Chapter 16
Everything had been going perfectly for Draco. The experiments he had commissioned had threatened one of the Dog colonies by creating a meteor shower. As expected, the foolish Dogs had ventured into Cattatonian territory to investigate. They had stumbled in so clumsily that it had seemed for certain his plan would go without a hitch.
He had miscalculated the queen’s resolve, though. He had hoped she would be angry enough at the intrusion to simply destroy the Dogs out of hand. Instead the old fool had brought them here. As if showing them Cattatonia’s might would ever keep the Dogs at bay.
There was only one way to deal with them. Servants of Dogs were too feeble-minded and strong-willed for reason to work. They only understood the language of force. For Cattatonia to ever truly be safe, the Dogs would have to be destroyed utterly. That was the cause Draco had prepared himself for, as his father had before him.
As with the mother, so too had he misjudged the daughter. Whiskers was falling in love with that simpleton Captain Bulldog! That overgrown rat Cassie had seen Whiskers taking the Dog out of the palace.
Draco would have preferred to keep Whiskers alive until they could be wedded. Then, after arranging for the queen to die from “natural causes,” Draco would become the new king. As for Whiskers, an “accident” would soon take care of her to leave him solely in control of the entire planet. The might of Cattatonia under his command! It would be easy enough then to crush the Dogs and anyone else who got in the way.
The princess’s treason would alter things somewhat. She would have to die of an “accident” sooner than expected. With the heir to the throne dead, he would have to eliminate the queen. There might be some difficulties in ascending to the throne, but without a direct heir, his claim would be greater than anyone else’s. Pussia was the mightiest state of all Cattatonia and he was the most powerful warlord of the state.
After considering all of this, he had needed only a moment to slap the button on his desk. A transmitter sent out a signal on a frequency no cat or Dog could hear. Only the monkeys his guards had tagged could hear the signal. Through months of intense research, Pussian scientists had determined how to communicate with the wild things so that he could pass along rudimentary commands. In this case, it was easy enough to direct them to where Whiskers had taken the Dog. The monkeys would take care of the rest.
Draco sat at his desk, inhaling catnip incense as he waited for Cassie to report back. Tomorrow she would have to “find” Whiskers and Captain Bulldog. The death of their beloved princess would incense all Cattatonia. Even if the queen didn’t destroy the Dogs then, it wouldn’t take much to convince the other warlords of Cattatonia to take the fight to the enemy. He could already see himself standing in the main plaza of Purrtoria, urging everyone to take up arms against the creatures who had convinced his beloved fiancée to leave the safety of the palace, where she had been lured into a trap.
The war would begin. Victory was assured. The servants of Dog couldn’t stand against those of Cat. They would be destroyed and the galaxy would be cleansed at last. It would be a pure galaxy, one to be populated only by cats.
He heard the window open and then saw a shadow slip through it. Cassie’s green eyes stared back at him. “Is it finished?” he asked.
“Your monkeys failed,” she said. “They have returned to the palace without serious injury.”
Draco picked up the clay bowl containing the catnip incense. He hurled this at where Cassie had been. She easily ducked, reappearing only a meter away from him. “Why didn’t you stop them?”
“You told me to leave them to the monkeys.”
If he could reach, Draco would have clawed his foolish “daughter” across the face. Even if he could reach, she was too fast for him, faster than any demon servant of Dog. Draco hissed with impatience and then leaned back on his cushion. “It won’t matter,” he said. “We’ll just have to try another plan.”
Staring at his daughter, he began to laugh. Yes, he knew what to do now. All would soon be put right again. Victory was assured.
#
Whiskers couldn’t get back to sleep after her nightmare. She lay on her bed with her eyes closed, but sleep would not come. If only Buster were here to hold her and tell her everything would be all right.
But Buster wasn’t here. He was in the guest suite with the other Dogs. Tomorrow he would be taken back to his ship and forced to go back to his home planet. After tomorrow she would never see him again.
It seemed strange that after only one day of knowing each other she could feel such a terrible ache in her chest when they parted. In many ways they were still strangers to each other, their cultures so different. How could she ever think of caring about a Dog? Mother and Draco had both said Dogs and cats could never live with each other in harmony. To think otherwise would be treasonous.
No, Whiskers thought. Buster wasn’t like the Dogs written about in sacred texts. He wasn’t a marauding demon, a betrayer and backstabber. He had saved her life from the monkeys. He was strong and forthright and good, everything she had always dreamed of finding in a future mate.
It wasn’t fair. She had finally found someone special, the one she had waited her whole life to find, and now he was going to leave. All because he had a strange face and shorter tail and couldn’t climb trees. What did any of that really matter?
She felt something warm tickle her fur. It was too early for Isis to wake her for her morning bath. She opened her eyes just as something heavy clamped down on her mouth. It was too dark to see more than a bulky shape beside her bed. The snout looked all wrong for a cat and the ears too blunt and hanging down instead of up.
She could worry about the identity of her attacker later. For now she extended her claws and swatted at the attacker. It groaned, but kept hold of her mouth so that she couldn’t scream for Isis or the guards. When she tried to lash at the attacker with her other paw, the attacker grabbed it. Whiskers screamed beneath the attacker’s hand as it bent her arm back the wrong way.
Whiskers forced herself to remain calm, as her self-defense teachers had instructed. While the attacker continued to grapple with her, she worked to kick the blankets from her legs. She managed to free her left leg and then kick at her attacker. Her claws scratched the back of its legs. The attacker staggered back, taking its paw from Whiskers’s mouth.
“Intruder!” Whiskers shouted. “Intruder!”
The attacker stared at her for a moment, just long enough for Whiskers to make out brown eyes. Then it turned and ran. Whiskers took the blankets, draping them around herself to look somewhat presentable for Isis and the guards.
They arrived seconds later, Isis leading the charge. She even had a pistol in her paw, though Whiskers doubted the older cat knew how to use it. “Are you injured, my lady?” Isis asked, rushing over to Whiskers’s side.
Whiskers bent her left arm and winced. “It’s probably just a sprain,” she said.
“Nonetheless, we will have a doctor examine you.” Isis patted Whiskers’s head as though she were still a kitten. “Did you see who did this?”
“No, it was dark.” Whiskers thought about the strange muzzle, the drooping ears, and the brown eyes. She thought of when she kicked the attacker again. Her claws had touched not only its leg, but its tail as well. A tail that was not long like a cat’s but a stubby tail. “No.”
Whiskers bent forward, burying her face in Isis’s robes. “It can’t be,” Whiskers said.
“What is it? Who did this?”
“One of the Bulldogs.”
#
When he heard the palace alarms, Draco knew his worthless daughter had failed. He had thought that being so skilled at assassination she could handle a simple task like killing the princess. Such was not the case. The fool had failed him. The good news was that the alarms meant Cassie had escaped. If she were dead there would be no need for the alarms to sound.
That still gave Draco a chance to salvage things. He reached into his desk to take out a silver vial, which he slipped into his pocket. Then he opened the door and grabbed the nearest guard. “What is the meaning of this racket?” he shouted.
The guard reported, “An intruder attacked the princess.”
“An intruder? Attacked my betrothed?”
“Yes, your grace.”
“I must get to her at once!”
Draco pushed his way through the guards swarming around Whiskers’s room. Those who refused to budge he shouted at until they moved. He finally reached her bedroom, where she sobbed against that nursemaid of hers, Isis. “My love, what has happened?” he said.
She looked up at him, her eyes still full of tears. “I was sleeping and someone came in here and attacked me.”
Draco sat down next to her and Isis, putting a paw around his fiancée’s shoulder. “My love, you mustn’t worry. Whoever did this will be punished. Did you see his face?”
Whiskers said nothing; she only made a pathetic mewling sound as she continued to sob. He turned to Isis. “Did anyone see who did this?”
“It was one of those vile Dogs,” Isis said. “Captain Bulldog or that other one.”
“I knew it! I knew those fiends would bring nothing but ruin to us.” Draco patted Whiskers’s shoulder. “Do not fear, my love, I shall deal with them.”
She grabbed his paw before he could leave the bedroom. “You can’t kill them!”
“I will leave that for the queen to decide.” He tore her paw away from his and then marched into the anteroom, where the guards waited. “To the guest suite! We must hurry and catch them before they can escape or destroy any evidence.”
The march to the guest suite was more thrilling than any hunt he had ever been on. He would soon have the Dogs right where he wanted them. Even Cassie’s failure played right into his paws. Now he could rid himself of the Dogs while still keeping Whiskers as his bride. That would assure his rise to the throne.
He had to struggle to keep from snickering as he neared the door to the guest suite. “Stand aside,” he said to the guards there. They stood aside to allow him into the room.
The Dogs had been shepherded into one corner. The two largest brutes had cuffs around their wrists, though these looked so flimsy on the wrists of the animals that Draco knew the louts could snap the cuffs whenever they wished. The one with the gray muzzle stared at Draco and seemed to smirk beneath his whiskers.
As for Captain Bulldog, he looked impassive, his disgusting face unreadable. Draco would break that icy calm. “Which of you attacked my beloved?”
“None of my crew did anything. We were all here, sleeping,” Captain Bulldog said.
“What about you?”
“I was here too.”
“Liar! She saw you.” Draco sneered at the Dog. “There’s no way she could have been mistaken. You’re the only Dogs on this entire planet.”
“She is mistaken,” Captain Bulldog said. “None of us would hurt a cat. We have nothing but the utmost respect—”
“You dare to keep lying to me?” Draco took a step forward. As he did so, he slipped the silver vial from his pocket. He saw a red uniform jacket dangling from the back of the chair. It must belong to the captain since the others were fully clothed. “We know how to get honest answers from you,” Draco said, slipping the vial into the Dog uniform jacket.
“We swear that we are innocent,” Captain Bulldog said. “Search the room if you like. You won’t find any evidence.”
Again Draco had to resist snickering. The fool was handing the key to his demise on a silver platter. “Very well. Search the room. Leave nothing unturned!”
Draco stepped back, watching as the guards threw furniture around and rummaged through drawers. He could barely contain his amusement to watch them work, waiting for them to find the vial. After nearly five minutes, one of the fools finally thought to yank the jacket from off of the chair.
The silver vial clattered to the floor. The guard reached down to grab it, but Draco held out a paw to stop him. “No! That could be evidence.” Draco tore the cover from a cushion. He used this as a glove to pick up the vial. With the makeshift glove he unstopped the vial and then sniffed at it. “Just as I thought. Poison. Take them away!”
“Poison? We didn’t have any poison,” the captain said until one of the guards hit him in the stomach with the butt of a rifle. The Dog collapsed to his knees. The big brutes opened their mouths and growled, but Captain Bulldog shouted, “No! We’ll go quietly.”
Draco watched with great satisfaction as the guards hauled the captain away. Everything was coming together now.
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