The smoking pistol still in her hand, Prunella stood rigidly, her face displaying no emotion. Haney showed no sign of life except for a faint wheezing sound.
Then, to Sue Ellen's surprise, the smirk on Gadfly's face gave way to gaping shock. "Herbert! No!" cried the Yordilian leader, putting her knuckles over her mouth. As she knelt before the bloodied principal, the last echoes of the three gunshots faded into the Minnesota wilderness.
Prunella broke her silence, but not her stiff posture. "Is there a problem, Gadfly?"
"Yes!" exclaimed the cat woman, who was pressing her hands to Haney's chest in a futile attempt to slow the bleeding. "You didn't have to shoot him!"
"I didn't have to not shoot him," said Prunella.
Everything about the way she spoke—the tone, the inflections—seemed wrong to Sue Ellen. "You're not Prunella!" shouted the cat girl. "Who are you?"
The rat girl's pointed nose swiveled toward her. "We've met before," she stated coldly.
"He's dying!" pleaded Gadfly. "Please, you must help him!"
"If you insist," said Prunella, lowering the pistol. "But if his life means so much to you, why didn't you tell me so?"
"I was putting on a tough façade," Gadfly replied tearfully. "I was about to throw my arms around him when you fired."
There was a whining sound, and waves of air flowed over Mr. Haney's prostrate body. He flickered and vanished like a light turning off. "Your principal will recover," Prunella told Sue Ellen. "Our medical technology is thousands of years beyond that of Earth."
Thousands of years… Sue Ellen instantly recalled where she had heard the words.
"It's you!" she said, unable to point due to the Yordilians restraining her. "Lieutenant Tip…Tilp…Tipple…the fishbowl alien! How'd you get inside Prunella?"
"That's T'l'p'g'r," said the rat girl. "And I'm not inside Prunella. The microchip we implanted in her brain to repair her short-term memory is good for much more than that. Not only can I see and hear everything she does, but I can control her actions. She didn't shoot Mr. Haney of her own free will."
"Let her go!" Sue Ellen snapped.
"I will," said Prunella, "once you've been safely reunited with your parents."
"Take her to the portal," said Gadfly, making a head gesture to the other cat women.
They carried Sue Ellen away, leaving Prunella standing alone in the woods with her father's gun. "You're hurting me," the cat girl complained. "I'm gonna tell my parents that you shot Mr. Haney, and then you'll be in big trouble."
"Your parents are fully aware of the situation," Gadfly assured her, "and so is April."
Sue Ellen pumped her legs to keep up with her captors' stride. "So April is with my parents," she said proudly. "I knew it."
"Don't be alarmed when you see them in prison uniforms," said Gadfly. "That's just for show. They're now the official liaisons between Yordil and the Alliance."
"You mean…your planet's joining the Alliance?"
"I wouldn't say joining. Think of it more as a secret deal. The Alliance gets the peace of mind of knowing that Earth will never give rise to another Dark Augusta. In exchange, the Yordilians get to invade and conquer a planet full of men."
Sue Ellen gasped. "No! My parents would never allow that!"
"Of course they would," said Gadfly. "After all, it was their idea."
To be continued
