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! Then they were nearing the _Darkside_ and Blake had his hands full threading the skeeter back into the valve that yawned black as he drew near. Once aboard, he slipped through the sighing valves and into the boat deck. A steward came to take charge of the passengers, and Blake hurried up to the gun-deck that had been transformed into the extra-corporeal brain of the doomed _Artemis_. Hartnett looked up from his work to grunt at him: "Did you do what I told you to do?" Blake grinned, "Yes, sir. All the stuff is buried in the storage chambers directly under the pits ... the ones that are used to store the coolants." "Good enough." He rang for Control. "Have we been sighted yet?" "No, sir," came Chavez' voice. "But the Cats are gathering thick and fast." Blake told Hartnett about the mammoth superdreadnaught, and the older man smiled. "We'll see if we can't give them something for their trouble." He turned back to the communicator. "Chavez, see to it that we maintain a mean distance from Oberon of at least 25,000 miles. And have all the screens in place." "Aye, Sir." "_Artemis_ is down, Sir," reported Drew.