The Sausage Dog of Doom! (7 page)

‘What do you think?’ he asked.

‘R.U.F.F.!’ frowned Butch. ‘Could there really be a band of rebel dogs?’

‘I have a bad feeling,’ said Poppy. ‘It feels like a trap.’

‘But what about the howling and the hologram?’ yapped Oscar.

‘Lady Fluffkins could have synthesized the howling,’ said Butch.

‘And the hologram was very grainy,’ said Poppy.

‘I agree with what you’re saying,’ said Rocket, moving to the observation window and gazing out at the airship. ‘But if there’s even a slim chance there are dogs in
distress aboard that curious craft, I can’t stand by and do nothing.’

‘Then we’ll be right alongside you,’ declared Poppy and Butch.

‘Only one of us has to board the bone to investigate,’ said Rocket, trotting to the back of the ship and pulling a spacesuit and helmet from the supply locker. ‘I can do a
space walkies and sneak aboard, while you two keep the
Dogstar
out of weapons range.’

gasped Poppy. ‘It’s much too dangerous.’

‘I have to,’ Rocket said firmly. ‘You need to stay here to pilot the ship, and Butch is the only one who can work the engines to get everyone safely back home again.’

‘I have to sneak aboard without anyone knowing, just in case it is a trap,’ smiled Rocket, patting the dachshund’s head. ‘And I think there’s a very good chance
they’ll hear you coming.’

‘I can be quiet!’ yapped the sausage dog, and went on yapping about how quiet he could be if he really, really tried. ‘As quiet as a mouse! A mouse wrapped in cotton wool! A
mouse wrapped in cotton wool with a silencer on its tail!’

‘Sorry, Oscar,’ said Rocket, pulling on his helmet. ‘I must go alone.’

‘Not quite alone,’ said Butch. ‘You can take
Rover
with you!’

‘Who’s Rover?’ Rocket and Poppy asked together.

‘It’s not a who, it’s a what!’ said the bulldog, trotting away to pull the sheet from his latest invention and revealing a shiny metal shuttle. ‘I’ve been
working on it for months and this is the perfect time for a test drive.’

‘WOW!’ said Rocket, bounding over to the
Rover
. He leaped into the driving seat, gripped the control levers with his paws and peered eagerly through the visor. ‘This is
the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!’

‘It’s small enough not to be picked up on any feline radar, and the engine is whisper-quiet,’ said Butch proudly. ‘I built it for scouting missions in the Catnip Nebula
so we could spy on Fluffkins without being detected.’

The bulldog showed the captain around the controls and then steered the
Rover
to the airlock in the cargo bay. Before closing the cockpit hatch, Rocket called out to Poppy.

‘As my second in command, it’s up to you to make sure that curious craft doesn’t make it to Earth,’ he said, looking very serious. ‘If I’m not back in one
hour, you have to burst that airship and send it back to wherever it came from.’

‘But . . .’ Poppy protested.

‘One hour, and that’s an order,’ said Rocket, pulling down the hatch.

Poppy nodded gravely as Butch sealed the cockpit and shot the shuttle out through the airlock. The pair then hurried over to the observation window and watched in silence as Rocket steered the
Rover
towards the giant inflated bone. The Spacemutts held their breath as the shuttle glided through open space and then heaved a sigh of relief when it arrived unharmed and disappeared out
of sight under the airship.

‘Phew!’ they whispered together, and then frowned.

‘It’s gone very quiet in here,’ said Butch.

‘Yes,’ replied Poppy. ‘Very quiet indeed.’

It took them a few more seconds to realize what this meant and then the two dogs slowly turned to face each other, eyes wide as they arrived at the same startling conclusion.

they gasped, bounding away to search the ship, hoping that the new recruit was hiding from them as a game, or had finally worn himself out and fallen asleep somewhere.

Poppy and Butch called out to the missing dachshund as they looked in the many little nooks where a mini dog could hide. But the usually yappy sausage dog was nowhere to be seen . . . or
heard.

Shhh!

With the
Rover
securely docked on the underside of the giant airship, Rocket released the cockpit hatch and leaped aboard. The bone ship’s structure was a complex
skeleton of gas-filled chambers and stretched rubber that creaked and hissed creepily. The captain sniffed the air for any animal scent he could identify, but the smell of the gas in his nostrils
overpowered his senses.

‘Grrr,’ he growled, and set off on foot.

The bone-white interior was a maze of damp, chilly corridors adding to the bleakness of the place. Rocket didn’t want to stay any longer than he had to, so he raced through the ship at
speed, paws bouncing on the spongy rubber floor.

Eventually he came upon a vast circular door and skidded to a halt.

Peering through a round portal, Rocket could see a colossal white hall within. It had curved walls and a wide walkway leading to the distant cockpit, but there was no sign of any dogs. Then he
looked closely at the pilot seat and saw a large brown tail wagging merrily.

Relieved to see a friendly waggy tail, the captain hit the paw-shaped release pad and the door split down the middle, gliding open with a whisper-quiet whoosh and closing again when he
entered.

‘Hello there!’ called Rocket, bounding through the vast chamber of curved walls that he could now see were filled with tiered galleries of small white archways. ‘We picked up a
doggy distress call coming from this ship. Are you in need of assistance?’

The tail continued to wag, but its owner ignored him.