Astrosaurs 15
Page 4
“Of course,” Teggs realized grimly. “The Sauropod has a licence to travel anywhere.”
“The meteors will force entire populations to fall asleep,” hissed Loki. “And when the plant-eaters wake up they will find that their dreams and nightmares have come to terrible life . . .”
“While raptor spaceships sneak into orbit, ready to attack once the chaos is underway.” Teggs shivered. “You’ll be able to conquer whole planets overnight.”
Loki was exultant. “Precisely!”
Suddenly, Teggs caught movement in the cave behind Loki. It was Sprite! Somehow, he had gotten free. Now he looked at Teggs and whirled his wing around. The message was clear – keep Loki talking. Then the dimorphodon dipped back inside the cave.
“You won’t succeed, you know, Loki.” Teggs raised his voice, so that Sprite could hear him. “I’ll bet that even now, my plucky crew are working out a way to get to the flight deck and destroy your mouldy meteor – and then they’ll come for you!”
“As if!” snarled Loki. He flicked some switches, and the suit lunged towards Teggs once more.
Only this time, Teggs wasn’t quite fast enough to avoid it. The iron boot kicked him through the air like a big, scaly football, and he landed on his belly in a daze.
“Get up, Teggs! Get up so I can kick you down again!” Loki was dancing around inside his glass box. “This mission will be my greatest triumph – Teggs Stegosaur squashed beneath my foot, while his precious Vegetarian Sector is left in tatters!”
Iggy, Alass and her two guards were fighting their way through the Sauropod’s corridors, heading for the flight deck. Arx and Gipsy were protecting them from the rear with the help of other astrosaurs they had picked up on the way.
Cleaners, engineers – even the small dinosaur in charge of making swamp-tea – they were all joining the fight against the weird crystal creations. Sabre-toothed bananas, T. rexes with ten tails, mosquitoes as big as a bear . . . the closer the crew got to the mysterious meteor, the more menaces popped up to get them.
“We’re nearly through to the lift!” Iggy called. A bush with teeth was biting his foot, and another was chomping at his tail. Alass kicked them away, as a swamp-snake in a ball gown tried to crush her ribs. “Then it’s just a short trip up to the flight deck.”
“But these things never seem to get tired,” gasped Alass, wriggling free of the snake. “I don’t think I can stand much more!”
“Hang on in there!” Arx urged her. He blasted a flying shark with Loki’s light-cannon and it vanished with a POP! “We’ll stop this meteor madness, you’ll see!”
They managed to reach the lift and open the doors. A large swarm of small, winged mammoths holding mini cement shooters flew out from inside. The astrosaurs swatted them desperately as blobs of cement whizzed through the air.
Then Arx took Gipsy by the hoof and pulled her into the lift. Iggy jumped in and joined them. “Try not to let anything past you,” Iggy told Alass. “We don’t want any nasty surprises coming up behind us when we’re trying to sort out that big meteor!”
Alass saluted, and the lift doors slid closed. Arx pressed the button that took them to the flight deck and the lift rose smoothly. The three astrosaurs swapped nervous looks.
As the doors opened, a red glare dazzled their eyes. The meteor was blazing with eerie light, pulsing with power. The sealing foam around it in the ruined roof had burned away, revealing glimpses of blue sky above.
But no dream-creatures appeared to attack them.
“This must be the eye of the storm,” Arx murmured.
“You know . . .” Iggy yawned. “I’m starting to feel sleepy.”
“It must be the power of the crystal,” said Gipsy, her eyes drooping in the ghastly red glow. “Quickly, Arx. Zap it!”
“Here goes . . .!” He pointed the light-cannon and fired . . .
Nothing happened.
“Try again!” Gipsy urged him.
“Uh-oh,” said Arx, tapping the cannon. “I must have used up too much power fighting the projections downstairs.”
Iggy sank to his knees. “Must rest . . .”
“No, Iggy!” Arx shook the iguanodon awake – as the lift doors opened behind them.
There – burned and bruised and literally hopping mad – was the kraggle-scruncher!
“Oh, no!” Iggy’s eyes widened.
Gipsy’s head-crest turned bright blue. “It must have woken up!”
“And smashed its way past Alass and the others.” Arx stood in front of her and Iggy protectively. “Now it’s here to get us – once and for all.”
With a bellow of rage, the kraggle-scruncher hopped into the flight deck, its fist clenched and ready to strike . . .
Chapter Ten
DREAM ON!
The kraggle-scruncher grabbed Arx and hurled him into Gipsy and Iggy. The three astrosaurs stared helplessly as the terrifying monster loomed over them . . .
When suddenly, something scaly and green zoomed down through a hole in the roof.
It was Sprite! He pecked the kraggle-scruncher on its biggest toe. The monster roared, blinking furiously, and tried to swat the dino-bird. But Sprite flew away just in time, and the ’scruncher gave himself eight black eyes.
“Sprite!” Gipsy beamed. “Where did you flap from?”
The dimorphodon landed on her hoof. “Eep!”
“What?” she said, startled. “Loki locked you and the other pterosaurs up in a cave but you managed to untie your wings, and when he grabbed Terri to use as a hostage you secretly sneaked out – and then Captain Teggs sent you here to help us?”
Sprite nodded proudly.
“Er, guys?” Iggy interrupted. “I don’t think the meteor is very happy!”
Sure enough, the crystal’s ruby-red glare was growing brighter, pulsing faster and faster.
“It knows it can’t affect Sprite because pterosaurs can’t dream,” Arx realized. “And now it can’t put us to sleep without putting the kraggle-scruncher to sleep as well!”
The kraggle-scruncher spat out a flesh-roasting fireball that missed Iggy by a whisker. But then Sprite whistled and suddenly a flock of dimorphodon came swooping down from the skies above.
“Yay!” Gipsy cheered. “Sprite set the others free too!”
The flight deck was plunged into fresh pandemonium. The dimorphodon flapped about, pecking the kraggle-scruncher all over. Arx and Iggy waded in and tried to wrestle its arm to the ground. The crystal throbbed angrily. A fresh batch of sabre-toothed bananas burst out of the lift, bouncing and biting and adding to the confusion. Gipsy kicked and punched them, but for every one she knocked away, a dozen more quickly appeared.
Then suddenly, the kraggle-scruncher gave a deafening shriek and shook off its attackers. Sprite whistled to the dimorphodon and they regrouped in tight formation – right in front of the maddened, big-mouthed monster . . .
Outside the cave, Teggs was still desperately dodging Loki’s enormous boot. He was exhausted and covered in mud, while Loki was cool and relaxed in his floating metal suit. How much longer could he go on?
Finally, Teggs slipped and bumped his head on a rock. He gasped with pain, helpless as Loki closed in for the kill.
“Your struggles no longer amuse me.” Loki pulled a lever, and lethal-looking laser-guns poked out from the suit’s metal toes. “Farewell, Teggs – it is time to DIE!”
Teggs thought of his brave, loyal friends and closed his eyes. “Sorry, guys,” he murmured, bracing himself for the blast.
But then a sudden flurry of stones came crashing down from on high between him and the laser-light, deflecting the deadly blast.
“Who dares to interfere?” Loki snarled.
Teggs looked up and beamed at the familiar figures dancing in the sky, several still clutching rocks in their claws. “My alarm pterosaur dares!” he cried, “along with about a dozen dimorphodon, by the look of things!”
“SQUAWK!” said Terri, with a wink at her captain. Then she hurled a
nother stone down at Loki in the kraggle-scruncher’s spacesuit. The other dimorphodon joined in.
“Feeble fools!” Loki jeered. “Is that the best you can do?”
“As a distraction tactic, it works for me!” Teggs charged at Loki. “They’ve bought me time to do the best that I can do . . . THIS!”
Leaping through the air, Teggs struck Loki’s protective suit with all four feet at once. The metal dented, the glass box shattered and the controls sparked and smoked. Loki squealed in alarm.
“Got you!” Teggs cried, reaching in to grab him.
“Wrong!” Loki snapped. “I have got you!” He jabbed two bare wires against Teggs’s scaly skin, causing an electric shock that threw the stegosaur backwards, his head spinning as Terri’s squawks of dismay and Loki’s wild laughter echoed in his ears . . .
“Get back!” Gipsy yelled at the dimorphodon, who were hovering mere metres from the kraggle-scruncher’s spiky mouth. “You won’t stand a chance . . .”
But as the big beast blew out a truly enormous fireball, the pterosaurs dodged and scattered skywards – and the bundle of flame struck the crystal meteor in the roof instead!
Ka-BOOOOM! The meteor cracked open and exploded. The bouncing bananas went POP! Luminous fragments flew through the air as though a giant ruby chandelier had just shattered. Larger chunks of crystal rained down too, some as big as boulders. Iggy, Arx and Gipsy took shelter under their controls . . .
And once the downpour had stopped, Gipsy peered out to see what had become of the kraggle-scruncher. All that remained was a large, limp hand pointing up from a pile of red rubble.
“Good riddance to it,” said Iggy. “And the meteor.”
“They’ve gone!” Alass’s shout of triumph carried up the lift shaft from the floor below, soon joined by the sound of applauding astrosaurs. “The dream-things have all gone!”
“And we’re fine!” Iggy yelled down to her. “Result!”
“But where’s the Captain, Sprite?” Arx looked worried. “And Terri – and Loki?”
“Cherp!” Sprite was already directing dimorphodon to lift one of the chunks of crystal, up into the air and out through the roof.
Gipsy’s head-crest flushed blue again. “He says the captain’s fighting for his life and we must all hurry to help him. Come on!”
Loki’s gloating laughter was soon drowned out by the thundering explosion from the Sauropod – and replaced by the victorious squawks of Terri and the dimorphodon.
Still dazed from his electric shock, Teggs turned, in time to see the giant crystal meteor on top of his ship crack and tumble into pieces. “Yes!” he yelled.
“NO!” Loki screeched. “My crystal!”
“Looks like your dream world has come crashing down.” Teggs struggled up. “Thanks to my fabulous friends!”
Teggs’s crew were flying here from the Sauropod even now – with several dynamic dimorphodon carrying Arx, Iggy and Gipsy through the air between them. Sprite was carrying something else – a chunk of meteor . . .
“I still have my kraggle-scruncher,” Loki growled. “He’ll squash you all.”
“Afraid not!” Iggy shouted down from the sky. “He got squashed when he accidentally blew up your rubbish rock!”
“No! I won’t be beaten again!” Loki wailed. “The Raptor Royal won’t give me another chance . . .” He jumped back into his broken box and started fiddling with the controls. “I can repair this. I’ll squish you all . . .”
“Dream on, Loki!” said Teggs. He gave Sprite the signal to drop the rock – right on the raptor general’s head!
“Urk!” said Loki, as the rock bounced off his stripy skull. He dizzily closed his eyes, and flopped onto his back.
“Sweet dreams!” cried Arx, as the dimorphodon set him gently down beside Loki’s sprawled body. A few moments later, Gipsy and Iggy were safely delivered too. All three astrosaurs saluted their captain as the pterosaurs flapped joyfully above them through the skies of Mallakar.
Teggs saluted them back – then launched into a wild victory dance. Gipsy laughed and joined in, and so did Arx and Iggy.
“Isn’t it just a dream come true to have woken up from this nightmare?” Teggs cried.
“We’ll have to stay up for several nights to get the Sauropod fixed,” said Arx.
“We’ll make it better than ever,” Iggy declared. “But what about the other dream-meteors still floating out there in space?”
“We’ll get weapons experts from DSS HQ to gather them all up,” said Arx. “They’ll drop them into a black hole, where they can’t bother anyone again.”
Iggy glowered down at Loki. “I wish we could drop him into it too!”
“We’ll take him straight back to space prison,” said Teggs, “don’t you worry.”
“I hope they guard him with nothing but pterosaurs, to remind him why he lost,” said Arx mischievously. “In fact, I bet he’s dreaming about Sprite and Terri right now!”
“As for you . . .” Gipsy nudged her captain in the ribs. “I bet you’re already dreaming about another adventure, aren’t you, sir?”
“Not me, Gipsy,” Teggs declared with a smile. “Because, with a ship like the Sauropod, and you lot to help me fly it, I’m already living the dream – eight days a week!”
THE END
About the Author
Born in 1971, Steve Cole spent a happy childhood in rural Bedfordshire being loud and aspiring to amuse. He liked books, and so went to the University of East Anglia to read more of them. Later on he started writing them too, with titles ranging from pre-school poetry to Young Adult thrillers (with more TV and film tie-ins than he cares to admit to along the way). In other careers he has been the editor of Noddy magazine, and an editor of fiction and nonfiction book titles for various publishers. He is the author of the hugely successful Astrosaurs, Cows in Action, Astrosaurs Academy and Slime Squad series.
ALSO BY STEVE COLE:
Read all the adventures of Teggs, Gipsy, Arx and Iggy!
1 Riddle of the Raptors
2 The Hatching Horror
3 The Seas of Doom
4 The Mind-Swap Menace
5 The Skies of Fear
6 The Space Ghosts
7 Day of the Dino-Droids
8 The Terror-Bird Trap
9 The Planet of Peril
10 The Star Pirates
11 The Claws of Christmas
12 The Sun-Snatchers
13 Revenge of the Fang
14 The Carnivore Curse
15 The Dreams of Dread
16 The Robot Raiders
17 The Twist of Time
18 The Sabre-Tooth Secret
19 The Forest of Evil
20 Earth Attack!
21 The T. Rex Invasion
22 The Castle of Frankensaur
Read all the adventures of Teggs, Blink and Dutch at the Astrosaurs Academy!
1 Destination: Danger!
2 Contest Carnage!
3 Terror Underground!
4 Jungle Horror!
5 Deadly Drama!
6 Christmas Crisis!
7 Volcano Invaders!
8 Space Kidnap!
Meet the time-travelling cows!
1 The Ter-moo-nators
2 The Moo-my’s Curse
3 The Roman Moo-stery
4 The Wild West Moo-nster
5 World War Moo
6 The Battle for Christmoos
7 The Pirate Moo-tiny
8 The Moo-gic of Merlin
9 The Victorian Moo-ders
10 The Moo-lympic Games
11 First Cows on the Moon
12 The Viking Emoo-gency
If you can’t take the slime, don’t do the crime!
1 The Fearsome Fists
2 The Toxic Teeth
3 The Cyber-Poos
4 The Supernatural Squid
5 The Killer Socks
6 The Last-Chance Chicken
7 The Alligator Army
8 The Conque
ring Conks
Visit www.stevecolebooks.co.uk for fun, games, jokes, to meet the characters and much, much more!
THE DREAMS OF DREAD
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 17360 0
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children's Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2013
Text copyright © Steve Cole, 2009
Cover illustration © Dynamo Design, 2009
Map copyright © Charlie Fowkes, 2005
Interior illustrations © Woody Fox, 2009
First Published in Great Britain
Red Fox 9781862305458 2009
The right of Steve Cole to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
RANDOM HOUSE CHILDREN’S PUBLISHERS UK
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
www.randomhousechildrens.co.uk
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm