Astrosaurs 17 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 Quardrant Map

  Chapter One: Top-Secret Test

  Chapter Two: Chase through the Stars

  Chapter Three: Little Problems

  Chapter Four: Hidden Menace

  Chapter Five: The Time Terror

  Chapter Six: Allosaur Attack!

  Chapter Seven: Cave of Danger

  Chapter Eight: Time Running Out

  Chapter Nine: Age Alarm

  Chapter Ten: Go Jump in the Lake!

  About the Author

  Also by Steve Cole

  Copyright

  About the Book

  DINOSAURS . . . IN SPACE!

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

  Killer carnivores have discovered a strange liquid with the power to turn back time . . . and plan to change plant-eating dinos everywhere into helpless babies! Can the astrosaurs stop them before time runs out – for good?

  For Ruth Knowles

  Who gamely twists time around

  my deadlines

  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.

  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

  BAROSAURUS –

  bar-oh-SORE-us

  HADROSAUR –

  HAD-roh-sore

  IGUANODON –

  ig-WA-noh-don

  ALLOSAUR –

  AL-uh-SORE

  DIMORPHODON –

  die-MORF-oh-don

  TRICERATOPS –

  try-SERRA-tops

  THE CREW OF THE DSS SAUROPOD

  Jurassic Quardrant

  Chapter One

  TOP-SECRET TEST

  Teggs Stegosaur strode across the asteroid’s icy surface in full combat gear. The torch in his special helmet lit his way through the darkness. Heaters in his chunky metal suit protected him from the freezing cold. As Teggs headed into the unknown, he checked that his leg lasers were loaded, his breastplate blasters were good to go and his tail cannon was fully charged . . .

  Because hiding somewhere on this dim and distant space rock were twenty of the toughest robot T. rexes in the universe!

  “DSS Headquarters to Captain Teggs.” The voice of Admiral Rosso, the crusty old barosaurus in charge of the Dinosaur Space Service, burst from Teggs’s helmet. “Are you receiving me?”

  “I certainly am, sir,” Teggs replied. He was a dashing, orange-brown stegosaurus – and right now, he was very, very excited. He and the crew of his amazing ship, the DSS Sauropod, had been hand-picked to test a top-secret range of brand new, super-swish space battle armour! “Are the space cameras sending their pictures OK?” asked Teggs.

  “They’re working fine,” said Rosso happily. “The picture’s so clear, it’s hard to believe you’re really billions of miles away. I have an excellent view of the whole asteroid, and I’m ready to record all the action. How does the new armour feel?”

  “Fantastic!” Teggs glanced down at the glittering gold creation – it made him feel more like a walking tank than a dinosaur! “It’s strong, but incredibly light.”

  “Most of it’s made from maxi-strength mega-metal,” Rosso explained. “One of the oldest, purest and hardest substances in the Jurassic Quadrant.”

  “Cool.” Teggs smiled. “But what’s even cooler is the built-in snack dispenser!”

  “Our DSS designers think of everything,” Rosso agreed. “They know you’re always hungry – for food and action!”

  “True.” Teggs smiled and chomped on a mouthful of ferns. “Well, there’s no sign of the robo-rexes yet, sir. But I can’t wait to tackle them.”

  “Be very careful, Teggs,” said Rosso sternly. “Our boffins designed those robots to test the new armour to its limits. They are programmed to squash, splat, stomp and squish you – and they will show no mercy!”

  “Understood,” Teggs said. “I’ll check in with the gang and see how they’re getting on in their armour. Teggs out!” He pressed a button on his communicator. “Teggs calling Arx. Can you hear me?”

  Arx, Teggs’s clever second-in-command, came back to him straight away. “Actually, Captain, I can see you as well. My battle-suit lets me fly!”

  Teggs looked up and saw a gleaming, four-legged figure come zooming down out of the sky. Arx was a green triceratops, although you wouldn’t know that right now – he looked more like a dino-knight in shining silver armour. The moulded metal fit around him like a second skin, and his three horns were plugged into powerful electro-blasters.

  “I’ve scouted round sector one of the asteroid,” Arx reported. “No sign of the robo-rexes.”

  “They aren’t here in sector two, either,” said Teggs. He flicked on his communicator. “Anything to report, Gipsy?”

  “I can see something, Captain!” Gipsy cried. The stripy hadrosaur was a brilliant officer and one of his best friends. “Oh, hang on – it’s just you and Arx. I didn’t recognize you in your space armour.”

  Teggs and Arx turned to find Gipsy waving from the crest of a rocky hill. Her purple, spiky armour was made of super-tough rubber. “Have you found any robo-rexes in sector three?” Teggs called to her.

  Gipsy shook her head – then jumped into the air and came bouncing down the slope towards them like a spiky ball. “This is the best combat suit ever,” she said, landing neatly in front of them. “I’m dying to test it out properly against the robots.”

  Teggs smiled as he spoke again into his suit’s communicator. “Iggy, are you there?”

  “I’ve searched sector four, Captain,” said Iggy – a tough iguanodon who was a whizz with engines and machines. “I reckon these test-robots must be invisible. All I’ve found are a couple of long, thin cracks in the ground.”

  “Hmm,” said Teggs, checking Iggy’s position on the electronic space map inside his helmet. “Wait there, Ig – we’re coming to join you.” He looked at Arx
and grinned. “Any chance of a lift?”

  Arx smiled back and stretched out his armoured tail. “Grab on!”

  Gipsy curled back into a big, spiky ball. “I’ll switch to mega-bounce mode and follow you.”

  Arx’s foot jets flamed into life. Teggs was soon rising up with him into the night sky and Gipsy rolled along beneath them. But as he swung from the triceratops’s tail, Teggs felt a moment’s unease. They had come here to the edge of space so no one could spy on the tests. But if anything went wrong, help was a very long way away – even for the Sauropod’s mighty engines.

  “There’s Iggy now,” Arx called, pointing an armoured foot.

  “And those must be the cracks in the ground,” Teggs noted. They ran side-by-side, like the rails on a train track.

  Iggy saw his friends approaching and saluted in his bright red, chunky armour. The two robotic tentacles attached to his armour saluted too! “These extendable auto-grippers are amazing,” Iggy enthused. “All I have to do is think and they move and stretch all by themselves.” To prove it, he wrapped the tentacles round Gispy. “See?”

  “We’ve all got brilliant armour,” Gipsy agreed, bouncing free of their grip. “But when is the test going to start?” She pointed to the ground. “No robo-rexes could hide in cracks as thin as that.”

  Arx gasped as the long slice of icy ground suddenly exploded into the air. “But they could be hiding underground in the space BETWEEN the cracks!”

  A deadly rain of frozen rock threatened to crush the astrosaurs – but Iggy used his tentacles to bash the falling bits away. Then suddenly, twenty robo-rexes jumped out from the crevice in the asteroid’s crust! They were giant, steel monsters with crushing claws, guns galore and lasers for eyes. Without a moment’s pause, they opened fire on the astrosaurs.

  Teggs gasped as he was smashed to the ground. He’d never seen such powerful robots. Test or not, he thought, these robots will fight us to the death . . .

  “Into battle!” roared Teggs.

  One of the robo-rexes blasted Gipsy with a white-hot laser beam. But it only had time to singe a single spike before she boldly bounced towards the robot and knocked it flat.

  Another fired bombs at Teggs, but his suit kept him safe. He let rip with his tail cannon and blew off the robot’s bottom! The creature collapsed with a clanging crash, but two more stomped forward to take its place.

  Meanwhile, Arx charged at the nearest robotic T. rex and fried its circuits with his electro-horns, while Iggy wrapped his auto-grippers around two of the metal monsters and smashed their heads together. Sparks flew from their electronic ears. “Cool!” cried Iggy.

  But suddenly, something large, round and dark swooped overhead through the starry sky. Teggs looked up from the battle to find a spaceship hovering above them, marked with a sinister scarlet skull – the mark of meat-eaters. “Guys, look out!” he shouted. “We’ve got real carnivore company . . .”

  While Teggs was distracted, a robo-rex lunged forwards and booted him through the air with its turbo-powered toes! He landed with a crunching clatter halfway up a nearby hillside. Iggy, Arx and Gipsy raced over to check he was all right. The remaining robo-rexes marched after them.

  As they did so, Teggs saw a dark figure lean out from inside the spaceship with something that looked like a bucket . . .

  And in the blink of an eye, the robo-rexes fell to pieces! All that remained of the massive monsters were several big piles of plastic and metal, surrounded by circuits, screws and springs.

  “Great galaxies,” Teggs cried, as Arx, Iggy and Gipsy helped him up. “What happened?”

  “Ha, ha, ha!” The deep, rasping chuckle boomed out from the carnivore ship. “Sorry, astrosaurs – we seem to have spoiled your little workout. Does that make you mad? Well then, why not come and catch us – if you can!”

  Chapter Two

  CHASE THROUGH THE STARS

  Gipsy glared up angrily at the carnivore craft as it slowly circled through the skies above them. “What do those miserable meat-eaters want? Do you think they’re after our secret space armour?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Teggs. “They destroyed those super-tough robots – they could do the same to us. But instead they want us to chase them.”

  “Well, you plant-eating pant-heads?” the deep, growling voice came again from the carnivore ship. “Are you afraid to come after us, or what?”

  Iggy bunched his armour’s grippers so they made a massive club. “Come down here and say that.”

  Teggs fired his tail cannon at the spaceship – but the carnivores steered higher into the air, just out of range. “Missed us!” they jeered.

  “Attention, astrosaurs.” Suddenly, Admiral Rosso’s voice boomed through the speakers in their armour. “DSS computers confirm that the craft above you is a warship from the planet Allosauria.”

  “Then there are allosaurs on board?” Gipsy’s head-crest had turned blue with alarm – and Teggs couldn’t blame her. Allosaurs were massive, savage brutes who made even raptors look kindly in comparison.

  “I didn’t know the allosaurs had weapons as powerful as that,” said Teggs.

  “I didn’t know anyone did,” Rosso admitted.

  “COME AND GET US, YOU ASTRO-PLOPS!” roared the voice from the ship. “OR WE WILL BLOW YOUR SPACESHIP TO BITS!”

  “No one threatens the Sauropod and gets away with it,” Teggs declared. “If it’s a chase these allosaurs want, they’re going to get one. Let’s go!”

  “Take care, Teggs,” said Rosso. “I don’t know how the allosaurs have learned about this top-secret test site, but something tells me there’s more to their attack than meets the eye.”

  “We’ll find out what, sir,” said Teggs, “and that’s a promise. To the Sauropod – NOW!”

  The four astrosaurs raced away to their giant, egg-shaped ship, which was parked half a mile away. Arx arrived first in his flying suit, towing Teggs behind him. Iggy used his metal tentacles like giant legs to stride across the asteroid, while Gipsy rolled along like a big purple bowling ball.

  “At last,” came the harsh roar. The allosaur warship whizzed away from the little rock, heading for the starry depths of space . . .

  Once aboard the Sauropod, Teggs led the rush for the flight deck and jumped into his control pit. CRRRUNCH! His armour made him too big to fit, and he got wedged between the sides. The Sauropod’s fifty-strong flight crew of dazzling dino-birds – the dimorphodon – flapped down to take off his helmet and try to lift him free.

  “Thanks, guys, but there’s no time right now,” Teggs told them. “We must follow that spaceship that just took off from here.”

  As Arx, Iggy and Gipsy took their places in the flight deck – with some difficulty – the dimorphodon squealed and banged buttons with their beaks and claws. There was a smoky rumble of heavy-duty thrusters, and then the Sauropod blasted off from the bleak asteroid.

  Arx checked his space radar. “The allosaur ship is already five thousand miles away,” he reported. “Headed for uncharted space.”

  “Uncharted by us, anyway,” Teggs muttered. “Increase speed to maximum.” With a powerful roar, the Sauropod streaked away through space at ten million miles per hour. “Those allosaurs mustn’t escape!”

  “They could have got away the moment they ruined our robots,” Arx reminded him. “Instead, they waited for us.”

  “Do you think they’re up to something?” Gipsy worried.

  “Whatever it is, they’ll be sorry,” said Iggy. “We’re catching them up.”

  “Launch two dung torpedoes,” Teggs commanded. “NOW!” Pa-CHOW! Pa-CHOW! The whiffy weapons shot out from the Sauropod. Seconds later, two stinky brown explosions bloomed on the side of the allosaur ship.

  “Two hits!” Iggy reported. “We’ve smashed their shields!”

  Arx was still peering at his space radar. “And it looks like we’ve knocked them off course. They’re zooming towards the nearest sun.” He paused. “No, wait. There’s a tiny planet t
here too.”

  “But are they heading there because we’ve damaged their ship?” Iggy wondered. “Or were they trying to lead us to that planet all the time?”

  Teggs chomped worriedly on a twig. “You think it’s a trap?”

  “Could be,” said Arx.

  “Message coming through, Captain.” Gipsy flicked a switch. “It’s Admiral Rosso.”

  “Teggs?” the admiral called urgently. “You’ve flown out of range of our space cameras. What’s happening?”

  Teggs quickly explained the situation.

  “We must discover what destroyed those robots,” Rosso declared. “A weapon like that could spell doom for the entire Vegetarian Sector.”

  “Don’t worry, sir,” said Teggs. “We’ll follow the allosaurs and find out all we can.” He scraped his way out of the control pit and gave his team a crooked smile. “We wanted to test this space armour – looks like it’s time to try it out for real!”

  Chapter Three

  LITTLE PROBLEMS

  Teggs, Gipsy, Arx and Iggy squeezed inside a shuttle and flew down to the barren little world. There wasn’t much to see beyond bright red sandy deserts and orange rocky cliffs. But there was something sinister about the place. Caves and chasms were dotted about the planet’s surface, like dark mouths screaming beware.

  Teggs gave his crew a reassuring smile. “As soon as we find out what the allosaurs are up to, we’ll signal the Sauropod to send in reinforcements.”

  Gipsy checked the controls – and gasped. “I don’t think we’ll be able to,” she said. “The shuttle’s communicator has stopped working.”

  “Try the communicators in your armour, everyone,” said Teggs. But it soon became clear that they weren’t working either.

  “We’re too close to that giant sun,” Arx realized. “Solar radiation must be scrambling the signals.”

  “We’ll just have to fly back to the Sauropod if we need any help,” said Iggy brightly.

  Teggs nodded. On a tiny ship with no communicator at the edge of known space, he thought nervously. If anything bad happens on this planet, we’re on our own.

  Iggy flew the shuttle all the way around the tiny world. “No sign of the carnivore ship anywhere,” he said.

  “Wait a moment,” said Gipsy, pointing through the windscreen. “What’s that?”