorkon destroyed the outpost’s communicators, just as he smashed your own.”

  “The Megascope room,” cried Arx, struggling out from under Speck’s long yellow tail. “We must all go there quickly. I might just have a plan . . .”

  He charged away, and Teggs led the ragtag group of unlikely allies after him, into the outpost’s huge control room. Through the windows he saw the Sauropod and its shuttles, the Lightning Bolt and Wettus’s ship hanging silently in space, blissfully unaware of the approaching danger.

  “Arx, will you tell us your plan?” asked Teggs. “We’re all ears.”

  “And so are the Battalasks,” said Arx, studying the Megascope closely. “Sound is their weakness – and if I can rewire these circuits, perhaps we can use it against them.”

  Alass and her guards looked blank. “Huh?” they chorused.

  “The Megascope magnifies light from space, and uses it to send an image into this room,” Arx explained. “But if I can fix the Megascope so that it turns light waves into sound waves – and then reverse the settings – it should magnify noise from in here and send it out into space at supersonic volume . . .”

  “Straight into the Battalask ship!” Jodril gasped in admiration. “That’s brilliant.”

  Iggy grinned. “The perfect anti-Battalask weapon.”

  “You’ll ruin my beautiful Megascope!” Speck wailed.

  Teggs glowered at him. “What does that matter with so many lives at stake?”

  “I suppose so.” Speck sighed. “It’s a very clever plan, Arx. But I fear it will take too long to make the changes – the Battalask ship will pop up at any moment.”

  “Then we’d better get started.” Arx’s big paws were a blur as he started twisting wires and plugging them into different sockets.

  “I’ll re-route the energy cables. Speck – start turning the light receivers into sound broadcasters. Jodril, change the focus on the galactic lens to short-range transmission . . .”

  Alass watched as Jodril and Speck got to work. “I hope they know what they’re doing.”

  “I hope they know how to do it in ten seconds flat.” Gipsy’s head-crest, already dazzling blue, was edging towards neon brightness. “Because here come the Battalasks!”

  A grey saucer-shaped spaceship came rising up into view through the outpost’s large windows. Without warning or pity it blasted the Sauropod with death lasers, and a massive brown explosion splattered into space.

  “They’ve hit our dung torpedoes!” shouted Alass.

  “Now Dactil can’t defend the ship.” Iggy stared helplessly. “The Sauropod’s a sitting duck!”

  “How much longer, Arx?” Teggs demanded.

  “We’re going as fast as we can,” the triceratops said calmly.

  BWAMMMM! The Battalasks fired again and the dryptosaurus ship lurched and spun, leaking thick smoke.

  Wettus covered his eyes. “Another direct hit like that and my family is doomed!”

  Jodril stretched her long neck up to the Megascope’s mid-section and pulled out a thick lens with her teeth. “Getting there,” she mumbled.

  Speck nodded, jabbing a circuit with a screwdriver. “But we need more time!”

  “Time’s up,” said Gipsy as the Battalask ship started turning to face them.

  “Maybe not,” said Fangal, her eyes widening. “Look!”

  Teggs stared – and a slow smile of disbelief spread over his face as a stream of sabre-tooths poured out of the Lightning Bolt’s launch bay! Led by Kerr and Clawdio, more than fifty of the big cats swam through the vacuum of space and attacked the Battalask ship. They tore chunks from its hull with their big claws and punctured its lasers with their deadly teeth.

  “The Battalasks bred the sabre-tooths for war,” said Teggs. “And now the sabre-tooths have declared war on them!”

  “Come on, come on . . .” Arx hit some buttons on the Megascope and the lights on its side turned from green to red. “If the cats can keep them distracted a little longer . . .”

  “Look!” Alass yelled. “The Battalasks are coming out to fight the sabre-tooths!”

  Teggs stared, riveted with wonder. Almost invisible against the darkness of space in their black, billowing spacesuits, Battalask warriors were flitting out of the holes torn in their ship. Furious fighting broke out with the big cats.

  Fangal watched the conflict, shiny-eyed. “Battle, brothers and sisters!” she urged them. “Battle for your lives!”

  Jodril slotted another lens into place, Speck inserted his circuits, and Arx threw a switch that set the whole Megascope vibrating with unearthly energy.

  “We have power!” Arx yelled. “No time for proper tests. Make a noise, everybody. Make all the noise you can and we’ll blast it at the Battalasks!”

  “You heard Arx!” Teggs started hollering and honking and banging his tail against the floor. “Let’s raise the roof!”

  The ankylosaur guards jumped up and down and crashed about. Iggy wailed and screeched. Wettus and Fangal roared in harmony, and Sprite surprised everyone with an ear-splitting squawk that almost blasted Teggs’s ears off!

  “It’s working!” Arx shouted excitedly.

  The Battalask ship had started to shake. Terrorkon’s warriors clut
ched their space helmets, trying to block their ears. As if sensing their work was done, Clawdio, Kerr and the other sabre-tooths pushed away from the hull, swimming through space back towards the Lightning Bolt.

  “Keep going, everyone,” Teggs commanded. “Louder! LOUDER!”

  Iggy punched a hole through the bottom of a bin and used it like a megaphone to amplify his yells. Gipsy let out a colossal hoot that almost broke every window in the place. Teggs blew a really loud raspberry, which made Jodril guffaw at amazing volume.

  “The sonic vibrations are battering the Battalask ship,” Speck said. “If they don’t retreat soon, it will rattle itself apart!”

  “You heard Terrorkon,” Teggs said grimly. “Battalasks never retreat . . .”

  And as the noise of the astrosaurs and their allies reached mega-mad levels, the alien warcraft broke into pieces! Explosion followed explosion in a crimson rush of flaming fragments. Outpost Q rocked and shuddered, and the Megascope swayed like a ship’s mast in the stormiest sea.

  But when the aftershocks of the blasts had faded, both were still intact.

  “We did it,” Gipsy breathed in the sudden silence.

  A small tear dripped from Fangal’s eye. “My people are free at last.”

  “And our families and crews are safe,” said Teggs. “Woo-hoo!” He cheered, and everyone joined in. Alass and her ankylosaurs lifted Arx onto their shoulders and swept him around the room. Even Speck did a small victory dance with Jodril, accidentally squashing two control panels in the process!

  “Well, Wettus,” said Teggs, once the celebrations had calmed down. “You were hoping to stop other carnivores laughing at your veggie tastes by bringing them terrible weapons. Is that still your plan?”

  “I would never dream of telling King Drypto about Fangal and the sabre-tooths,” Wettus declared. “My great-great-great-great-granddad wanted to watch out for them, and now, so do I.”