Chapter 7

Capturing a Wasps' pyramid undamaged was too good an opportunity to miss, so Ann put all of her resources into the task. She left a holding force to occupy the territory already occupied, but moved all of her other forces into place near the Georgia pyramid. This took two days of nail-biting tension, because they didn't know what would happen if the troops were spotted by the Wasps.

Very tight air cover was flown by tubs to keep any Wasp well away from the troop concentrations. The Wasps didn't seem to have a routine for reporting hostile troops in the vicinity; could that be because they had never before faced effective opposition? Whatever the reason, the Wasps in the pyramid did not seem to be making any effort to counter the human troops that were moving close to the pyramid.

Once the troops were in place, including the Special Ops troops who were going to storm the pyramid, Ann ordered the specially equipped tubs into position. She changed the plan a little bit by ordering the tubs to move into plain sight and to try to draw out a contingent of defending Wasps. This should keep the doors open long enough for the rockets of poison to have plenty of time to score a hit. The Special Ops troops were deployed in large open-top tubs that were going to try to dive right into the open doors close on the heels of the rockets. The idea was to get human troops into the pyramid before the Wasps had time to close the doors.

The first step of the operation went smoothly as the tubs moved into position. The Wasps apparently recognized this as a threat and opened the doors on all four sides to dump a large number of warrior Wasps into action. As soon as the doors opened, the lasers were lined up and the rockets were fired. Nothing happened! The dampening field must be active and the rocket propellant was not able to ignite.

This did not stop the Special Ops tubs from going in. The were carrying their crossbows just in case this might happen. All four exit doors were hit by the tubs and the troopers jumped into action, leaving their rifles behind. As soon as the troopers had disembarked the landing tubs, the tubs backed up far enough to block the entrances and make sure that the doors could not close. Fortunately, the personal and tub radios worked through the dampening field, so the commanders knew what was going on and could modify the plans in this emergency situation.

The first thing they did was order the tubs with the rockets to back off to a range of two miles. It was hoped that, since these were converted air-to-air missiles, these rockets would have enough range to work at the extended distance. It took only three minutes for the rocket tubs to back off, so they just waited until the troopers were clear of the docks. The Wasps were so surprised that the humans could breach their defenses that they could not properly counter the rush by the humans. The troopers reported by radio that they were clear of the docks, and it was OK to fire the rockets into the docks.

This time the rockets fired and traveled a short distance before the motors quit. However, this complication had been allowed for by firing the rockets to overshoot the pyramid so that gravity would pull them down the same way a mortar round was shot. The electronic guidance system was not affected by the dampening field, so the rockets still tried to home in on the laser designated target. Most of the rockets missed the dock entrance, but two hit in the proper place out of the 32 rockets launched. This was a planned overkill, since Bill was sure that only one rocket warhead would have enough poison to take care of all of the Wasps inside the pyramid.

The impact of the rockets on the docks was enough to elicit a cheer from all of the humans, particularly the Special Ops men who were already engaging the enemy inside the pyramid. Much to their surprise, the humans inside the pyramid found that they had a tactical advantage: the ceiling in the corridors was so low that the wasps had trouble getting turned so that their stingers would reach the humans. The troops reported that their combat knives were nearly as effective at fighting the Wasps as were their crossbows. The Wasps just took longer to die from the knife wounds than they did from the poison, but die they did. On the other hand, very few of the humans were touched by the stingers.

After about 15 minutes, the troopers began reporting finding dead Wasps lying in the corridors. Apparently, the poison was beginning to be effective. It looked like it took longer for poison in the air to kill the Wasps than it did if the poison was injected by a bullet or a bolt. Nevertheless, it looked like the poison was going to work. In an effort to keep the human casualties to a minimum, the troopers were ordered to hold their positions for 30 more minutes to give the poison more time to work.

At the end of that half-hour, the troopers resumed their attack on the pyramid's interior. This time they reported that there were no Wasps alive to fight. To their surprise, the troopers reported that they found ramps leading from level to level within the pyramid, so one-third of the troopers were going up to eliminate any Wasps found there and the rest were going down to the lower levels on the same mission.

There were no more radio reports from the troopers except that they were going to another level. Before long, the troopers who had gone up in the pyramid reported having reached the topmost chamber without encountering a living Wasp. About 20 minutes later, the other group reported that they were at the lowest level of the pyramid and had not encountered a living Wasp. They reported that, as nearly as they could tell, the entire complement of Wasps within the pyramid was dead and the pyramid was secure. Anytime the experts wanted to come inspect the place, they were welcome to visit. However, they were in bad need of a sanitation crew to clear out hundreds of dead Wasps.

The Special Ops troops were ordered to hold their positions while the remaining troops were returned to their former locations. A covering air contingent of tubs was left to maintain security while everybody else was returned to the regular fight against the Wasps. Meanwhile, a couple of airbus loads of experts from the Auburn base were sent on their way to examine the pyramid and try to learn as much as possible from the spoils of the battle.

Dr. Albert (Al) Higgenbotham was one of the "experts" on the first airbus to arrive at the pyramid. Al was a specialist in communications theory and it was hoped that he could puzzle out any written records that could be found. After all, life would be a whole lot easier for the investigators if they could find instruction books or training manuals on all of the strange gadgets they hoped to find.

Al had a group of four assistants, three of whom had been his students, and the fourth had an uncanny ability to associate ideas and concepts. Ima Hogg buried herself behind a mask of oblivious unconcern, while her genius churned out answers to problems in real time. She hated her name, and it certainly didn't fit her ravishing face and figure, but her grandmother was named Ima, and it had been a family tradition for over 200 years that a girl in the family carried the name in every generation. Ima was the unlucky one in her generation. She insisted that everybody call her Jill.

The troopers had found what looked like a library, so that was where Al and his crew headed. The books were there on rack after rack, at this stage it was impossible to know which were the important ones. The five members of the group went down the racks pulling books out at random and looking at them to see if there might be some obvious clue as to the organization of the library. They did this for about an hour and then met to discuss what they had seen, so far. It was the consensus that the books could not have all come from the same source, since there did not seem to be any factor or factors that tied them together.

It was as if somebody had gathered text books in English, scrolls in ancient Chinese, clay tablets in Cuniform, etc., etc. and put them all together in one library. Jill listened to the others talk about what they had seen and added her own observations to produce a profound thought, "It looks to me like the Wasps have taken technology from many different cultures, possibly different planets, and simply stuck the books in here for safe keeping until somebody gets around to translating them into a common language."