Chapter 28
The shuttle bucked a few times from near misses, but otherwise there were no problems reaching the flagship. The shuttle clanged dangerously as it attached itself to an airlock on the Cat ship. Buster couldn’t help but feel a knot in his stomach as he watched the Batpooh begin to break apart. His first command and now it was in pieces. They’d probably never give him another one if he survived this.
Whiskers kissed him on the jowls. “We have to go,” she said.
“I know.” He turned to Dodger. “How are we going to get inside?”
Dodger reached into his pocket to take out a black disc. “A little toy Dr. Ruff came up with.” Buster watched as Dodger opened the shuttle’s airlock. He planted the disc on the opposite side of the airlock. A few seconds later, the door began cycling. “Guess Cat airlocks aren’t so different from ours.”
Dodger took a pistol from his hip. Buster did the same. He turned to Whiskers. “Stay behind us.”
“I am not helpless.”
“You’re also not armed,” Dodger said. She hissed and extended her claws. “Still, you don’t get much range with those.”
“Very well. I will do as you request.”
They scurried through the airlock, Dodger’s contraption opening the other side of the door for them. There weren’t any guards waiting for them, but it wouldn’t be long until some showed up to investigate. “Any idea where your mother would be?” Buster asked.
“Her stateroom would be the largest one. Probably on one of the upper decks.”
“That still gives us a lot to search,” Buster said.
“If we can find a computer terminal out of the way I might be able to convince the computer to give us some directions,” Dodger said.
“How are we going to do that?”
Dodger shrugged. “Start opening doors and hope we get lucky.” He slapped his disc against a door on the right. It hissed open a few moments later. He peeked inside and almost right away jumped back. A shot sizzled past, singing the fur on the right side of his muzzle before hitting the wall behind him.
More shots followed and alarms sounded. “I think we blew our cover,” Dodger said. He pressed himself to the wall. Buster and Whiskers did the same on the opposite side. They traded shots with the guards in the adjoining corridor for a minute before a door down the hall opened. More guards came running towards them, firing wildly.
“We’re in trouble,” Buster shouted over the sound of weapons fire.
“I got an idea,” Dodger said. He reached into his pocket again, this time taking out a blue sphere. He hurled this down the hall at the oncoming guards. Blue smoke billowed out of the device. Though he couldn’t see them, Buster could hear the guards coughing. “Let’s go!”
They charged into the blue smoke, where they found the guards doubled over. Dodger kicked one to the deck while Buster took another. Whiskers grabbed the third by the front of his uniform. She hissed something at the guard in her native tongue. He responded, his words punctuated with coughs. Once he finished, she hurled him back against the wall.
“He says the queen is on the third deck, room seventeen.”
“Then let’s make tracks,” Dodger suggested. They didn’t need any convincing to start running.
#
More guards waited at the next intersection. At least two-dozen of them, all heavily armed. “You have anything in your pocket for that?” Buster asked.
“No. I left my tactical nuke at home.”
“There’s no way we can take on all of them.”
“We must do something. We have to reach my mother,” Whiskers said.
Buster nodded and then leaned into the hallway to fire a burst from his pistol. The pistol’s charge would be out soon and then they’d really be in trouble. He thought of the fallen guards behind them. If Whiskers could harvest those guns it would help them hold out longer, but it was still only a matter of time before they were overrun. “Whiskers, go—” He stopped himself, as a thought struck him. “I’ve got an idea.”
“What is it?”
“Get into the uniform of one of those guards. We’ll distract them while you go find your mother.”
“Buster—”
“We can’t pass as Cats, but in the uniform no one will recognize you. You can get by unnoticed.”
“I can’t leave you. Draco will kill you.”
“Not if you get your mother to call off the guards.” He looked Whiskers in the eye. “I love you, Whiskers, but there’s no other choice. You’ve already risked everything for me. The least I can do is return the favor.”
“Oh, Buster.” The kiss wasn’t as long as Buster would have liked; under the circumstances they didn’t have much time. “I love you.”
Buster nodded to her and then fired another burst from his pistol to cover her as she scampered down the hallway. He and Dodger kept firing while she changed. After a couple of minutes, the rifles the guards had been carrying slid down the hallway to them. Buster tossed his depleted pistol away and then grabbed the rifle.
“You think she can do it?” Dodger asked as he took up another of the rifles.
“The princess always gets what she wants,” Buster said.
“Let’s hope so.”
#
Buster was right. Disguised as an ordinary guard, no one on the ship paid any attention to Whiskers. She passed through their midst unmolested, heading for the third deck, where her mother waited. What she would say to convince her mother, Whiskers didn’t know. Mother hated the Dogs almost as much as Draco. She feared them and the change they might bring to Cattatonia.
It was necessary change as far as Whiskers was concerned. They had been isolated for too long, stuck in their ways. They needed to do as she had done, expand their horizons and see what the rest of the universe had to offer.
An elevator door opened. A squad of soldiers ushered out of it. “What are you doing?” one of them snapped at her.
“Duke Draco asked me to inform the queen that intruders are on board.”
“I heard of no such orders.”
“He wants to keep it quiet, so as not to upset the crew.”
The soldier considered this for a moment and then nodded. “On your way then.”
Whiskers threw herself into the elevator and then slapped a button for the third deck. She heaved a sigh of relief that the ruse had worked. It occurred to her that Draco would have guards assigned to her mother’s quarters. She would have to find a way to distract or disable them.
The elevator doors opened. Whiskers peeked into the hallway. There was no one around that she could see. Maybe Buster and Dodger had drawn off any guards. That would make her job easier. She hurried down the hallway until she found a door marked with a number seventeen.
She opened the door—
“About time you got here,” Draco said. He sat on a cushion next to the queen. To one side of him, stood a knot of a dozen guards. These parted so that something could be pushed forward. Buster and Dodger landed on the deck with a thump.
Whiskers screamed.
#
It was soon clear that Buster and Dodger weren’t dead. They were only unconscious, at least for the moment. Without asking, Whiskers tossed her rifle away and put up her paws. “Did you think I was so stupid?” Draco asked. “As soon as you opened the airlock I knew what you were doing.”
“And now what will you do?”
“After the Dogs are finished, we will return to Cattatonia. The prisoners will be executed and we will be wed.”
Whiskers turned to face her mother. “Is that what you wish, Mother?”
“The duke has acted under my orders,” Queen Smokey said.
“You would kill thousands because of my disobedience?”
“It is not only your disobedience, child. The Dogs have become too bold. We must teach them that we are not to be trifled with.”
“Do you really think it will stop here?” Whiskers said. She glared at her betrothed. “He will not stop here. He will keep pressing the attack until every Dog is wiped out.”
“Good riddance,” Queen Smokey said.
“How can you say that?”
“Mind your place, young one.”
“No!” Whiskers knelt down beside Buster. She cradled his unconscious head in her lap. “My place is here, with him. I love him! If you kill him then you will have to kill me.”
“Do not talk so foolishly, child—”
“I am not a child! Not any longer. I was a child when these strangers landed. I followed your orders without question, even if I hated them.” She glared at Draco. “Now my eyes have been open. These dogs are not our enemies. They are so much like us. They want only the same things we want.”
“They want to destroy us!” Draco shouted.
“No.” Whiskers narrowed her eyes at her betrothed. “You were the one who brought them to Cattatonia. You triggered the meteor shower that destroyed their planet just as you are destroying this world beneath us. You wanted them to enter our space so that you would have an excuse to launch this invasion, to destroy them.”
“That’s a lie. I had nothing to do with the Dogs entering our space. I will not tolerate such an insult!”
Queen Smokey glared at Whiskers. “You cannot accuse the duke of such things without proof. What proof do you have?”
“None, but Mother, please—”
The queen turned to Draco’s guards. “Take the prisoners to the brig. Then escort my daughter to her quarters and make sure she stays there.”
“No!” Whiskers shouted. She clung tightly to Buster, digging her claws into him until he whimpered with pain. His eyes fluttered open.
“What—?”
She kissed him before he could say anything else and before the guards could take him from her. They tried to pull her away, but she refused, using every ounce of strength to hold on to him. Her claws were losing the battle, though, a little bit at a time. Her claws slipped out of his side. She tried to latch onto his paw but then it too began slipping away.
“Hold!” Queen Smokey shouted. The guards stopped and released Whiskers. The queen stared at Whiskers. “You really love this Dog?”
“Yes.”
Buster awoke with a grunt. He flopped onto his stomach and then pushed himself into a kneeling position. Queen Smokey turned her glare on him. “And what of you? Do you truly love my daughter?”
“With all of my heart,” Buster said. He took Whiskers’s paw. “I’ve never felt the way about anyone the way I do about her.”
The room went silent for a few moments, far too long for Whiskers’s liking. Queen Smokey mewled and then pushed herself up on the cushion. “I am an old feline. I have forgotten what it is like to be in love. You, my daughter, have reminded me of that feeling.” The queen looked at Whiskers and then at Buster. “If you two can love each other, then perhaps our races are not so different after all.” The queen turned to Lady Isis. “Call off the attack. Contact the Dogs and tell them we will assist them with the asteroids and with their wounded.”
“Yes, my queen.”
“No!” Draco shouted. “You can’t do this! These are servants of Dog. They will betray us! They will bring our doom!”
The queen hissed at him, “I am still the queen of Cattatonia and you will do as I command, Duke Draco.”
Whiskers saw him reach for the pistol at his belt. She cried out, knowing it would be too late to stop him from shooting her mother. He swung the pistol up—
The weapon flew across the room to shatter against the wall. A guard kicked Draco in his bulging stomach. He doubled over, yowling in pain. The guard turned and Whiskers recognized Draco’s adopted daughter, Cassie. “You are no longer my father,” she hissed.
“Take him away,” Queen Smokey said. Cassie and two other guards dragged the duke out of the room. Then the queen turned to Whiskers. “You will make a fine queen, one day. You are already wise beyond your years.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
Queen Smokey straightened, looking healthier than she had for years. “Now, we have much to do. Let us get moving.”
On the floor, Dodger began to stir. He looked around the room and then turned to Buster and Whiskers. “What did I miss?”
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