The Sausage Dog of Doom! (4 page)

‘No one except us,’ Poppy and Butch sighed together.

The four dogs suddenly sparkled and shimmered in the brilliant light beams and then disappeared one by one. Rocket was the first to go, quickly followed by Poppy and Butch. Oscar was the last to
leave, but before he vanished the sausage dog stopped yapping long enough to utter a very loud ‘HUH?’

‘It’s working, Majesty!’ gasped Baldy. ‘It’s beginning to take shape!’

‘Of course it is, you cat-shaped worm!’ hissed the empress, green eyes glaring at her mammoth masterpiece. ‘This has been years in the making. Nothing can possibly go
wrong.’

The hairless servant’s wide eyes widened even further as the colossal blob continued to swell, blotting out the stars and filling the inky night with its dazzling whiteness.

‘It is the most wonderful thing I have ever seen!’ Baldy whispered.

growled the empress, pulling on sunglasses to protect her eyes from the sudden glare. ‘Would you like to take a moment to think about that?’

The meek minion gasped when he realized what he’d said.

‘Er, except for you, M-M-Mistress!’ he stammered. ‘Nothing in the whole universe is as wonderful as you. You are the most wondrous of wonders!’

‘Yes, I am,’ spat the empress, flicking the underling away with a swift swish of her tail before kicking the levers to shut off the hose. ‘And my cunning craft is finally
complete!’

‘Does that m-m-mean . . .’ said Baldy, looking slightly more petrified than usual.

‘Yes,’ said the empress. ‘It is time to load my deadly weapons!’

‘Are they
really
as deadly as they say?’ whispered Baldy.

‘Deadlier,’ grinned the empress, drumming her claws on a monitor that was showing a live feed of Earth. ‘They will devastate that little blue planet and complete my empire by
morning, and there’s nothing those fleabag dogs can do to stop them.’

Jumping to Jupiter

As the four teleport beams sparkling on the transportation deck of the orbiting
Dogstar
faded away, four dogs were standing in their place. The three regular Spacemutts
quickly bounded to their stations, leaving Oscar gazing about the spaceship with wide eyes and an open mouth that was uncharacteristically silent.

The stunned sausage dog saw Poppy in the cockpit, her expert paws moving over the controls as she switched the
Dogstar
from autopilot to manual. He saw Rocket standing upright at the
central hub, scanning data from local satellites and deep-space telescopes. Then he looked around to find Butch snuffling through his toolbox and examining the engines at the rear of the massive
metal craft.

The dazed dachshund shook his head, making his floppy ears flap, then he leaped from the deck and made up for lost time by yapping all of his questions at once, dashing from station to station
like a wild thing.

‘Where are we? What’s that big blue ball? Is it planet Earth? Are we in space? How did we get here? What does that do?’ he yapped, on and on, getting louder and faster, until
he was racing in circles and yap, yap, yapping.

The sound bounced around
Dogstar
’s metal belly and was so loud that Poppy pulled on her headphones and Butch shot under the white sheet that covered his latest invention. Rocket was
left to deal with the noisy new recruit, so he pressed the intercom button on the central hub and leaned forward.

‘OSCAAAAR!’ he yelled into the microphone.

The booming speakers made the spaceship rattle, shaking the sausage dog into seated silence. Oscar then sat panting in front of Rocket while the captain explained all about the Spacemutts and
their role in fending off Lady Fluffkins and her feline forces.

‘Cats rule the whole galaxy?’ yapped Oscar.

‘All except for planet Earth,’ said Poppy, pulling off her headphones.

‘That’s why we behave badly at the Pooch Pound,’ said Butch, waddling out from under the sheet. ‘We can’t go to new homes until we’ve captured Lady
Fluffkins.’