Astrosaurs 16 Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Warning! Think you know about dinosaurs?

  Talking Dinosaur!

  The Crew of the DSS Sauropod

  Jurassic Quadrant Map

  Chapter One: City of the Future

  Chapter Two: The Battling Builders

  Chapter Three: Clash in the Skyscraper

  Chapter Four: Drinks of Destruction

  Chapter Five: Ship of Shocks

  Chapter Six: Toilet of Terror

  Chapter Seven: Blowing a Fuse

  Chapter Eight: Metal-Master Unmasked!

  Chapter Nine: Robot Rebellion

  Chapter Ten: Take-Off!

  Chapter Eleven: Crash!

  About the Author

  Also by Steve Cole

  Copyright

  About the Book

  DINOSAURS . . . IN SPACE!

  Meet Captain Teggs Stegosaur and the crew of the amazing spaceship DSS Sauropod as the ASTROSAURS fight evil across the galaxy!

  The astrosaurs are called to Mekta, a super-city for rich dinosaurs. But mysterious raiders are stealing Mekta’s robot servants. Can Teggs and the gang uncover the computer-crazy criminals in time?

  For Kieran Watt

  WARNING!

  THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT DINOSAURS?

  THINK AGAIN!

  The dinosaurs . . .

  Big, stupid, lumbering reptiles. Right?

  All they did was eat, sleep and roar a bit. Right?

  Died out millions of years ago when a big meteor struck the Earth. Right?

  Wrong!

  The dinosaurs weren’t stupid. They may have had small brains, but they used them well. They had big thoughts and big dreams.

  By the time the meteor hit, the last dinosaurs had already left Earth for ever. Some breeds had discovered how to travel through space as early as the Triassic period, and were already enjoying a new life among the stars. No one has found evidence of dinosaur technology yet. But the first fossil bones were only unearthed in 1822, and new finds are being made all the time.

  The proof is out there, buried in the ground.

  And the dinosaurs live on, way out in space, even now. They’ve settled down in a place they call the Jurassic Quadrant and over the last sixty-five million years they’ve gone on evolving.

  The dinosaurs we’ll be meeting are part of a special group called the Dinosaur Space Service.

  Their job is to explore space, to go on exciting missions and to fight evil and protect the innocent!

  These heroic herbivores are not just dinosaurs.

  They are astrosaurs!

  NOTE: The following story has been translated from secret Dinosaur Space Service records. Earthling dinosaur names are used throughout, although some changes have been made for easy reading. There’s even a guide to help you pronounce the dinosaur names on the next page.

  Talking Dinosaur!

  How to say the prehistoric names in this book . . .

  STEGOSAURUS – STEG-oh-SORE-us

  TRICERATOPS – try-SERRA-tops

  IGUANODON – ig-WHA-noh-don

  HADROSAUR – HAD-roh-SORE

  PTEROSAUR – teh-roh-SORE

  DIMORPHODON – die-MORF-oh-don

  THE CREW OF THE DSS SAUROPOD

  Chapter One

  CITY OF THE FUTURE

  The city sprawled over the dusty moon of Mekta like some strange, spectacular sculpture. Wide roads and walkways stretched in all directions. High-tech houses shone silver in the sunlight. Soaring skyscrapers stretched high into the air as if trying to poke the clouds.

  The whole place was deserted. There was no sign of life anywhere.

  Then a large, egg-shaped spacecraft came whooshing into sight, high overhead. It was the DSS Sauropod, the finest ship in the Dinosaur Space Service. And it was visiting this little world on a special mission . . .

  “So this is Mekta City,” said Teggs Stegosaur, peering through a porthole as he chomped on a bush beside the main doors. He was the Sauropod’s captain – a dashing, orange-brown stegosaurus who loved adventures, eating and more adventures (followed by more eating, even more adventures and perhaps just a little more eating), and he was itching to rush outside the moment they landed. “I can’t wait to discover more about this mysterious situation we’ve been sent to investigate . . .”

  Mekta City was the pet project of Professor Rennia Botblast, an ultra-rich iguanodon inventor of amazing robots. She was using her mega-machines to build an amazing place to live on Mekta, the smallest moon of the planet Iguanos. In Mekta City, everything would be automatic and computer controlled: robotic baskets would carry your shopping, hover-mats would whizz you to your destination without you taking a single step, intelligent houses would clean themselves . . .

  Teggs frowned. Apparently, there would even be auto-toilets that wiped your bottom!

  Rennia had masses of millionaires queuing up to live in Mekta City. But her robots had to finish building it before anyone could move there. The trouble was, although computerized security systems kept intruders away from the moon, lots of robots had mysteriously gone missing in the last few weeks – vanishing without trace from under the metal noses of her security-bots. This meant work on the city had been set back weeks – so Rennia had called on the Dinosaur Space Service for help.

  “We’re on our way,” Teggs declared, chewing heroically on a twig. “If there are robot raiders about, we’ll find them!”

  “Find them and stop them, Captain,” said a green triceratops, hurrying to join him – it was Arx Orano, Teggs’s clever deputy. “Those robots are some of the most advanced machines ever created. It’s vital we find out what’s happened to them.” Arx smiled. “Plus, Rennia Botblast has been a hero of mine for years. I’ve always wanted to meet her.”

  “So that’s why you’ve come to join me by the doors!” Teggs teased his old friend. “Never mind the raiders – you don’t want to waste a moment you could be spending with Rennia and her robots!”

  “Well, I just want to get exploring this moon!” came a cheery voice behind them. Iggy Tooth, the tough iguanodon who looked after the ship’s engines, came strolling up to join them. “I was born on Iguanos. When we were little kids, my brother Wimvis and I used to look up at Mekta and talk about how we’d go there one day . . .”

  “Did Wimvis become a top astrosaur mechanic like you?” asked Teggs.

  Iggy shook his head. “He went off the idea of space travel. He stayed on Iguanos with my dad and became a builder instead.”

  “Then it looks like you’ve reached the moon ahead of him,” said Arx.

  The next moment, a sudden whooshing roar from outside the ship made the three friends jump. “What was that?” Teggs cried.

  “It sounded like spaceships zooming past,” said Iggy, peering out of the window.

  “But Mekta is protected by super-strong security shields,” Arx reminded him. “A big invisible barrier stretching right around the moon. Nothing can get through unless they’re invited – like we were.”

  Teggs switched on his communicator. “Captain to flight deck,” he said urgently. “Gipsy. Are you there?”

  “Here, Captain,” came the voice of Gipsy Saurine, the helpful hadrosaur in charge of the ship’s communications. “We’ve just picked up something strange on the space radar – looks like an unidentified spaceship is coming in to land on Mekta City’s west-side spaceport.”

  “Take the Sauropod down beside that ship,” Teggs ordered. He heard a chorus of squawks and cheeps as his pterosaur flight crew – the dimorphodon – flapped into action. “And you’d better warn Rennia Botblast that in case she hasn’t noticed, she’s got visitors!”


  The Sauropod lurched as it changed course and started dropping downwards, preparing to land.

  Teggs, Arx and Iggy pressed their faces up to the porthole. Far below they could see a battered old spaceship on a launch pad. Moments later, the doors opened and a crowd of dinosaurs came streaming out from inside, many waving big pickaxes and sledgehammers.

  “They’re iguanodons,” Teggs realized. “And they look angry. What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure,” Arx admitted. “Ah, look. Here come some guide-bots to welcome them.”

  Four spindly-armed robots with wheels for legs rolled up to the crowd – and were pounced on by the nearest iguanodons!

  Iggy gasped. “Don’t tell me they’re the robot raiders?”

  “Whatever they’re up to,” said Teggs grimly, “we’ve got to stop them!”

  As the Sauropod drew nearer to the ground, some of the angry iguanodons looked up and waved their fists. Iggy gasped – and whacked his tail against a button in the wall. The main door started to swing open, and thick clouds of exhaust smoke blew inside.

  “Iggy, have you gone space crazy?” spluttered Teggs. “We haven’t even landed yet!”

  “Sorry, Captain, but I can’t wait,” Iggy yelled over the roar of the ship’s retro-rockets. “I just saw my brother Wimvis down there in the crowd. I’ve got to find out what’s happening – right now!”

  Chapter Two

  THE BATTLING BUILDERS

  Without another word, Iggy leaped into the choking smoke pouring from the Sauropod’s dung-burners and was lost from sight.

  “Come on, Arx!” Teggs shouted. “We can’t let Iggy face that mob alone – we’ll have to jump for it too.”

  Arx hurried to join him. “I’m with you, Captain!”

  Teggs grabbed hold of Arx, and as they jumped, he spun the tip of his tail round and round like a spiky orange propeller, slowing their fall through the thick, blinding smoke.

  Teggs and Arx hit the spaceport’s steel floor with a colossal thump and then sprang apart, ready for action. They quickly saw that the four guide-bots had not been stolen, but squashed into scrap – and that Iggy was close by struggling in the grip of three huge, burly iguanodons.

  “Let him go!” Teggs warned the dinosaurs over the din of the Sauropod’s engines.

  “Look, lads,” snarled one of Iggy’s captors. “More rotten robots trying to get us.”

  “We’re not robots,” Arx told him.

  “We’re astrosaurs!” yelled Iggy. “Just ask Wimvis.”

  “Don’t try to trick us, robot.” The biggest iguanodon twisted Iggy’s arm. “We’re going to smash you before you can carry out your threats.”

  “You’re the one making threats!” cried Iggy. With a fierce swipe of his powerful tail he twisted free of his captors and knocked them to the floor. “Wimvis!” he yelled. “Where are you?”

  Already a dozen more iguanodons were charging towards them, crossly waving picks, shovels and hammers. Teggs gulped. “Either they want to build something in a real hurry or we’re in big trouble!”

  But then suddenly – “Hiiiii-YAH!” A stripy hadrosaur leaped over the astrosaurs’ heads to stand between them and the attacking iguanodons.

  Teggs beamed. “Gipsy!”

  She took a second to smile at her captain. “Sorry I’m late – the Sauropod can be a nightmare to park!” The attacking iguanodons skidded to a surprised halt as Gipsy struck a fierce dino-judo pose. “Back off!”

  “Who’s going to make us?” sneered a builder.

  Gipsy whistled – and fifty fighting-fit flying reptiles flapped out from the Sauropod. “They will!”

  “The dimorphodon!” Arx cheered as the dynamic dino-birds swooped down at the iguanodons, knocking away their weapons and pecking their toes.

  Teggs was about to try and calm things down when a gruff voice rang out: “All right, HOLD IT!”

  The iguanodons stopped struggling at once – and even the dimorphodon paused their counterattack mid-peck – as a stocky, brown-and-white figure forced his way through the crowd. He wore a green hard hat and paint-splattered builders’ overalls.

  “Wimvis!” cried Iggy. “I knew I’d seen you!”

  “Better calm down, lads,” Wimvis told his friends. “I told you to wait quietly while I had a scout about. These are real astrosaurs, not robots in disguise. That one is my brother!”

  Gipsy’s head-crest turned pink in puzzlement as she turned to Iggy. “What is your brother doing here on Mekta?”

  “Never mind that,” Wimvis retorted. “I’d like to know why you’re defending Rennia’s rubbishy robots.”

  “I’d like to know why you’re trying to steal them,” growled Iggy, “and hanging out with this rotten bunch.”

  “You always think you’re better than me!” Wimvis shot back. “Just because you went off into space while I stayed at home with Dad.”

  Iggy marched up to his brother. “Shut your mouth!”

  “Whoa, guys.” Teggs jumped between them. “Let’s try to keep cool.”

  “Good idea,” said Arx. “Because here come Mekta’s security-bots!”

  Teggs gulped. The security-bots were large, powerful bionic beasts with stun guns sticking out of their jaws, lumbering over on four legs.

  Gipsy turned to Wimvis. “Please tell your friends not to fight them,” she said. “It will only make things worse.”

  Wimvis hesitated – then sighed. “All right,” he said grudgingly. “But they’re not a ‘rotten bunch’ – they are top members of the Iguanodon Builders’ Group, and I’m their chairperson. We came here to talk to Rennia, not to fight. But when those scabby guide-robots came along and tried to boss everyone about, I guess the lads couldn’t contain themselves . . .”

  “So I noticed,” Iggy muttered.

  As the security-bots arrived on the scene they swiftly wrapped their long, stretchy necks around and around the protesting iguanodons like thick steel ropes, holding the builders helpless.

  Then the biggest security-bot turned to Teggs. Its eyes lit up yellow. “Ah, Captain, there you are,” it said in a soft, female voice.

  Teggs frowned. “You look like a tough robot, but you certainly don’t sound like one!”

  “That’s because I am Rennia Botblast, talking through this robot’s built-in speakers,” the voice revealed.

  At the mention of the inventor’s name, the captured iguanodons started shouting and jeering – until Arx shushed them sternly. “Don’t be so rude,” he hissed. “She’s brilliant!”

  “Now then, Teggs,” Rennia’s voice went on. “Are these bruisers the ones who’ve been stealing my ’bots and trying to spoil my city?”

  “No!” Wimvis shouted. “We’ve got good reasons for being here.”

  “And I think we should hear them, Miss Botblast,” Teggs added.

  “Very well,” said Rennia. “You may bring the ringleader to my base in the Central Skyscraper. Keep him under control. I will expect you shortly.” With that, her security-bot fell silent and its yellow eyes went dark.

  “Right then,” said Teggs briskly, turning to his friends. “We’ll leave the dimorphodon to keep an eye on things here, while we go straight to this skyscraper.”

  “With my own brother as our prisoner,” said Iggy sadly. Gipsy patted him on the shoulder.

  “You starry-eyed space cadets don’t understand a thing,” Wimvis complained.

  “Not yet,” Teggs agreed, looking round at the giant robots and their glowering prisoners. “But we will. Because I’ve got a feeling there’s a big mystery brewing here on Mekta – and we astrosaurs won’t rest until we’ve got to the bottom of it!”

  Chapter Three

  CLASH IN THE SKYSCRAPER

  The astrosaurs and Wimvis were soon speeding through the city. Hover-mats, like big metal paving slabs, carried them through the canyons of steel and glass like surfers riding invisible waves.

  “Mekta City is an amazing place,” said Gipsy. “But it’s a little bit c
reepy with no one about.”

  “Only those rotten robots,” grumbled Wimvis.”

  “What is your problem?” said Iggy. “Robots can be very useful.”

  “Are you iguanodons upset because Rennia used robots to build this place instead of you?” Arx wondered. “She had to. The systems here are simply too advanced for ordinary builders to cope with.”

  “Huh!” Wimvis replied.

  “Look,” said Teggs, changing the subject. “That must be Rennia’s base up ahead. What a sight!”

  The Central Skyscraper was a vast gold building, shaped rather like a gigantic traffic cone. Huge windows the size of houses lined its smooth, shining surface. Wimvis and the astrosaurs were carried through a giant sliding door and into a very grand entrance hall.

  “That was an amazing journey,” Gipsy declared, as the hover-mat lowered her gently to the marble floor. “I’m a bit cold now, though.” In a moment a panel in the wall slid open and a robotic heater was gliding out to warm her. “Wow! Thank you.”

  “I think I’d prefer a hot snack,” said Teggs, rubbing his tummy. Instantly another panel in the wall opened up to reveal a robo-waiter carrying a tray full of steaming hot vegetables. Teggs ate the lot. “Hmm, pretty good! Looks like the dinosaurs who end up living here will have everything they need.”

  “And plenty that they don’t,” grumbled Wimvis.

  Suddenly, with a soft ping, the biggest sliding door yet whooshed open to reveal a roomy lift. Iggy steered his brother inside, and his friends followed.

  “Have a nice day!” the robots called after them.

  In the blink of an eye, the lift took them all the way up to the two hundredth floor – and an enormous office. The wall facing them was made of glass, allowing an amazing view of the shining steel skyline. The other walls were lined with banks of computers. A huge glass table stood in the middle of the room and behind it sat a small, slim iguanodon in an elegant hat.

  “Rennia Botblast!” Arx gasped. “You’re really here!”

  Rennia smiled coolly. “Of course I’m here, First Officer Arx. This is the nerve centre of Mekta. Every machine in the city can be controlled from this skyscraper.”

  “Wow!” Arx’s jaw dropped so far it almost bounced off the floor. “But how did you know my name?”

  “I know all your names,” said Rennia. “Captain Teggs, Iggy and Gipsy. My security-bots scanned you, matched your appearance to astrosaur records online and sent the information back here – in one second flat.” She looked at Wimvis. “And the ’bots identify you and your friends as builders from Iguanos.”