Astrosaurs 2 (5 page)

Back on Odo Minor, Iggy the engineer was waiting for his captain in the
Sauropod's
shuttle. When Teggs poked his head through the door, the iguanodon saluted stiffly.

“Ready for boarding, Captain!” he cried.

“It's going to be a tight squeeze, Iggy!” grinned Teggs. He came aboard, with Gipsy close behind. Then Coo and Dippa squeezed in through the shuttle's doorway. They shuffled close together and Professor Sog hopped aboard beside them.

“I still can't believe the oviraptors went to all that trouble just to steal a lot of painted rocks!” laughed Teggs. “That'll give King Albu an upset tummy!”

“It sure will,” laughed Gipsy, as the shuttle blasted off into space. “And meanwhile, we'll make sure the
real
eggs reach Platus Two – safe and sound and ready for hatching!”

Soon the
Sauropod
was racing through space.

On the flight deck, Teggs sat in the control pit. A feeling of excitement was building in his belly. His mission had begun. And with the eggs almost ready to hatch, there was no time to lose!

Arx turned on the scanner. Tiny stars gleamed in the darkness of space.

“That's where we're headed,” he said.
“The very edge of the galaxy.”

Professor Sog nodded his little head. “I'm looking forward to seeing Platus Two!”

Gipsy wrinkled her snout, puzzled. “You mean you haven't been there before?”

“No one's been there for hundreds of years,” Sog told her. “Not since it was first discovered by the Jurassic Explorers.”

“Wow,” breathed Teggs. The Jurassic Explorers were his heroes. They were the reason he had become an astrosaur. Long before he was born, they had discovered and mapped the entire
Jurassic Quadrant, where all dinosaurs now lived. The only thing they had never found was a star dragon – a huge, winged animal that was said to live somewhere in space. It was Teggs's dream that maybe one day he would find a star dragon himself.

“Why has no one ever gone to live on Platus Two?” asked Gipsy.

“It's too small and far away from everywhere else,” said Sog.

“So we'll be the first spaceship to go there in centuries!” Teggs realized.

Arx nodded. “I wonder what it's like?”

“It'll be lovely, just you wait and see!” smiled Sog. “The explorers planted lots of seeds there. After hundreds of years it should be
very green indeed!” He chuckled. “Yes, Platus Two may be too far away to matter to most dinosaurs. But it's the perfect spot for a small herd of peaceful plateosaurus!”

“Hope so,” sighed Coo. “A new home would be nice, wouldn't it, Dippa?”

“It would, Coo,” Dippa agreed.

Just then the ship shook with a sudden
clunk
! The dimorphodon flight crew squawked and then flapped in panic about the room.

“Battle stations!” cried Teggs.

Arx squinted at his instruments. “No sign hostile ships,” he reported. “Only a meteor, bouncing off the side of the ship.”

“Oh,” said Teggs, a tiny bit disappointed.

“Funny,” said Arx. “It seems to be following us.”

“It must have got caught in our gravity field,” said Professor Sog.

“I suppose so,” Arx nodded. “But I've never known a meteor do that before.”

“We're out in deep space now,” said Gipsy. She looked a bit spooked. “Who knows what we'll find out here?”

“We'll find Platus Two, that's what!” said Sog firmly. “Don't let your imagination run away with you, child!”

But as the
Sauropod
sped on to its destination, Gipsy found it was hard not to.

Days passed by and the stars grew fewer and fainter.

Space grew blacker and blacker.

And Captain Teggs began to grow bored. For the first few days he'd kept a careful watch for star dragons. But he could find no sign of one anywhere.

By the end of the first week, the scanner was showing nothing but blackness. The
Sauropod
was like a big fish swimming through the darkest sea in the universe.

“Hey, that's strange,” said Arx, looking at a computer screen. “We're
still
dragging along that meteor we bumped into.”

“Never mind boring old meteors,” said Teggs. “Who's for another game of I–Spy?”

The days dragged on. But at the end of the
second
week, they could at last see Platus Two on the scanners.

And Arx made a strange discovery.

He called everyone to the flight deck to tell them about it.

“Well, Arx?” said Teggs, settling back into the control pit after a long doze.

“I've been studying Platus Two closely, Captain,” the triceratops announced. “And something's wrong. I've checked my findings against the notes made by the Jurassic Explorers – and they're completely different!”