Free The Hairball of Horror! by Michael Broad Page A

fleet.
    From the darkness of deep space, hundreds of feline ships came into view, hauling giant cargo-holds and freight-nets behind them. The cats had travelled in a convoy from far and wide across the
Catnip Nebula to load the barrel of the cannon with their mysterious cargo.
    The evil empress watched with wide green eyes as each precious payload was dumped into the open mouth of the weapon. The sticky substance had been collected from every occupied planet in the
galaxy over many years and was now being compacted, crushed into a single massive missile.

    ‘This is your most clever and cunning plan yet, Mistress,’ snivelled Baldy, quickly plumping up the satin cushion before Lady Fluffkins sank into her throne. ‘Earth will soon
be yours for the taking . . .’

    ‘No, it won’t!’ spat the empress.
    ‘Huh?’ gasped the servant, whose main job, aside from grovelling and generous outpourings of flattery, was to praise his mistress and make positive predictions for each invasion
attempt on planet Earth.
    ‘There has been a last-minute change of plan,’ Fluffkins grinned.
    ‘You’ve found another planet you like more than the elusive blue one, my lady?’ Baldy enquired, carefully.
    ‘I’ve already conquered all of the others, you hairless freak,’ growled the white Persian. ‘Earth is the only planet that has managed to resist my rule, thanks to those
fleabag Spacemutts.’

    ‘Then what do you plan to do?’ whispered the servant, seeing red lights flashing on the control panel. ‘The cannon is fully loaded and charged for the supersonic
blast.’
    ‘I’ve changed the flight path so the missile will gather asteroids along the way,’ hissed the empress, tapping in her authorization code to arm the secret weapon. ‘Which
means it will be a thousand times bigger and faster when it enters the Earth’s atmosphere.’
    ‘But that would m-m-mean . . .’ stammered the servant.

    ‘Yes!’ said Lady Fluffkins, plunging her paw on the big red button. ‘If I cannot rule planet Earth, I will destroy it instead!’ she said, laughing wildly as the sonic
boom created a blinding flash in the starry sky, blasting the mysterious missile out into the solar system.

Dirty Dogs
    As the
Dogstar
orbited planet Earth, four teleport beams whooshed upon the transportation deck and when the sparkling lights twinkled away, there were four dogs aboard
the ship. The three Spacemutts looked around and frowned at the snoring new recruit, all wondering how he’d managed to sleep through his first journey in a light transporter.
    ‘Wakey-wakey!’ Butch said cheerily, trotting away to check the engines at the back of the ship. The poodle stopped snoring and snuffled, but didn’t fully wake up.

    ‘Rise and shine!’ Poppy added, taking her seat in the cockpit and switching the ship’s controls from autopilot to manual. The poodle shifted slightly on his blanket, but failed
to rise
or
shine.

    ‘There’s only one thing that will wake him,’ said Rocket, hopping up to the central hub and flicking on the intercom. ‘YOUR POMPOMS ARE DROOPY!’ roared the captain,
his voice booming from the speakers.
    Montague immediately sat bolt upright, removed the cotton wool from his ears and lifted off his eye-mask. ‘Where am I?’ he gasped, glancing around the ship in a panic while patting
his pompoms to make sure they were still perfectly puffy.

    ‘You’re aboard the
Dogstar
!’ said Butch.
    Poppy pointed out of the window. ‘We’re orbiting planet Earth!’ she added.

    ‘Now do you believe us?’ smiled Rocket, clearly proud of his ship.
    The prim poodle crept cautiously over to the cockpit and peered out at the starry night. Then he turned slowly and walked back through the great metal belly of the
Dogstar
, frowning at
the central hub and the giant monitor, before stepping carefully around the engines. Eventually he returned to his blanket and sat down.
    ‘Well?’ the Spacemutts said together. ‘Say