by Steve Cole
Bumping together in their armour, the other astrosaurs leaned forward to see. There was a big pile of metal, plastic and bits of junk lying on a rocky plain.
“There were similar bits and pieces left behind when the robo-rexes got destroyed,” Teggs remembered. “Perhaps the allosaurs’ secret weapon dismantles machines – and they accidentally set it off when they crash-landed?”
As soon as the shuttle was down, Teggs and his team ventured out onto the baking hot planet. The sun was bright and scorching in the sky. Keeping cool in their armour despite the fierce heat, they approached the scattered piles of parts.
“There’s no sign of any allosaurs,” Teggs observed. “I wonder what happened to them?”
“I wonder why there’s no sign of an actual crash,” said Gipsy. “There’s no crater, no marks - nothing but metal and plastic and about a million spare parts.”
Arx nodded. “It’s like someone simply took apart the entire spaceship.”
“And gave it a really good clean at the same time,” Iggy added. He held up a large metal tube. “This has come from the dung-burners. It ought to be scorched and covered in dung-soot. Instead, it’s like new.” He waved his auto-grippers around the crash site. “All these parts are like new – except for this power piston. It’s the only thing that looks like it’s seen some space action.”
Arx had a look. “It’s made of megametal,” he noted. “Like the captain’s armour.”
Teggs hardly heard them, deep in thought. “Something very strange is going on around here.”
Then suddenly, a high-pitched, giggling growl sounded from nearby.
“What’s that?” asked Gipsy nervously.
Teggs pointed to a small hole in a nearby hillside. “It sounded like it came from in there . . .”
The next moment, a small, dark green dinosaur came scuttling out of the hole. It had small arms and sharp claws. Its eyes were big, and its teeth even bigger. It stared round at the armoured astrosaurs, wagging its tail.
“I don’t get it.” Iggy stared at the dinosaur. “It looks like an allosaur. But it’s about ten times too small.”
“It’s almost cute,” Teggs admitted.
The dinosaur turned back to the little cave and called in a squeaky voice. “Hey, everyone, look! Funny-coloured monsters. Look!”
Seconds later, another near-identical dinosaur came out, followed by another, and another. There were maybe thirty all together. They “ooohed” and “ahhhed” at the sight of the astrosaurs and started running about with their tails wagging.
“I think they’re baby allosaurs,” breathed Gipsy. “What in space would babies be doing on an allosaur warship?”
“Crying, weeing and pooing a lot, I expect,” joked Iggy.
One of the tots jumped up to Teggs. “What you funny monsters doing here?” it asked.
“We’ve just dropped in.” Teggs stooped down in his armour and gave the allosaur nippers his friendliest smile. “Where are your mums and dads?”
“Us not got mums and dads,” one baby replied.
“Someone must look after you.” said Gipsy.
“Other funny monsters leave water sometimes,” the baby replied. “Water and stale biscuits. YUK!”
“Other funny monsters?” Teggs frowned.
“Us think them is skinny and chewy-looking,” said another nipper, waddling up to Teggs. “But you look fat and juicy. Me gonna . . . EAT YOU!”
And suddenly it pounced on Teggs’s back, biting at his armour. “Hey!” Teggs cried, rearing up. “Get off!”
“Save some for us!” said another toddler. It jumped onto Teggs’s helmet, scratching the glass visor with its claws.
“Let’s eat the purple thing!” cried an allosaur tyke, hurling itself onto Gipsy.
“Don’t be so naughty!” Gipsy told it. But already, more and more allosaurs were swarming over her, chomping on her rubbery spikes with razor sharp teeth. “Oh, no! Help!”
“I want to eat the silver monster!” An over-excited infant leaped onto Arx’s side and started ripping through the rivets holding his helmet to his metal suit.
“This is terrible,” Arx groaned, trying to shake the allosaur free. “We can’t fight baby carnivores, no matter how rotten they are!”
“Hang in there,” said Iggy, trying to keep more toddlers at bay with his auto-grippers. “Maybe they’ll get tired in a minute . . .”
“Tired! Of course!” cried Teggs. “If we sung these little devils a lullaby, it might just make them sleep. Iggy, do you know any?”
“Er . . .” Iggy racked his brains, trying to remember an old carnivore poem he’d once read. “How about this? Rock-a-bye raptor, on a loose brick.You are so ugly, you make me feel sick!”
One of the little allosaurs started to slide drowsily off of Gipsy. “It’s working!” she hissed.
Teggs nodded as the tot on his helmet started yawning. “Keep going!”
Iggy sang softly: “Rotten old raptor, I’ll put you to bed. And stick my sick-bucket right over your head!” He crooned the song again, softer, slower, until every one of the baby allosaurs had dozed off, snoring contentedly.
“Phew!” Gipsy whispered. “Well done, Ig!”
“Shame they didn’t fall asleep any quicker,” said Arx, pointing to several jagged holes in the metal around his neck. “Look at these teeth-marks!”
“I’ll put the little nuisances safely back in their cave for now.” Iggy used his auto-grippers to lift each one and deposit it carefully back inside the hole in the hill.
“Maybe we should go back to the Sauropod and ask Admiral Rosso to send a babysitter,” said Teggs. “I know the allosaurs are bad, but to take a bunch of little kids in a warship . . .”
“Who cares what YOU think, astro-plop?” A large, fierce grown-up allosaur suddenly jumped into sight at the top of the hill. His brows were blood-red, his teeth were bared and he held a space-rifle in both claws. “We can do whatever we like. YOU can’t stop us!”
Raising his rifle, he opened fire on the astrosaurs . . .
Chapter Four
HIDDEN MENACE
Teggs braced himself for a terrible blast. Was he about to be hit by the secret weapon? Would he find himself dismantled, or dissolved, or done away with in some other horrible way?
His answer came a moment later as rays of blue light bounced harmlessly off the astrosaurs’ armour.
“Stun lasers?” Iggy frowned. “Since when do allosaurs use stun lasers?”
“They really must have lost their secret weapons,” Arx agreed, shrugging off the attack.
Teggs fired back at the allosaur with his breastplate blasters, but the allosaur had already ducked out of sight.
“After him!” Teggs shouted. “We need to know what’s going on around here – and he’s going to tell us!”
The astrosaurs charged, flew and bounced up to the top of the hill. But there was no sign of the allosaur in the valley below.
Gipsy was puzzled. “Where did it go?”
Arx pointed ahead of them. “I’ll take a look from that higher hill. We’ll have a better view from there.” He zoomed off like a silver missile and landed on the hilltop. Then he quickly signalled to the others. “Quick, over here!”
Teggs, Iggy and Gipsy ran down the hill, across the valley and up the other side to see what Arx had seen.
It was a small, dark, glittering lake, sitting in the middle of a red sandy plain. A big rocky ridge rose up behind it.
“Aha,” said Teggs. “Perhaps the allosaur is hiding in the rocks. Let’s go – very, very carefully.”
The astrosaurs advanced on the lake in their mega-tough armour. STOMP. BOMP. CLOMP. BOING!
Then suddenly, the lake began to shake. The water bubbled and foamed. And with a crash and splash of glittering green liquid – not to mention a fearsome, booming roar – a gigantic creature burst into sight!
Teggs stared in alarm at the thing rearing up ahead of him. It was long and bendy like a giant earthworm, b
ut with the dark, crusty armour of a lobster and three huge nipping claws. Its head was shaped like a balloon with enormous bat-like ears. Two gigantic red eyes swivelled above a gaping mouth crammed full of teeth. The monster roared again. Its pincers sliced through the air, and the ground itself seemed to quiver and quake in fear.
Gipsy gulped. “That’s no allosaur!”
Iggy clutched her gloved hand with one of his grippers. “Maybe it’s one of the funny monsters those kids were talking about?”
“Hello!” Teggs stepped bravely forward. “We are astrosaurs and we come in peace. We do not want to fight you . . .”
But as the stegosaurus approached, the monster went mental! It clicked and clacked its pincers and lunged at Teggs, grabbing him in its huge jaws, its teeth crunching into his golden armour.
“Arrgh!” Teggs shouted, as the mega-metal suit began to buckle and bite into his hide. He fired his tail cannon, but the laser blast bounced off the monster’s head without a scratch.
“Don’t worry, Captain!” Arx’s jet-boots launched him into the air. “I’ll pull you free.” He grabbed hold of Teggs’s tail and tugged like crazy. But the monster clobbered him with a powerful pincer. The triceratops was smashed down into the water with a colossal splash, and vanished from sight.
“Leave my friends alone!” Gipsy yelled, bouncing into attack mode. She squelched her spikes into one of the monster’s enormous eyes. It roared with anger – but then an equally enormous eyelid slammed down like a heavy shutter, trapping her tail. “Oh, no - now I’m stuck too!”
“Hang on, guys,” shouted Iggy. He had jumped into the lake, frantically fishing for Arx with his metal tentacles. “I’m on my way.”
“So am I!” Arx cried, zipping back out of the water. “Sorry it took me a while to surface – my foot jets fizzled out and I had to restart them.”
“Quickly, Arx,” Teggs gasped, wriggling with all his strength as the monster’s teeth crushed down on his armour even harder. “Never mind me, save Gipsy!”
Arx fired his electro-blasters at the weird monster’s eyelid. Thick skin quivered as the current ran through it, then the eyelid flicked open – releasing Gipsy who splashed into the water and bounced straight out again. Iggy caught her in midair with his grippers – until they suddenly melted away to nothing and, with a cry of surprise, Gipsy fell back into the water. “Huh?” Iggy stared in confusion as his armour started to fall apart – forming piles of bits and pieces on the shore. Gipsy quickly swam to the side to join him, unable to believe her eyes. “It . . . it’s just like the robo-rexes and the allosaur spaceship!”
Arx was too busy trying to save his captain to pay attention to Iggy. He crawled into the monster’s mouth next to Teggs and strained against its jaws, trying to push them back open . . . until suddenly, his silver armour shimmered and vanished! One moment it was there, the next a heap of metal plates, springs and circuits were falling from his body in a high-tech avalanche, revealing the startled, soaking wet triceratops inside.
Struggling for breath, still trapped in the monster’s jaws, Teggs stared at Arx in alarm. “Your armour has fallen to pieces too!”
But then the monster flicked its head. Teggs was held fast by its terrible teeth, but Arx was not. The triceratops fell out of the giant mouth, falling to the shore below with a heavy thump.
“Arx, Captain!” Gipsy shouted as she and Iggy ran round the lake towards them. “We’re coming . . .”
But Teggs could hardly hear her. His in-built snack dispenser burst, filling his helmet with ferns so he couldn’t see. Desperately he tried to chomp them down, but his tummy was so squished he could hardly swallow. And then he realized that the monster was starting to sink back down into the dangerous waters.
“If I’m not squashed or suffocated, I’ll drown or disintegrate instead,” said Teggs helplessly. “It really looks as though this is the end!”
Chapter Five
THE TIME TERROR
Teggs gasped as the monster’s jagged teeth finally tore through his armour, clamping down with crushing force . . .
And as they did so, they must have caused a short circuit in the mega-metal suit’s power supply – because a massive surge of energy erupted from the armour! The monster’s tongue began to smoke and its teeth turned black. Crackles of power poured through its pincers. Its two red eyes opened and shut as the monster spat Teggs out with incredible force. He went flying through the air like an old tin can and smashed into a sand dune. Then the singed and smoking monster toppled into the water with a thunderous crash, sank beneath the surface and did not re-emerge.
Teggs took off his battered helmet and breathed a sigh of relief to see his three friends running over to join him.
Arx arrived first. “Are you OK, Captain?”
“I feel like an ammonite that’s been chewed by a shark,” Teggs admitted. “But I’ll be all right. How about you?”
“Absolutely fine,” Arx declared. “In fact, I’m feeling brilliant.”
Gipsy and Iggy came up behind him. “We couldn’t keep up with you,” Gipsy began. But suddenly her spiky combat armour just dribbled away, making dark, sticky purple puddles on the ground around her. “Oh, no!” she cried in horror. “My lovely spiky armour!”
“It’s gone,” breathed Arx. “Just like mine and Iggy’s. But how?”
Teggs looked at the lake. “The three of you went in the water – but I didn’t. And I’m the only one who’s still got his armour.”
Gipsy shook sludge from her arm and frowned. “You think that the water had something to do with it?”
“It sounds crazy,” Teggs agreed. “But just before those test robots disintegrated, I saw someone lean out of the allosaur ship with a bucket . . .”
“I hope it isn’t the water,” said Iggy slowly. “When Gipsy and I took a dip, our armour kept us perfectly dry. But poor Arx has holes in his suit, so the water will have got inside . . .”
“Nothing wrong with me,” Arx insisted, and Teggs had to agree he looked very well indeed.
“I feel great, even if my armour’s fallen to bits!”
“It’s fallen to brand-spanking-new bits,” said Iggy, holding up a fallen screw and a circuit board. “Just like the allosaur ship.”
“I do love a mystery!” said Arx cheerfully, rolling up his wet sleeves. “Let’s put all the different bits and pieces together and . . .” He trailed off, staring at his wrist. “That’s funny. Where’s my scar gone?”
Iggy frowned. “Eh?”
“When we had that run-in with the Star Pirates a year or so back, I was cut by a cutlass in the big fight at the end.” He peered at the skin closely. “I’ve had a scar ever since. Or at least, I did have . . .”
“Until you went in that water,” said Teggs, studying his friend’s arm. “What does it mean?”
Arx gasped, his eyes grew wide, and he sat down with a big thump. Gipsy tried to help him up but he shied away. “No! Don’t touch me!”
Gipsy looked puzzled. “But, I thought you felt fine?”
“I do. In fact I feel years younger,” Arx murmured. “And though it sounds unbelievable . . . I think I actually am.” He shook his big frilly head. “I’ve got a theory that’s completely crackers – but it’s the only one that fits.”
Teggs saw fear in Arx’s eyes. “Let’s hear it, old friend.”
“Not so old, Captain. That’s the whole point!” Arx sighed. “I believe that the water in that lake – and the water thrown over our robots by the allosaur ship – has a very special power. The power to twist time backwards over anything it touches!”
“What?” Iggy spluttered. “But that’s impossible.”
“Unbelievably unlikely, perhaps,” said Arx, still eyeing the place on his wrist where his scar used to be. “But not impossible.”
“It’s so barmy it actually makes sense,” Teggs realized. “The robo-rexes were brand-new creations, so it only took a few splashes of time-water to reverse their history . . .”
“Back to the moment they began as a pile of parts and raw materials,” said Gipsy, awestruck.
“And it’s the same story with those spaceship parts,” Iggy realized. “Just like robots, all spaceships start off as circuits and switches and bits of metal and plastic.”
“And what about those allosaur babies?” said Teggs.
“I reckon it wasn’t just the ship that was splashed by the time-water,” said Arx gravely. “It was the crew too. They’ve got younger and younger until they’ve turned into infants.”
“Oh, Arx!” A tear welled up in Gipsy’s eye. “How long before that happens to you?”
“I don’t know.” Arx shrugged. “Perhaps it depends on how much water soaks into your body.”
Iggy gave a little smile. “You still sound like the same clever old you.”
“My body’s only lost a few years so far,” Arx reminded him. “I’m afraid that the younger my brain becomes, the less I’ll know.” He forced a hopeful grin. “Still, I’m older than you three. Perhaps the effect will wear off before I start having to wear nappies!”
“Speaking of things that stink,” said Iggy, “what about that big allosaur with the stun laser who ran away? How come he wasn’t affected?”
“Easy!” came a deep growl from just behind them. “Because he’s miles cleverer than any of you!”
Teggs and his friends whirled round to find that very same allosaur on top of the hill behind them, brandishing a space rifle. “I’m Vice-Marshal Frentos, and these are my troops.” A dozen more of the fierce green carnivores appeared behind him, armed with death-lasers! “You have performed most pleasingly, astrosaurs. Now that you’ve dealt with the Guardian of the Time-Water, we can help ourselves to as much as we like!” He skipped for joy. “The allosaur armies shall soon possess bucket-loads of the greatest weapon in the universe – and we owe it all to you!”
Chapter Six
ALLOSAUR ATTACK!
Teggs glared at Frentos and his troops, sniggering away at the top of the hill. “What are you on about?”
“Let me explain,” growled Frentos. “Only then will you realize what a fool you have been – and how clever I am. Because if there’s one thing I love in life, it’s a good gloat.” He rubbed his claws together. “A lovely, lovely gloat. A gloat of glory! A goat? Bah! But a gloat – hooray!”