Chapter 17

Chapter 17

            Buster had just fallen asleep when the door to the suite had opened.  For once Lady Isis wasn’t at their head and it was much too early for breakfast.  These guards bore leveled spears instead of food carts.  Before Buster could get to his feet, he faced a half-dozen spears.

            “What’s the meaning of this?” Dodger shouted as the guards surrounded him.

            Buster couldn’t look over his shoulder, but he could hear the Saint Bernards growling.  “Don’t do anything hostile!” Buster ordered.

            It wasn’t until they were herded into the corner—with the Saint Bernards cuffed—that Duke Draco arrived on the scene.  Buster held back a growl in his throat as he thought of what Whiskers had said about her fiancé.  Though Draco probably thought he was being clever, Buster had seen him slip the vial in his uniform jacket.  So it didn’t come as a surprise when Draco “found” the vial of poison.

            As the guards led them down the hallway, Jake growled, “We could still take them.”

            “Not yet.  Let’s find out what the queen is going to do.”

            “Probably have us executed right there.”

            “Then you can make your move,” Buster said.  “No sense trying to fight our way off the planet if we don’t have to.”

            Jake only snorted at this.  Buster didn’t have much doubt about what the queen would do.  She already saw them as intruders, a menace to her planet.  He hoped, though, that Whiskers might be able to talk some sense into her mother.  At the least she might decide that banishing them was preferable to starting a war.

            The queen wasn’t in her throne room when they arrived.  Draco waddled in first to eye the throne with a hungry look.  Buster thought again of what Whiskers had said about her fiancé; he wasn’t just a disgusting bully, though, he had larger plans.  By marrying Whiskers he would be the prince of Cattatonia, and then the king once Queen Smokey finally died.

            Lady Isis appeared from a side door.  “The queen will be here shortly.  I would suggest you brutes confess to your crimes.  It will save us all time and trouble.”

            “Lady Isis—”  The cat turned away from them to go back through the doorway.  She wasn’t going to be an ally for them.  Buster turned to Dodger.  “We might need your diplomatic expertise.”

            “I think my other skills would be more useful right now.”

            Buster was starting to agree.  Draco turned to face them, a smirk on his face.  “It won’t be long until the queen decides your fate.  If you beg for your lives, she might only lock you up in the dungeon for the rest of your pitiful lives.”

            “I know you planted that vial of poison.  I saw you put it into my jacket.”

            “You’re welcome to prove it.”

            The side door opened again, accompanied by the bleat of a trumpet.  Lady Isis didn’t bother announcing the queen this time.  Instead she held one of the queen’s arms to escort her to the throne.  With a sigh the queen settled onto her cushion and arranged herself into a lying position.  From there she glared down at them.

            “I have provided you nothing but hospitality and you repay me by attacking my daughter in the night?” 

            “No, Your Majesty,” Buster said.  “We were safely in our suite when the alarms sounded.”

            Queen Smokey turned to Lady Isis.  “Is this true?”

            “Your Majesty, Captain Bulldog knows about the hidden passages.  I escorted him down to the old palace earlier this night.”

            Had she been stronger, the queen probably would have slapped her handmaiden across the face.  Instead she only growled at her.  “Why would you do such a thing?”

            “It was your daughter’s wish.  She wanted to show him more of the planet.”

            “Where is my daughter?”

            Whiskers came in through another side door.  She glanced at Buster; the look did not give him much hope.  She came to kneel beside the throne, her head bowed.  “I’m here, Mother.”

            “Why did you show this outsider our secrets?”

            “I thought Captain Bulldog was…interesting.  I wanted to speak more with him.  I hoped if he saw the true beauty of our planet, we would not have to fear a Dog invasion.”

            The queen growled again.  “He did not attack you when you were outside the palace?”

            “No, Mother.  It was in my bedroom.  After I thought we had parted.”

            “It wasn’t me!” Buster shouted.  “I went straight back to my suite.  My comrades will verify that.”

            “I do not care what other Dogs say,” Queen Smokey said.  “It is as was foretold.  You are nothing more than treacherous backstabbers.”

            Draco stepped forward, holding up the vial.  “I found this in his jacket.  It’s some kind of poison.  He surely would have given it to your daughter—my betrothed—if she had not raised the alarm.”

            “That’s a lie!” Buster said.  “We didn’t bring any poison with us.  Your guards searched us after we left the Batpooh.” 

            Draco’s smirk returned.  “But one of your crew smuggled recording devices here.  Is that not true?”

            How had Draco learned of that?  Had Whiskers told him about the incident at the shopping mall?  Or perhaps one of the guards had mentioned something.  “That is true,” Buster said.  “But that’s different—”

            “I grow weary of your lies,” Queen Smokey said.  She looked down at her daughter.  “Is this the one who attacked you?”

            Whiskers turned to look at Buster.  He looked into her eyes, trying to communicate telepathically with her that he was innocent.  Tears came to her eyes and then she looked away.  “I can’t be certain,” she said.  “It was dark.  I could not see.  It could have been Captain Bulldog, his brother, or the ambassador.”

            “Do any of you wish to confess?” the queen asked.

            Jake was about to step forward, but Buster put a paw on his shoulder.  “I confess,” Buster said.  “It was my fault.  I beg you though not to punish the rest of my crew or the Bloc of Planetary States for my actions.”

            The queen considered this.  As she did, Whiskers met Buster’s eyes again.  They were still wet from crying.  She began crying even harder when the queen announced, “For your crimes against my daughter and all of Cattatonia, you, Captain Bulldog, will be executed in one day’s time.  Your companions will be taken back to your ship.  None of your kind shall ever set paw within Cattatonian space again.”

            “No!”  This came from Whiskers.  She took her mother’s paws.  “Mother, please, you can’t do this.  Captain Bulldog didn’t do it.  He’s innocent.”

            “What proof do you have of this?”

            “Only the proof in my heart.”

            Queen Smokey snorted at this.  “A queen cannot rule with her heart.  She must rule with her head and think of what is best for all of Cattatonia.”  She looked up at her guards.  “Take them away.”

            “No!”  This time it was Jake who spoke.  He threw himself against the guard holding him, knocking the Cat to the floor.  When the other guards tried to rush him, the Saint Bernards sprung into action.  Even with their paws cuffed, the huge dogs proved more than a match for the Cat guards.  Bernard St. Bernard batted one a good five meters with his bound paws.  His cousin kicked two more to the floor.  Draco scurried across the room faster than Buster thought possible to duck behind the queen’s dais.

            “Stand down, Lieutenant, Ensigns!”  The three security officers stopped what they were doing, leaving a pile of guards around them.  “You will respect the queen’s wishes and return to the Batpooh.  Under no circumstances will you try to rescue me.  Is that understood?”

            “Buster—”

            “I’m sorry, Jake.  It has to be this way.”

            “What am I supposed to tell Dad and Jonathan?”

            “Tell them I did my duty.”  Buster wished he could hug his brother, but his paws were bound together.  He could only not to Jake before he was taken away.

#

            The dungeon was part of the old palace.  Buster couldn’t see anything in the room, but he could smell centuries of decay and hear mice scurrying around.  Sitting on a pile of mud, he told himself this was what he deserved.  He had failed his crew and all of the Bloc.  Instead of bringing peace, he would be lucky if war didn’t break out between Cattatonia and the Bloc.  If he was lucky, his death would be the last in this conflict.

            He knew the growl outside his door belonged to Draco from the smugness of it.  “A fitting end to a Dog,” Draco hissed.

            “I don’t care what lies you told Whiskers and the queen.  I know you planted that poison.  You probably arranged the whole attack.”

            “There’s no way you can prove that.”

            “Why did you do it?”

            Draco’s eyes appeared at the slit of the door.  Even they seemed to be gloating.  “The queen doesn’t want a war, but she’s old and frail.  Soon she’ll be gone and I’ll be king.  Once I am, your pitiful race will be destroyed by the might of Cattatonia.”

            “The Bloc isn’t so easy to destroy.”

            “That’s what you think.  You’re weak.  Weak and stupid.  Look how easily I tricked you—and Whiskers.”  Draco snickered through the door.  “Did you really think you could take my fiancée that easily?  As if she would ever want to mate with a Dog.”

            “Whiskers is everything I could want in a mate.  She’s smart, she’s beautiful, and she’s kind—three things you aren’t.”

            “You of all creatures shouldn’t talk like that.  Your face looks as if someone melted it with a blowtorch.”

            Buster snuffled at this.  “That may be, but step inside here and see what this face can do to you.”

            “Perhaps I should.  It would only add to your guilt.”

            “Too bad you wouldn’t live to testify.”

            The barrel of a pistol appeared through the slit in the door.  “Oh, I think I would, Captain.”  Draco snickered again.  “You should get some sleep.  In seventeen hours you will face Cattatonian justice.  Then perhaps I’ll mount your disgusting head on my wall with the rest of my trophies.”

            “I doubt you earned any of those trophies, you coward.”

            “We’ll see how brave you are when you face the executioner’s axe tomorrow,” Draco said.  Buster waited for him to say anything else, but he must have gone.  Buster sat back down on his pile of mud to wait for the end.

#

            He was asleep when he heard the door open.  Buster awoke with a yelp and then rolled into a defensive pose.  Was it time already?  How long had he been asleep?  The Cats had taken his chronometer along with anything else that might be of use in helping him escape.

            Not that he had any interest in escaping.  By now the Batpooh would be safely out of the system, on its way back to Batpooh State.  He wished he could have said goodbye to Spot and the rest of his crew.  He hadn’t been their captain very long, but he had known most of them for years.  He hoped his sacrifice would mean the rest of them would live.

            A pair of guards slipped into the jail cell.  To his surprise, Whiskers followed after them.  “You came to take me to the execution?” he asked.  “I thought it would have been Draco.”

            “Perhaps he will.  That is still ten hours in the future.”

            “Oh.  So what did bring you here?”

            “I want to be sure.”

            Buster took a step forward until the guards leveled their spears at him.  He sat down on his pile of mud with a sigh.  “I didn’t attack you, Whiskers.  You know I wouldn’t do that to you.  Not after what happened in the trees.”

            It was still dark in the cell, but he could see her eyes staring at him, once again filling with tears.  “Oh, Buster, I believe you,” she whispered.  She hissed a command to the guards, who melted away through the door.  Once the door was closed, she settled onto the mud beside him.  “None of this makes any sense.  Who would do such a thing?”

            “Ask your betrothed.”

            Whiskers growled in her throat.  “I should have known.  He hates your kind as much as he hates everything else—as much as I hate him.”

            Buster put a paw around her shoulder and pulled her close as on the tree branch.  “You can’t let him start a war.  No matter what happens to me, you can’t let him launch an attack on the Bloc.”

            “I won’t.  And I’ll do whatever I can to save you.  If I plead with my mother, she might commute the sentence to imprisonment for life.”

            “Being imprisoned here wouldn’t be much of a life.”

            “This isn’t a time for jokes.”

            “I’m sorry.”  Buster leaned over to kiss her on the mouth as they had before.  “Just be careful of Draco.  He nearly got to you once.  He’s bound to try again.”

            “I’ll be more careful.  And I swear I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you aren’t executed.”

            She gave him a kiss and then stood up.  Buster didn’t want her to go, but there was no choice.  He could only hope this wasn’t the last time they saw each other.