The Hairball of Horror! (5 page)

The Spacemutts stifled their smirks and were about to get together to discuss the best way to help the posh poodle overcome his fear of filth when red lights began flashing in the ship and the
alert siren sounded through the speakers.

Rocket quickly jumped back to the central hub and silenced the alarm. ‘What is it, WOOF?’ he asked, flicking on the monitor and scanning the local star map as it appeared on the
screen.

‘I’m picking up a very large object making its way through our solar system,’ said WOOF, zooming in on its past locations. ‘It is growing in size and on its present
course it’s heading straight for planet Earth.’

‘But I scanned all of the spy-bone satellite data,’ said Rocket, flicking through the printouts. ‘There was no sign of Fluffkins’s
Mouseship
or any other craft
within our solar system. Where has it come from?’

‘Can you get a visual on it?’ asked Rocket.

‘Negative, Captain. It’s moving too fast for our closed-circuit cameras to snap it,’ said WOOF, displaying an image of a starry sky with a brown blur streaking through the
middle. ‘This is the best shot I could find.’

The Spacemutts all frowned at the fuzzy brown streak and tilted their heads as they tried to work it out. No one had a clue what it could be and looked to the captain to decide upon the best
course of action.

‘We have to go and see this thing with our own eyes,’ said Rocket, calculating the current size and path of the object. ‘Butch, fire up the light-speed engines. I’m
plotting its predicted course so we should be able to head the thing off halfway.’

‘If it’s growing in size and increasing in speed, it will be dangerous flying when we get there,’ said Poppy, gauging the gravity pull of an object that size.

said Rocket, bounding to the cockpit with the estimated coordinates. ‘I know you can do it, Poppy.’

‘Light-speed prepped and beginning the countdown,’ barked Butch, adjusting the final valve among the rattling engines. ‘And we have light-speed in five, four, three, two,
one!’

On the count of one, Poppy pushed the acceleration levers forward and the
Dogstar
shot past Earth’s rocky moon and into inky outer space like a bolted-metal bullet. Rocket leaped
back to the hub to track the closing distance of the object while Butch serviced the engines.

From his neat little blanket, Montague watched the Spacemutts all working together and desperately wanted to join in. But a life of posing and pampering had not prepared the poodle for much
– and certainly not for an intergalactic space adventure! Rocket, Poppy and Butch could have no use for a dog with perfect pompoms who could bounce around a silly obstacle course, and that
was all he’d ever been taught to do.

Montague acted superior and spoke down to other dogs, but away from the show circuit he felt completely useless. All he could do in the current cosmic crisis was stay out of the
Spacemutts’ way, so he pulled down his eye-mask and gave a long, heavy sigh.

When the
Dogstar
entered the path of the missile, Rocket and Butch bounded over to the cockpit in time to see a gigantic brown ball hurtling through space at an
incredible speed. It was heading straight for them, but Poppy managed to steer the ship away before it pulled them into its gravity field. The object was the size of a small planet, covered in
jagged asteroids and blue rivers that snaked across the surface like veins. With the collision narrowly avoided, Poppy quickly turned the
Dogstar
about and began chasing after the colossal
ball, steering through the shower of meteorites that were flying off behind it.

‘I still can’t make out what it is,’ said Rocket, as the ship swerved from side to side avoiding great chunks of space rock. ‘It’s too round to be a meteor and too
squishy to be a rogue moon.’

‘It could be a dwarf planet caught in a super-gravity slingshot,’ said Butch, drawing on the vast cosmic knowledge in his highly scientific brain. ‘But it looks like a massive
meatball!’ he drooled, his stomach taking over. The bulldog staggered back to the engines, which hissed and groaned under the strain of the chase.