"A skeeter is only meant for three people, sir, and four would be quite an overload," protested Blake.
"It will have to be done. If we try to land a ship there, every Cat in the quadrant will be on our necks. It's either the skeeter, or ..." he shrugged expressively.
"If we strip the boat down and remove all unnecessary mass it should do," suggested Orsov. "What do you think, Blake?"
Blake gulped. To strip the skeeter would mean removing all armor and guns. "I ... uh...." He squared his shoulders and grinned sheepishly. "It would," he declared finally.
"Just where is this Station 9, sir?" asked Morse.
Hartnett ignored the question, but by way of answer, he turned to his Flotilla Astrogator, Thorne and asked: "Do you remember the analysis of Oberon's surface, Thorne?"
"Vaguely. All four of the Uranian satellites are composed mainly of pitchblende and similar ores. Heavy metals. Very dense. I happen to remember because it's one of the coincidences of astronomy that the planet itself was given the name Uranus before the discovery that the whole of its system was lousy with uranium ores."
"Well, Oberon is small ... about 800 miles in diameter. Ariel and Titania are about 1,000 and 600 respectively, and Umbriel is the baby at about 400 miles. Much of Terra's uranium was brought in from Titania back in the days of U-235 bombs and so forth. They are abandoned now."
"Gentlemen," said Hartnett, facing the others seriously. "There are ten Martian cruisers and a superdreadnaught in the vicinity of Oberon and Ariel ... you may have guessed by this time that our mysterious Station 9 is on Oberon. My orders are to rescue the three technicians and destroy their samples of Isotope X-R, which is, I understand, a very unstable Isotope of plutonium.
"If we could ... in some way ... destroy the bulk of the Cat strength in the Uranus system, it would be a great step forward toward the successful conclusion of this war that is still young enough to have killed relatively few people."
Scott looked around at his officers and read plain astonishment on their faces. To talk of destroying such a Martian fleet with four tiny ships was madness!
"The rescue of the Station personnel will be handled by Mr. Blake and the skeeter-boat. And ... if the plan I have works out properly, the destruction of the enemy fleet will be handled by ... one ship alone." He looked around the table with the vaguest suggestion of a grin on his leathery face. He nodded his head at Scott. "You're quite right, Mr. Scott, the _Artemis_."