The Sausage Dog of Doom! (9 page)

‘Which deadly martial arts, exactly?’ asked Rocket.

‘All of them,’ grinned the empress. ‘The Siamese Samurai begin their training as kittens on a silent mountain planet at the edge of the galaxy. These finely tuned killing
machines are experts in judo, kung fu, ju-jitsu and kendo, to name but a few, all finely balanced with deep meditation. They are utterly unstoppable!’

Moments after the
Rover
had docked beneath the big bone balloon, Oscar had hopped from his hiding place in the cockpit and followed Rocket through the airship without making a sound. The
little dachshund didn’t even yap when he saw the captain enter the main chamber and Lady Fluffkins’ trap. He kept quiet and out of sight the whole time, knowing that he alone would have
to rescue Rocket.

When the giant circular doors closed, Oscar had sniffed around outside the chamber and eventually found a tiny cat flap built into the rubber wall. He crept inside to find himself amid
multi-storey catacombs filled with snoozing Siamese cats.

The sight of so many moggies made the sausage dog want to yap more than anything else in his life, but he remained silent, stepping over their tails as he moved up through the kitty-cat
catacombs, searching for an empty chamber. When he eventually found one, Oscar crept inside and peered down at the cage containing the leader of the Spacemutts. Lady Fluffkins and Baldy were busy
at the cockpit, so the sausage dog waved a little paw, hoping to get the captain’s attention.

Rocket was lying in the cage, furious that he’d been so easily tricked, but relieved that the other Spacemutts were safe and would deal with the airship before the Siamese Samurai could
reach planet Earth. He gazed up at the strange feline faces lining the walls of the massive central chamber, all deep in meditation. Then he saw one of them waving at him and almost gasped out loud
when he realized it was Oscar.

Rocket quickly sat up and wagged his tail eagerly, while Oscar held a paw up to his mouth and uttered a sound that he had never made before.

‘Shhh!’ whispered the dachshund.

The Sausage Dog of Doom!

When he was trapped in the cage with no hope of escape, Rocket was willing to be shot across the galaxy along with the ship, so long as the other Spacemutts were safe and
planet Earth was protected. But now he was watching Oscar swing silently down the wall like a gymnastic sausage, and his mind was racing with ideas about how to escape the cage and get the mini
dachshund home.

His mind whirring, the captain leaped up and scanned the cockpit. Fluffkins and her servant were piloting the airship, which was obviously a two-cat job because Baldy was working doubly hard
while the empress spat orders at him. Then Rocket looked around and spotted the key to his cage on a hook above them.

By the time Oscar had made it down the wall, the captain had devised a plot to defeat the Siamese Samurai with the dachshund in the starring role. Tail wagging eagerly, the new recruit listened
carefully to Rocket’s instructions. Then, without saying a word, he nodded that he understood and quickly set to work on phase one: opening the cage!

Rocket could only watch as the sausage dog crept down the catwalk towards the front of the ship, freezing whenever one of the meditating moggies shifted or stirred around him, and when the brave
little sausage dog reached the cockpit the captain held his breath.

The key to the cage was way out of reach for such a small dog, and if Oscar moved any closer the empress might see him, so he searched for something to lift the key and found the perfect thing:
Baldy’s fake dog’s tail-on-a-stick.

Oscar crept around the empress and took the fluffy stick in his mouth. The brown fur tickled his nose and made him want to giggle and sneeze at the same time, but he focused on the task at hand and moved in on the prize. Tilting his head and craning his neck, the dachshund managed to unhook the key and quickly trotted away with it.

Rocket smiled proudly as Oscar returned with the key and swiftly released the lock, while the captain held the cage door in his teeth so it wouldn’t creak open, alerting the horde of cats
around them.

‘Are you ready to initiate phase two?’ he whispered through the bars.

Oscar grinned and nodded with excitement.

Rocket released the cage door, which dropped down with a massive clang, and watched as hundreds of pairs of almond-shaped eyes flicked open and thousands of razor-sharp claws were unsheathed. In
the cockpit Lady Fluffkins turned towards the dogs, raised her hackles in anger and issued a simple order to her deadly army.

‘Get them!’ she hissed.

The Siamese Samurai immediately leaped from their chambers. Some swung swords and jabbed daggers, while others flicked nunchucks and warrior staffs, but most of the cats we completely unarmed,
moving down the walls like lightning, leaping and rolling and landing in lethal kung-fu poses.