“I can’t go forwards and I can’t go back,” Teggs realized as the Rosso-droid and its mechanical mates came lumbering round the corner. “So since dinosaurs can’t fly, I’ll just have to go down!”

  With that, Teggs brought his tail crashing against the floor beside him with all his strength. “Geronimoooooo!” he cried as the ground gave way beneath him and he tumbled down into an empty room below.

  But there was no time to stop and catch his breath. The Gipsy-droid peered down through the hole and launched a mini-missile from her forehead. Teggs dived aside and smashed straight through the door into the corridor.

  “Get him!” called a shrill, metallic voice. A pterosaur-droid swooped past him with guns mounted on both wings. Teggs socked the fake flapper with his tail and it spiralled into a wall, exploding with a loud squawk. But soon more pterosaur-droids were zooming round the corner, eyes flashing red, firing their wing-guns.

  Teggs turned and galloped away. “I’ve got to get back to the Sauropod,” he muttered. “With the rest of the ship’s crew to help me, I might just stand a chance against these dratted dino-droids— Whoops!”

  He sped round the corner at top speed, only to find a dead end up ahead with a large air vent in it – like the place where they had found the Gipsy-droid.

  Teggs couldn’t stop in time. BOING! KA-KRANNG! He crashed into the grille so hard it buckled around his head and clattered to the floor.

  Dazed, he scrambled back up. Three of the pterosaur-droids were flying straight at him.

  He grabbed the grille with his beak and threw it at them like a metal frisbee. It hit two of the droids and made them blow up – scorching the bottom of the third. With a squawk it flew straight up and conked itself on the ceiling.

  Safe for a few moments, Teggs turned to the air vent. If he went through it into the duct, he might find a way to reach the docking bay where the Sauropod stood waiting. He might even find the real Gipsy somewhere on the way.

  Or he might find himself in the heart of the carnivore’s lair. He knew now that it wasn’t a robot – it was real.

  Cautiously, Teggs squeezed into the vent and shuffled forwards into the menacing maze of pipes . . .

  Chapter Seven

  THE TRAP

  The pipes were dark and scary. Stale warm air gusted through them. They were also a tight squeeze for Teggs’s tummy. He wished he hadn’t eaten that extra sapling in Rosso’s office.

  How long had he spent in this gloomy metal world? Teggs had lost all track of time. But he knew he couldn’t turn back – there was no room to turn round, for one thing. So he pressed onwards through the murky tunnels.

  “Gipsy?” he whispered every few steps. “Are you there?”

  Then he caught a movement up ahead.

  Teggs held dead still. Something was scampering through the tunnels towards him, breathing in fast, frantic gasps.

  Suddenly it bumped into his belly, making both of them cry out in surprise. The noise echoed eerily around the pipes.

  “Help!” came a familiar voice. “Please don’t hurt me! Help!”

  “Draxie!” hissed Teggs. “It’s only me. Shut up!”

  “Captain Teggs?” Draxie backed away. “How do I know you’re not a dino-droid?”

  “How do I know you’re not?” Teggs countered. “Everyone else is around here!” He pressed his communicator and its tiny bulb lit up the dracopelta with a weak yellow glow.

  Draxie looked sweaty and scared. “I’m flesh and blood all right, sir! See this?” He turned his scaly cheek and Teggs could see he had a nasty scratch there. “I got this from a pterosaur-droid on level four. This duct was the only place I could think of to hide.”

  “Snap,” said Teggs. “I don’t suppose you’ve found Gipsy anywhere in here?”

  “No, sir. Has she been turned into a droid too?”

  Teggs nodded. “Together with Rosso, Arx and Iggy. We could be the only real astrosaurs left on this station!”

  “Then we must get help, sir,” said Draxie. “Send a signal to all other DSS ships in the area. Perhaps we could hide on the Sauropod?”

  “Do you know the way there?” asked Teggs urgently.

  “I think so,” said Draxie. “Follow me.”

  Teggs squeezed through the duct with new hope in his big, thumping heart. Draxie was smaller and could move much faster, so he kept scouting ahead to make sure they were going the right way.

  “I think it’s just through here, sir,” Draxie whispered. “You stay put. I’ll check that it’s safe.”

  Teggs waited in the darkness as Draxie’s footsteps faded away. He heard a distant, rusty squeak as the dracopelta opened the air vent’s grille.

  And then he heard a scream.

  “Draxie?” Teggs shouted. “Are you OK?”

  “They’ve got me, sir!” Draxie cried. “The dino-droids! They were hiding here, waiting for me!” he yelped. “Go back, sir! Save yourself!”

  Teggs shook his head. “I can’t just leave you!” Gritting his teeth he thundered along the pipeline and burst out through the grille with a roar of anger. If he could only fight his way through to the safety of the Sauropod . . .

  But the ship was nowhere to be seen. This wasn’t the docking bay. It was some kind of workshop.

  And Draxie wasn’t being held prisoner by the dino-droids. He was standing beside a nasty-looking daspletosaurus in nasty silver shorts who was holding a very nasty-looking gun.

  “Don’t move, Captain,” said the carnivore, smiling. “My name is Attila. Attila the Atrocious!”

  “Named after your dress sense, I bet,” said Teggs.

  Attila ignored him. “I am ruler of all robots and master of mechanical monsters – deadly dino-droids a speciality.”

  “For someone with such titchy arms you’ve got a big head, Attila,” growled Teggs.

  “I have big teeth too,” said Attila, snapping his jaws. “So watch it!”

  “So much for the fabulous Captain Teggs Stegosaur.” Draxie laughed. “I fooled you completely – ‘sir’!”

  Teggs nodded crossly. “All that nonsense about scanning for the intruder’s heartbeat and brainwaves. You faked it, didn’t you? You knew this carnivore was on board all the time!”

  “Yup!” said Draxie smugly.

  “But you’re flesh and blood! A plant-eater!” Teggs protested. “Why are you helping atrocious Attila? I don’t understand!”

  Draxie smirked. “That’s because your brain is the size of an unripe acorn.”

  “I can’t argue with you there,” Teggs admitted.

  “Enough talk,” hissed Attila. “It’s time my collection of dino-droid astrosaurs was complete!”

  “No way,” said Teggs firmly. “You’re not turning me into one of your pet robots!”

  But even as he spoke, dazzling crimson lights shone down from the ceiling. They flashed on and off, on and off. Teggs shut his eyes and gasped. His skull started itching on the inside. It felt like his brain was filled with tickly termites waving feather dusters.

  Then the sinister glow faded away.

  Teggs groaned. “You may be dressed for a disco, Attila, but your light show needs some work!”

  “The time for joking is over, Captain,” said Draxie. “We have no further use for you.”

  Attila nodded. “I have taken all that I need.”

  “Not quite. Now you can take this!” bellowed Teggs. He broke into a charge, whirling his spiky tail around his head.

  But Attila did a fancy disco twirl, raised his gun and opened fire. Teggs took a direct hit. He staggered backwards and crashed into something.

  It was a large, orange-brown stegosaurus. An exact double of himself! Teggs’s mirror image smiled nastily, and brought its tail down on his head.

  CRACK!

  Everything went black.

  Chapter Eight

  THE EVIL PLOT

  When Teggs awoke, he was lying face down on the floor in a damp, grimy room, tied up with chains. “Oh, my head!” he groaned. “Where am I?”

  “In hot water,” said Gipsy, from behind him.

  “Along with the rest of us,” Iggy added.

  Teggs rolled over, expecting to find himself face-to-face with dino-droids. But in an instant he knew that these bruised and battered astrosaurs were the real thing. Gipsy, Arx, Iggy and Admiral Rosso – they might have been trussed up like prehistoric turkeys, but they still smiled at him warmly.

  “What a disaster.” Teggs sighed. “I can’t believe that Attila the Atrocious has actually taken over DSS HQ!”

  “Not yet he hasn’t,” said Gipsy.

  Teggs blinked. “Pardon?”

  “This isn’t DSS HQ!” Rosso explained. “It’s just an old space station done up to look like our headquarters!”

  “That’s why so many corridors have been closed for ‘redecoration’,” said Iggy sourly. “Most of the rooms are as grotty as this one!”

  “But it looked exactly like HQ from the outside!” Teggs protested. “We saw it on board the Sauropod!”

  “That was just an image they beamed onto your broken scanner,” said Rosso sadly. “They tricked me in the same way.”

  “You see, Attila created the space tunnel himself,” Arx went on. “Somehow it works like a short cut through space. It sucked us all in and then spat us out on the doorstep of this fake HQ . . . deep in the Tyrannosaur Territories!”

  “That really sucks,” said Teggs.

  Gipsy nodded sadly. “And because our instruments were broken, we couldn’t tell where we really were.”

  Teggs nodded. “How come you know all this?”

  “Because Attila is a big show-off and keeps gloating about how clever he is,” said Gipsy. “And Draxie is even worse!”

  Rosso nodded. “He used to work at the DSS. But he was kicked out long ago – for making sneaky deals with carnivores!”

  “Now it looks like he’s made his sneakiest deal ever,” said Iggy gloomily.

  “But just what are the two of them planning?” Teggs wondered.

  Just then, the door creaked open. Attila and Draxie marched inside, accompanied by dino-droids of Arx, Gipsy, Iggy and Teggs.

  Teggs gulped. It was a creepy feeling, looking at perfect copies of himself and his crew.

  “We have come to say goodbye,” said Draxie.

  Teggs raised his eyebrows. “And to gloat about your master plan, I suppose.”

  Draxie looked shifty. “Er, maybe.”

  “Go on, then,” said Teggs. “Tell us all how clever you are.”

  “I am not clever,” Attila declared. “I am a genius! You can see for yourself, my dino-droids are perfect – because I borrowed bits from each of you to build them!”

  Teggs frowned. “Eh?”

  “Of course,” groaned Arx. “That flashing crimson light we saw . . .”

  “I was simply taking a snapshot,” chortled Attila. “A snapshot of your minds! All your thoughts and memories were captured and copied and fed into the dino-droids’ computer brains – so they behave just like you do.”

  “So that’s why you brought us halfway across the Jurassic Quadrant,” breathed Teggs.

  Draxie smiled. “We also needed to test out our Rosso-droid. We knew that if it could fool all of you it could fool anyone!”

  “And now our dino-droids will travel in the Sauropod to the real DSS HQ,” said Attila. “Captain Teggs and his crew returning home with Admiral Rosso – all safe and sound.”

  “Oh, I get it,” said Teggs. “You want to mess up the Pick-a-Planet meeting!”

  “Our Rosso-droid will pick a fight with the raptor generals,” said Attila. “This will start a war between the Theropod Empire and the entire Vegetarian Sector.”

  “The DSS will send its best ships into battle,” Draxie went on. “All hopes will be pinned on brave Captain Teggs and his crew in the Sauropod . . .”

  “But imagine the outcry when the Sauropod opens fire on the other ships in the DSS fleet. When it blows up DSS HQ!” Attila’s long, sharp teeth glinted in a smile. “When Teggs joins forces with the raptors and helps them destroy the Vegetarian Sector!”

  “I would never do that!” spluttered Teggs.

  “But my Teggs dino-droid will,” crowed the carnivore, shaking his booty in excitement. “You and your crew will become known as the most-hated traitors in history!”

  “You flimsy-armed fiend!” cried Rosso. “What’s in it for you?”

  “When the Vegetarian Sector and the Theropod Empire have battled each other to a standstill, the tyrannosaurs will declare war on them both,” Attila cackled. “They will be easy to beat – especially when the Sauropod switches to our side. Tyrannosaurs will rule the entire Jurassic Quadrant – and I shall be their emperor!”

  “And I shall be the emperor’s most loyal servant,” added Draxie. “With a mini-empire all of my own.”

  Gipsy’s head-crest turned scarlet with rage. “You disgusting dracopelta!” she cried, hurling herself at Draxie. She bashed him with her bill and tore off his velvet sash in her fury, before her dino-droid double threw her aside.

  “I think it’s time we left,” said Draxie, crossly picking up his sash. “The Sauropod is now fully repaired. We shall take it and travel to the Pick-a-Planet meeting.”

  “And everyone will think that clever Captain Teggs has succeeded in his mission once again,” said Attila. “If they only knew . . .”

  “You can’t just leave us here to rot!” cried Iggy.

  “Can too!” Draxie retorted. “And we are leaving dino-droid guards outside this door. If you try to escape, they will destroy you. Bye-eeee!”

  With that, the two devilish dinosaurs and their dino-droids left the room. Teggs caught a glimpse of fierce ankylosaur-droids and robot pterosaurs with red spinning eyes lurking outside.

  Then the door slammed shut – sealing them inside for good.

  Chapter Nine

  ONE LAST HOPE

  “We’ve got to stop those monsters!” cried Teggs. “If we don’t, the Jurassic Quadrant is doomed!”

  Rosso nodded. “First, we have to get out of here.”

  “But how?” Arx sighed.

  “Wait a minute,” said Teggs. He had noticed something round and green on the floor beside Gipsy. “What’s that?”

  She looked down. “It’s Draxie’s life-sign scanner. It must have fallen out when I yanked off his sash.”

  Rosso stretched his neck to take a look. “This thing picks up heartbeats and brainwaves, doesn’t it? Don’t see how that can help us.”

  “Wait a minute,” breathed Iggy. “Perhaps it can! If I can just free my hands . . .”

  “Use the armour plates on my back to cut through your ropes,” Teggs suggested. “They should be sharp enough.”

  Iggy hopped over to Teggs and soon freed himself. He took the back off the scanner and started fiddling with the wires. “Can I borrow your communicator, Captain?”

  Teggs let him pull it off his wrist. “What’s your plan, Iggy?”

  “I reckon that if I can wire these two gadgets together in just the right way, I can make a sort of jamming device,” he explained.

  Arx beamed. “That’s a brilliant idea, Iggy!”

  “Let’s hope it works,” said Iggy, his claws a blur as he set to work.

  Teggs and the others waited in tense silence.

  Finally, Iggy turned on his strange electronic creation. Screeeeeeeeeeeee! Zsh-zsh-zsh-WHIRRRRRRRRRR!

  “What a horrible noise!” gasped Rosso.

  “Well, that will give us all a headache,” groaned Gipsy. “But what effect will it have on the dino-droids?”

  Suddenly the door burst open and the ankylosaur-droids strode inside.

  Ba-bump! Screeeeeeeeeeeee! Zsh-zsh!

  “They know we’re up to something!” shouted Teggs.

  Gipsy nodded. “Look out, Iggy, they’re coming after you!”

  The pterosaur-droids flapped in. Their red eyes span angrily.

  “Try to boost the signal!” cried Arx.

  Iggy quickly fiddled with his gadget.

  Then suddenly the dino-droids stopped their advance. Their red eyes were turning a shocking shade of pink. Smoke was curling from their metal bodies.

  “It’s working!” yelled Gipsy over the racket.

  “Keep going, Iggy,” Teggs urged him. “More power!”

  The noise got louder . . . louder . . . Then the dino-droids shook and shivered – and finally exploded! Nuts and bolts and springs and circuits blasted all around the room. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of them but a metal foot or a scorched wing here and there.

  “It worked!” Gipsy cheered.

  Rosso beamed. “Well done, Iggy!”

  “Yes, well done, Iggy. We’ve got past the first hurdle,” said Teggs. Iggy cut through his ropes with a bit of burnt metal, then they untied the others. “Now we must get after Attila and Draxie, right away.”

  Arx nodded. “But they will have taken the Sauropod!”

  “They must have come here in some kind of spaceship,” said Iggy. “It will be in the docking bay. Let’s check it out!”

  They raced through the deserted corridors of the fake HQ, all the way to the docking bay. But all they found was an old, ramshackle shuttle.

  “Oh,” said Rosso. “Oh dear.”

  Teggs groaned. “How will we ever catch them up in that old wreck?”

  Gipsy rushed inside. “The radio is broken,” she called. “We can’t even send a warning to the real DSS HQ!”

  “How long before the Sauropod gets there?” asked Iggy.

  “Depending on where we are in the Tyrannosaur Territories . . .” Rosso thought for a few seconds. “No longer than two days.”

  “The meeting will have started by then,” Teggs realized. “The dino-droids will steam straight in and ruin everything. And there’s nothing we can do!”

  “There is, Captain,” said Arx uneasily. “But it’s dangerous. Very dangerous. Extremely dangerous. VERY extremely dangerous—”

  “OK, Arx, I think we get the message,” said Teggs. “What’s your plan?”

  “We take a short cut – through the space tunnel!”

  The astrosaurs looked at him in disbelief.

 

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