Steve Cole

Astrosaurs: The Sun-Snatchers

Chapter One
The Disappearing Sun
    
The spaceship soared through the purple skies like a silver egg hurled by a giant. Over yellow fields and deep green mountains it raced, glinting in the light of two huge suns.
     It was the DSS Sauropod, finest in the fleet of the Dinosaur Space Service. And it was going faster than it had ever gone before . . .
     ‘Get ready for landing!’ The warning screech of the alarm pterosaur echoed through the Sauropod. ‘Landing on Planet Hawn in sixty seconds. SQUAWWWK!’
     ‘About time too!’ cried Captain Teggs Stegosaur, ready to charge from his ship the moment they landed. He peered out through a porthole. Far below, the native woolly rhinos were tending their buttercup fields, and Teggs’s tummy rumbled loud enough to shake the corridor. Buttercups were the tastiest treats in the entire Jurassic Quadrant, and Teggs was always as hungry for food as he was for adventure!
     ‘Doesn’t look like there’s a terrible emergency here,’ Teggs said in surprise. ‘I wonder why Admiral Rosso called us so urgently.’
Rosso was the crusty old barosaurus in charge of the DSS. Only hours earlier, he had summoned the Sauropod to Hawn on a double-triple-mega-red-crimson-super-scarlet alert. And Teggs knew that alerts didn’t come much redder than that . . . As the ship’s landing jets kicked in, he felt a tingle travel through his long spiky tail at the thought of the adventure that must surely lie ahead.
     ‘Captain Teggs!’ Gipsy, his stripy hadrosaur communications officer, was hurrying towards him. ‘I’ve just had a message from Admiral Rosso. He will meet us here at the launch pad in exactly two minutes.’
     A green, sharp-eyed triceratops appeared just behind her – this was Arx, Teggs’s first officer. ‘Admiral Rosso wants to tell us about the emergency at once, Captain,’ he explained. ‘He doesn’t want to waste a single second.’
     ‘Neither do I!’ Teggs declared. ‘Let’s eat our dinner during the meeting to save time.’
     ‘Dinner?’ Gipsy frowned. ‘But, Captain, it’s not even lunchtime yet.’
     ‘You’re right,’ said Teggs, smiling dreamily at the thought of fresh buttercups. ‘We should eat lunch, dinner and a midnight supper during the meeting to save even more time!’
     The Sauropod trembled as it touched down on the launch pad. Teggs whacked his tail against a control in the wall and the main doors slid open. He jumped outside through the swirling exhaust smoke and started charging down the ramp.
     ‘Hey, wait for me!’ came a gruff voice from inside the Sauropod. Seconds later, a brown-and-white iguanodon burst through the smoke – it was Iggy Tooth, the Sauropod’s chief engineer. ‘I’ve been pushing the engines as fast as they’ll go,’ he said, wiping sweat from his brow. ‘We’ve crossed four solar systems in two hours – and I’m dying to know why!’
     ‘We all are,’ Arx agreed, as he and Gipsy came down the ramp to join Teggs and Iggy.
     ‘Well, stand by for answers,’ said Teggs, pointing. ‘Here comes Admiral Rosso now!’
     The smoke was fading to reveal the extraordinary sight of a 23-ton barosaurus flying towards them on a space-scooter. A woolly rhino in a billowing blue cape rode beside him, with a smaller rhino trailing just behind.
     ‘Ahoy there, astrosaurs!’ Rosso called.
     Teggs and his crew saluted and ran down the ramp as the admiral came into land with his companions.
     Rosso’s little head bobbed about on the end of his neck, which was as long as a firefighter’s hose and three times as thick. ‘Captain Teggs, Arx, Gipsy and Iggy . . . Allow me to introduce the ruler of Hawn – Prime Rhino Serras.’
     ‘Thank you for coming,’ said Serras politely, shivering a little in her cape. She was a regal-looking woolly rhino with a chocolate-brown coat and big, sad eyes. She turned to the skinny grey rhino in the roll-neck sweater standing behind her holding a large calculator. ‘This is my personal assistant, Noss.’
     Noss blinked at them through a pair of thick glasses. ‘I’ve been working for Serras for five months, two days and three-and-a-half hours precisely!’ he told them proudly.
     ‘I’m pleased to meet you both,’ said Teggs. He bowed, grabbing a couple of mouthfuls of the lush yellow grass growing round the launch pad as he did so. ‘But, Admiral, what’s the terrible emergency?’
     ‘Yes, everything seems wonderful here,’ Arx agreed. ‘The air is so cool and fresh . . .’
     Gipsy nodded. ‘And the buttercup fields look so lovely, lit by the two suns . . .’
     ‘That’s just the problem!’ snapped Serras.
     ‘Eh?’ Iggy frowned. ‘Lovely buttercups, a problem?’
     Rosso shook his head. ‘Two suns, you say, Gipsy? Last week, there were three of them!’
     For a few moments, the astrosaurs stood in staggered silence.
     Teggs found his voice first. ‘You mean . . . three suns set one night and only two rose up the next morning?’
     ‘That’s exactly what he means,’ said Noss sadly, tapping at his calculator. ‘It happened three-point-four-seven-nine days ago and—’
     ‘Our sun has gone,’ said Serras, interrupting him. ‘There is not a trace in space remaining.’
     ‘But that’s impossible,’ Arx spluttered. ‘How can a sun simply disappear? It’s a star – a super-massive ball of fiery gasses, millions of miles across!’
     ‘Nevertheless,’ said Rosso, ‘Hawn’s smallest sun has vanished – snatched in the night, while the woolly rhinos slept. When they woke up, they panicked.’
     Serras nodded. ‘You see, before this, our world was a tropical paradise. We were happy and hot here. Now we must wrap up to keep out the cold.’
     ‘And don’t forget, Your Primeness,’ said Noss quickly, ‘our buttercups need plenty of light and warmth. If any more of our sunlight disappears, our farms will fail.’
     ‘I had not forgotten, Noss.’ Serras blinked away a tear. ‘My people might starve to death – if they don’t freeze to death first!’
     ‘Naturally, Serras called for me at once,’ said Rosso. ‘I came here in my private starship and was very glad to learn my finest astrosaurs were only a few solar systems away.’
     ‘Don’t worry,’ said Teggs. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of this mystery. Whole suns can’t just vanish without a trace!’
     But even as he spoke, the sky got suddenly darker. In the same split-second, the air became as cold as a ghostly breath. Noss and Serras clomped about in a woolly panic. Even Rosso squealed in disbelief.
     ‘Captain, LOOK!’ gasped Iggy.
     Teggs knew it wasn’t safe to stare for long into a dazzling bright sun. But the biggest of Hawn’s suns was not dazzling bright any longer. It hung in the sky like a chewed orange – almost half of it had been ripped clean away!
     ‘Oh, no!’ howled Noss. ‘At least forty-three-point-five per cent of Hawn Sun Two has been removed!’
     ‘Come on, crew,’ Teggs commanded. ‘Into the Sauropod. Whatever’s snatching the suns, it must still be up there in local space.’
     Iggy nodded grimly. ‘And if it’s strong enough to shred a star, think what it could do to us!’
     ‘I’m trying not to,’ Teggs admitted, his heart pounding with excitement as he led the charge back up the ramp and into the ship. ‘Stand by for blast off – we’ve got a planet to save!’
    
    
Chapter Two
Attack of the Space Monster
    
With his crew right behind him, Captain Teggs burst into the Sauropod’s flight deck so quickly he smashed through the doors!
     ‘Instant take off!’ he yelled.
     Teggs’s flight crew of flying reptiles – fifty dynamic dimorphodon – flapped into action. They tweaked levers with their claws, and bashed buttons with their beaks. Smoke and flames poured from the Sauropod’s jet rockets and the mighty ship shot upwards into space.
     ‘Set a course for Hawn Sun Two,’ snapped Teggs, leaping into his control pit. ‘Iggy – give us maximum speed!’
     Iggy nodded, his claws clicking quickly over the controls. The ship was soon pulsing with extra power as it sped on its way.
     Gipsy scrambled into her seat. ‘But, Captain, suns are super-hot – won’t we melt?’
     ‘We have extra-strong safety-tinted solar shields,’ Arx reminded her.
     Even so, as the Sauropod zoomed onwards through space it began to grow very hot. Sweat was soon dripping down the astrosaurs’ scaly backs.
     Despite the heat, Arx kept cool. ‘We are now one million miles from Hawn Sun Two,’ he reported.
     ‘Slow down the engines,’ said Teggs. ‘And switch on the scanner!’
     Sprite, the leader of the dimorphodon, cheeped and flicked a switch. The scanner screen showed them the view outside through the solar shields – a bright, broiling half-chewed ball of blinding fire.
     Then, as they watched, a squiggling blaze of light curled away from the savaged sun. It started twisting and twirling towards them.
     ‘What’s that?’ said Iggy, frowning. ‘It looks like a gigantic twitching tadpole!’
     Gipsy screwed up her nose as the sinister shape came wriggling closer. ‘Or some sort of revolting wormy thing . . .’
     ‘But nothing can survive that close to a sun without being frazzled to a frizzle,’ said Arx. ‘Er . . . can it?’
     ‘Apparently it can!’ Teggs’s eyes were shining with wonder. ‘I think I know what that thing might be . . .’
     The others all looked at him – but then Gipsy jumped about a mile in the air and her headphones flew across the room. ‘Oww!’ she yelled. ‘I heard a terrible screech – it must have come from somewhere close by.’
     Iggy pointed at the scanner screen. ‘I think it came from that!’
     The wriggling shape had sped suddenly closer. It was not a titanic tadpole or a weird worm. It was an enormous menacing monster. Its segmented body coiled and uncoiled, shining like fiery gold. Stubby spikes stuck out all over it like fins. Its face was long and pointy, with red burning eyes and jaws that stretched on for hundreds of miles.
     Jaws that were opening wide . . .

The Sun-Snatchers © Steve Cole, 2008. Published by Red Fox.