The Sausage Dog of Doom! (8 page)

‘Hello?’ the captain repeated. ‘Are you a member of . . .’

The white chair suddenly spun round, but instead of a friendly dog with a wagging tail to greet him, there was a hairless sphinx cat waving a long stick with brown fur stuck to it.

‘R.U.F.F.?’ barked Baldy, making the most of his role.

Realizing he’d walked into a trap, Rocket immediately turned tail and bounded back the way he’d come, but nearing the exit he saw the chihuahua from the hologram. It was grinning at
him through the round portal in the door, and without the hazy 3D filter, he could see that something wasn’t quite right.

The door glided open and a curious creature slunk into the chamber.

It had the head of a chihuahua wearing a green beret, but from the neck down it was a mass of snowy white fur! When the doors closed behind the abominable puffball, it ripped off the rubber mask
with a sharp-clawed paw and pinged it across the room like a rubber band.

‘Gotcha!’ hissed Lady Fluffkins, combing out her flattened whiskers.

With his escape route temporarily blocked, Rocket skidded to a halt halfway down the catwalk and began circling with his head hung low, looking for an alternative exit.

‘You don’t really think you can hold me here?’ he laughed.

‘Not on my own, perhaps,’ sniffed Fluffkins.

‘Well, I don’t think he’ll be much use,’ Rocket added, as Baldy quickly slithered past to join his mistress. The servant was still clutching the fake tail and was petting
it lovingly.

‘I wasn’t talking about that fleshy fright!’ growled the empress, snatching the furry stick from her hairless minion. ‘Though Baldy does have some hidden
talents.’

‘Really?’ said Rocket, stalling for time as he scanned the walls.

‘Would you like to see him do an impersonation?’ asked the Persian.

‘An impersonation of who?’ frowned Rocket.

In one swift movement Lady Fluffkins raised the furry stick and whacked the servant’s skinny tail, making him leap high in the air while howling in pain.

he howled.

‘Sound familiar?’ said the empress.

‘The doggy distress call,’ growled Rocket.

‘Not enough to fool you on its own, of course,’ explained Lady Fluffkins, licking her lips with evil glee. ‘But dogs do love to dig, and I knew you would uncover the hidden
hologram. And by then you’d be like a dog with a bone . . .’

‘Mistress?’ enquired Baldy, who was unfamiliar with the saying.

‘Powerless to let it go!’ hissed Fluffkins.

‘Well, you can’t keep me here, and the moment I get back to the
Dogstar
we’ll blast
this
bone to the other side of the galaxy, taking you and your mimicking
minion with it,’ Rocket delared.

‘Oh, you’re not going anywhere,’ chuckled the empress, nodding to Baldy, who hurried away to press a button on the wall. ‘I want you to have a ringside seat for the
invasion of planet Earth.’

Rocket heard a faint humming and looked up in time to see that the galleries of archways were opening, each arched door slowly flipping up revealing small compartments with cats in them. The
soundproof chambers had blocked out the rumbling purr from hundreds of Siamese cats.

‘I love it when a cat-themed plan comes together,’ said the empress.

‘Cat theme?’ Rocket frowned. ‘We’re in a giant dog bone!’

‘A minor exterior detail to dumbfound you and your dopey dogs,’ spat Fluffkins, puffing up her tail. ‘On the inside we have copycats and cat flaps and catacombs and
catwalks!’

The empress gave a silent signal and dozens of the cats immediately leaped down, wearing long white robes and matching headbands. They landed softly on the floor and in a few nimble leaps and
flips had formed a high wall around the dog.

‘Woooooonnnngg . . .’ the cats droned together in low Siamese voices, surrounding Rocket on all sides as a large open cage was lowered over him from the ceiling.

‘The Siamese Samurai,’ said Lady Fluffkins, waving the warriors back to their chambers as she stepped forward, slammed the cage door and locked it. ‘They are the deadliest cats
in the galaxy,’ she added, tossing the key behind her for Baldy to catch.

‘Well, they look weird,’ laughed Rocket, stalling for time while he tried to come up with an escape plan. ‘And they don’t seem very deadly to me. In fact they all look
half asleep!’

‘They’re meditating, you foolish fleabag,’ growled the empress, slinking over to his cage.