Chapter 08

Chapter 8

            Buster had been up for three straight days when they finally reached Cattatonia.  With the constant threat of the Cat warships all around, Buster had left his command chair for only a few minutes at a time.  Spot had brought a bowl of kibble into Buster’s office for him to eat while he went over the latest reports.  “You should get some rest,” Spot said.

            “I’ll sleep when this over,” Buster said.

            Spot hadn’t argued with him about it, though Buster started to wish he had.  He had to fight just to keep his eyes open on the bridge, as the seemingly endless blackness of space stretched before them.  He might have allowed himself to sleep if it weren’t for his displays depicting the Cat warships flying right next to them.

            It came as a relief when the Batpooh began to decelerate and Marshy said, “Approaching Cattatonia per Captain Morgana’s coordinates.”

            The cobwebs in his brain cleared away in an instant and Buster braced himself to face not a planet but dozens more Cat warships.  Instead there was a verdant green world ahead of them.  Two of the Cat warships rocketed ahead of the Batpooh to take up protective positions in orbit. 

            The ship’s sensors couldn’t detect anything on the surface of the planet except a lot of jungle vegetation.  Did the Cats live underground?  Or did they live here at all?  Perhaps Captain Morgana had led them here for a trap after all.

            “I’m going down to visit with our guest,” Buster said.  “Maintain our position here.”

            He sagged against the wall of the elevator once the doors closed and then wiped at his tired eyes with his paws.  What were the Cats up to?  Why bring the Batpooh to an uninhabited planet?

            He found Captain Morgana perched on a table in the galley, staring out the window at the planet.  Buster cleared his throat, prompting her back to arch as she whirled around to face him.  “What do you want now?  I have brought you here.”

            “Where is here?”

            “Cattatonia, fool.”

            “Then where are the other Cats?”

            “They are there, beneath the trees.  Now, allow me to contact the queen so that she may decide what to do with you.”

            “Of course,” Buster said, wondering if this were another part of the trick.  It was possible the Cats could live beneath the trees, that the foliage was preventing the sensors from detecting anything.  The Bloc had the same problem with finding the raccoons on Batpooh State and other worlds.  Still, it didn’t seem likely for an advanced civilization to be completely invisible.

            He arranged for Dash to set up a link between his station and the computer in the galley.  With this, Captain Morgana sent a transmission to the surface.  “This is Captain Morgana aboard the invader vessel.  I need to speak with the queen.”

            The face on the screen was of a Cat with gray fur on the top of her head and white fur on the rest of it.  Her light green eyes narrowed as she stared at Captain Morgana.  The Cat spoke in her own language, Captain Morgana answering with a pathetic mewling sound.  The conversation went on for nearly two minutes, the gray Cat doing most of the talking.  Then the transmission ended.  Captain Morgana turned to face Buster, her body sagging.  “The queen has arranged an audience for your ambassador.  One of our ships will send a shuttle for him.”

            “Now wait a minute, why can’t we take our own transport?”

            “Security reasons.”

            “I’m supposed to trust that you’ll take him to the queen and not to a prison?”

            Some of the Cat’s arrogance returned at this.  “If we wanted to kill him—and you—we would have done so already.”

            “I can’t send him alone.  At least let me send a security detail—”

            “You may bring four others, but no weapons.”

            “We have to bring something to defend ourselves.”

            “You will be under the queen’s personal protection.  She will guarantee your safety for the length of your stay.”

            Buster growled to himself as he considered this.  He didn’t want to send Dodger or anyone in his crew down there without a weapon, but he couldn’t risk offending the queen.  That she had guaranteed their safety meant her personal honor on the line.

            “All right, we’ll go,” Buster said.

#

            As expected, Spot wasn’t happy with the arrangements Buster laid out.  “You can’t go down there on their shuttle, unarmed.  They could use you as a hostage,” Spot said.

            “As Captain Morgana has already said, if they wanted to kill us, they would have done so already.  The same for taking us hostage.  They could have done it already if they wanted.”

            “That’s no reason to make it easy for them,” Spot countered.  “You know regulations say a captain isn’t supposed to go down to a planet until it’s verified safe.”

            “This is a first contact mission.  I have to go.”

            “Dodger and I can handle it,” Spot said, looking over at the “ambassador.”

            “I think Captain Bulldog is right,” Dodger said.  “It would be an insult if the commander of the ship didn’t come down.  And it’s not as if we’ll be defenseless.”  Dodger bared his teeth for Spot.

            “I don’t like it,” Spot said.  “You’re too important to risk down there.”

            “I’m too important to stay up here,” Buster said.  “Dodger is right, the captain of the ship should go down to meet with their queen.  That’s the proper protocol.”

            Spot looked from Buster to Dodger and then sighed.  “I hope you’re at least bringing Jake with you.”

            “Him and two of his toughest team members,” Buster said.

            Spot still didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t put any more of an objection.  Jake didn’t take the news much better, but like Spot he finally gave in.  “They want to start anything, we’ll show them a thing or two about paw-to-paw fighting,” Jake grumbled, flexing his considerable muscles.  Given Jake’s experience in unarmed combat, Buster couldn’t think of anyone better to accompany them on the mission.

            Not long after they returned to the bridge, Jake announced one of the Cat ships had launched a smaller vessel.  As it came closer, Buster saw a silver, delta-winged object coming towards them.  The Cat shuttle no doubt.  “Let it land.  Lieutenant Bulldog and I will be in the hangar.  Tell Ambassador Terrier to meet us there.”

            Dodger was already there by the time they arrived in the hangar, along with two guards.  They were both much taller than Buster and Jake, well over two meters at least with shaggy brown fur and short white muzzles.  They saluted at the same time.  “Ensign Bernard St. Bernard, sir,” one said.  “Ensign Ben Bernard, sir,” said the other.

            “At ease,” Buster said.  “I would have thought you two were brothers.”

            They looked at each other and then shrugged.  “Cousins, sir.”

            “I see.  Has Lieutenant Bulldog briefed you on the mission?”

            “We’re to accompany you to the planet,” Bernard said.

            “Unarmed,” Ben added.

            “Very good.”  Buster held up one finger.  “I can’t stress enough that we are to do nothing to provoke the Cats.  Is that understood?”

            “Yes, sir,” they said as one.

            “Good.”  Another security guard appeared with Captain Morgana.  Her back arched again as she saw the hulking Saint Bernards. 

            “What are these things?”

            “Part of our security escort,” Buster said.  He turned as the hangar doors began to part.  The silver shuttle approached, looking much larger than on the Batpooh’s viewscreen.  “Looks like our ride is here.”

            The Cats who lowered the shuttle’s ramp had the same reaction as Captain Morgana upon seeing the Saint Bernards.  The two security guards had to bend so that they could fit through the shuttle’s hatch.  Once they’d gone inside, Jake followed.  Buster and Dodger came after them.  The interior of the shuttle looked about like Buster Sr.’s private plane, with sumptuous leather seats and wood paneling.  The difference was that these seats had far more straps to keep the passengers from being tossed about as they went through the atmosphere.

            The straps had been designed to fit Cats with their narrower torsos and thinner limbs.  Buster fumbled with his straps until a rotund gray Cat with tan blotches on her fur came over to help him.  She had far more difficulty with the Saint Bernards.  In the end the two huge dogs took two seats each, using the combined straps and buckles to secure themselves.

            Buster took a deep breath—but not too deep so that he didn’t break the straps holding him in place—and then looked over at Dodger.  “Here goes nothing.”

#

            The straps proved not to be all that necessary.  The trip through the atmosphere was so smooth Buster was able to sleep until the Cat who had belted him in shook his shoulder.  “We are nearing our destination, Captain Bulldog,” she said.

            As she went to help the Saint Bernards, Dodger elbowed Buster in the ribs.  “Look at that gut on her.  She’s pregnant.”

            “Good for her.”

            “Too bad we can’t take her aboard the ship and let Dr. Barker give her a physical.  It would be interesting to know if the Cats breed in litters or singly.”

            “From the size of her, I’d say litters,” Buster said.  He turned to look out the window, seeing only a canopy of green leaves and a horizon shrouded with fog.  “Not much of a view.”

            “They’re a little shy, aren’t they?”

            “Cowards,” Jake grumbled from behind them.  “Like those bloody raccoons.”

            “Jake—”  Before Buster could say anything else, the shuttle began to descend.  Buster reached for his straps, but there was no need.  The tree limbs around them seemed to be moving aside to accommodate them as they descended.  “Amazing.”

            More amazing was an entire city lying hidden beneath the trees.  Not a small city either, one twice as big as Washingdog from the look of it.  The shuttle transitioned smoothly from vertical to horizontal flight and they began an aerial tour of the city.

            The buildings were shaped like nothing Buster had ever seen before.  Instead of traditional geometric shapes, the buildings looked more like the stalks of some great plant, with a cylindrical hub and numerous smaller structures sticking out from the hub like thorns.  The entire thing looked to be made not of metal or even glass but of some kind of crystal.  If he had to hazard a guess, Buster would have deduced the buildings had been grown rather than built.

            Other buildings came in different shapes, some looking more like drawings of molecules than anything.  Buster glanced back at Dodger, who looked just as awed as he was by the sight.  “It’s unbelievable,” Dodger said.  “They’re far more advanced than we thought.”

            “Far more dangerous,” Jake grumbled.

            Buster wanted to deny that, but couldn’t.  Clearly the Cats possessed technology unlike anything the Bloc had ever seen before.  As soon as he was able, Buster would have to send for Dr. Ruff to analyze that technology.  That was if he and the others weren’t executed by the queen first.

            “Now you see how puny your civilization is,” Captain Morgana hissed.  She motioned to the opposite side of the shuttle with one paw.  “There is where our queen lives.”

            It looked far different from the First Mansion in Washingdog.  The queen’s residence was a true palace, a pyramid bigger even than Bulldog Tower.  On the sides of it were carved figures of Cats, each wearing an elaborate headdress shining with jewels.  The shuttle swept low enough so that Buster could see the green jewel eyes of one Cat figure, that jewel twice as big as the shuttle itself.

            Captain Morgana pointed again, this time to something below them.  “That is where we will land,” she said.  Buster looked down to see a landing pad not that different from any in the Bloc with tiny figures scattered around it.  A welcome committee—or a war party?