"Sir," protested Scott, "You surely can't mean to break radio silence with young Blake down there!"
It was hard for a man to look dignified floating in midair ... but somehow Hartnett managed it. "It's an order, Mr. Scott."
Scott flushed angrily. A gambler! Damn you, he thought! But he bit his lip and reached for the message. "Yes, sir."
Hartnett remained behind him as he rang for communications.
"Aye, aye, Sir...." The voice of the radioman sounded strangled.
Scott read from the flimsy in a flat voice, a note of astonishment creeping in as he finished the message.
"TORAN LONG, SENIOR CONTROL, LUNA BASE. AM STANDING BY OFF OBERON READY TO LOAD ISOTOPE X-R ON BOARD DESTROYER "ARTEMIS" HAVE NOT MET THE ENEMY AND HAVE SUFFERED NO CASUALTIES. ONE AUXILIARY TUBE ON THE "ORION" HAS BLOWN BUT THE "JOVE" AND "MINERVA" ARE STANDING BY TO EFFECT EMERGENCY REPAIRS. HAVE DOCK SPACE AVAILABLE FOR REPAIR OF "ORION" L PLUS 21 2235 SIDEREAL. SIGNED C. HARTNETT COMMODORE RED SIX. END MESSAGE."
Scott wondered wildly if Hartnett had not suddenly lost his mind. Red Six was the Code name for the Task Force that included five Terran dreadnaughts, and the part about the blown tube and the repairs added up to just so much lunacy. The Cats had the cipher ... there wasn't much doubt of that, and had Hartnett invited every Martian captain in the quadrant to come blasting down on them with all tubes blowing, he couldn't have phrased it better!
Leaving the stunned Scott to ponder his strange madness, Commodore Hartnett hurried down into the cluttered gun-deck. Drew, at the remote controls of the _Artemis_, was ready for action when he arrived. Time was important now, thought Hartnett.
"Now get that can down there ... and fast!"
Drew and his men went into action, and the _Artemis_ vanished from the string of beads and plunged toward Oberon ... an empty and forlorn bait for a trap whose jaws were beginning to close as from all over the quadrant, Cat warships converged on Oberon ... their vaunted superdreadnaught in the lead.
Twenty minutes after _Artemis_ left the Flotilla, the radioactive streaks of the first Martian cruisers showed in the sky 15,000 miles away.
Blake and the three technicians from Station 9 huddled in the careening skeeter-boat. They were almost on top of the Martian superdreadnaught before they saw it. For just a fleeting instant it seemed to fill all of space, and then it was gone. The Cats on board paid no attention to a tiny boat that they imagined to be the survivor of the battle that must have already begun off Oberon. But Blake paled at the very size and might of the craft. From what he had seen of it it would take much heavier stuff than the _Darkside_ carried to dent that monster!