aptain waved his hand and the operative bent to his
task.

"Commanders of all vessels of the Fleet!" The Headquarters speaker,
receiver sealed upon the wave-length of the Admiral of the Fleet, broke
the long silence. "All vessels in sectors L to R, inclusive, will
interlock location signals. Some of you have received, or will receive
shortly, certain communications from sources which need not be
mentioned. Those commanders will at once send out red K4 screens.
Vessels so marked will act as temporary flagships. Unmarked vessels will
proceed at maximum to the nearest flagship, grouping about it in the
regulation squadron cone in order of arrival. Squadrons most distant
from objective point designated by flagship observers will proceed
toward it at maximum; squadrons nearest it will decelerate or reverse
velocity--that point must not be approached until full Fleet formation
has been accomplished. Heavy and light cruisers of all other sectors
inside the orbit of Mars...." The orders went on, directing the
mobilization of the stupendous forces of the League, so that they would
be in readiness in the highly improbable event of the failure of the
massed power of seven sectors to reduce the pirate base.

In those seven sectors perhaps a dozen vessels threw out enormous
spherical screens of intense red light, and as they did so their tracer
points upon all the interlocked lookout plates also became ringed about
with red. Toward those crimson markers the pilots of the unmarked
vessels directed their courses at their utmost power; and while the
white lights upon the lookout plates moved slowly toward and clustered
about the red ones the ultra-instruments of the Service operatives were
probing into space, sweeping the neighborhood of the computed position
of the pirate's stronghold.

But the object sought was so far away that the small spy-ray sets of the
Service men, intended as they were for close range work, were unable to
make contact with the invisible planetoid for which they were seeking.
In the captain's sanctum of the _Chicago_, the operative studied his
plate for only a minute or two, then shut off his power and fell into a
brown study, from which he was rudely aroused.

"Aren't you even going to _try_ to find them?" demanded the captain.

"No," Cleve returned shortly. "No use--not half enough power or control.
I'm trying to think ... maybe ... say, Captain, will you please have the
Chief Electrician and a couple of