Dodgers and Cadet must slow down the Invictus, an awesome new Martian space destroyer, so that Star Johnson can engage it in battle. Things do not go as planned when Dodgers opts for a risky preemptory attack/Dodgers demands a pet and settles on a cute, fuzzy little Energy Mutator alien creature. However, sending it through the ship's evaporator causes a molecular change in the animal that bodes ill for Dodgers, Cadet and the ship.