The Hairball of Horror! (6 page)

‘If it has an atmosphere, that means we can land on it!’ said Rocket.

‘Huh?’ said Poppy. ‘Why would we want to do a silly thing like that?’

‘It would give my poor engines a rest,’ said Butch, racing around the back of the ship where fuel pipes steamed and pressure valves screamed. ‘I can’t keep up this pace
without re-entering light-speed.’

‘And if we land on the surface we can send it off course,’ said Rocket, already working on a plan of action. ‘A well-positioned boom-bone will send this big blob off its
present target and straight into the sun where it will burn up on impact.’

‘Another sixty seconds of full engine power, Captain!’ barked Butch.

‘Then hold on to your hats!’ yelled Poppy.

The plucky pilot immediately sped up until the
Dogstar
was soaring high above the spinning sphere. Then she took a sharp nose-dive through the atmosphere and quickly levelled out as they
flew across a terrifying terrain of jagged asteroid mountains. Poppy steered around the perilous peaks until she found a suitable place to land and then cut the engines, causing the ship to bump
along the alien landscape until it finally skidded to a halt.

‘Is everyone OK?’ asked Rocket, digging himself out of the fallen debris to find the ship had taken a battering upon landing. Panels had come loose and wires were
hanging down, while maps and other equipment littered the floor.

Poppy and Butch hurried forward saying that they were fine, and then all three spread out and searched the ship for the missing new recruit. They eventually found the poodle under his blanket on
the transportation deck, but he wasn’t moving at all.

‘MONTY!’ they yelled, clearing space around him.

growled the poodle, lifting the edge of his eye-mask and frowning at the panting dogs. ‘Now would you mind keeping the noise down? Some of us are trying to
sleep!’

The Spacemutts rolled their eyes and hurried back to work.

Butch fetched a large boom-bone from the munitions lock-up while Poppy patched the bomb’s remote timer into the
Dogstar
’s control panel, so they could monitor the explosive
device after take-off. At the central hub, Rocket instructed the computer to scan the terrain, to measure the weight and mass of the giant ball, and then estimate the force needed to send it into
the sun.

‘Ten megatons, Captain,’ said WOOF, displaying a diagram of her calculations on the screen. ‘Which means burying the boom-bone at a minimum depth of fifty metres and detonation
within thirty minutes.’

‘We don’t have time to dig that far down!’ said Rocket.

‘Not even with all of our paws digging together!’ said Poppy.

‘Actually, we only need one paw,’ said Butch, trotting away to the back of the ship and returning with a large metal paw-shaped shovel. ‘I present to you the amazing
dogged-digger!’

‘The amazing doggy what?’ said Poppy.

‘Dogged-digger! I invented it to bury big juicy bones where no other dogs could get to them,’ said Butch, drooling at the thought of big juicy bones. ‘It can dig through
anything and burrow to a depth of one hundred metres in ten minutes flat!’

‘Then let’s get going,’ said Rocket.