Chapter 6

The Oolsans were welcomed into the new interstellar family that was forming. They did not have much more to contribute beyond the sample of Inklus' piss, since their body shape did not lend itself well to fitting into a spacetub. Nevertheless, they were given equal rights along with everybody else and were provided with replicators so that they could move into a more comfortable living standard.

The invading Wasps had been easily eliminated, since they had just arrived and had not had time to establish themselves. Most of the spaceships were still in orbit, so their propulsion systems were quickly destroyed and the pyramids were pitched into the sun. The few that were already on the ground were mopped up by the spacetubs spraying the new version of the poison, though the Oolsans were not too happy when they found out that they were being sprayed with piss!

AI had very little trouble working out the vector that the pyramids had been riding when they showed up at Oosla, so Freya was quickly on the trail for some more Wasps.

They had jumped to a planetary system that was almost bare of planets, but both of the planets they found fit within the parameters the Wasps seemed to search for. One planet had 22% oxygen and the other had 21% oxygen with a mixture of nitrogen and inert gases making up the remainder, except for about 0.2% carbon dioxide in both cases. This was not much carbon dioxide for an industrialized society, so they were not sure what to expect.

Even more surprises were in store when they got close to the outer planet. Two pyramids took off on an intercept course. What the hell!?! This had never happened before. Had the Wasps suddenly gotten smart? Freya had sent in a number of spacetubs to attack the two pyramids when AI suddenly called for them to lay off. AI did not yet know what was in the pyramids, but it was NOT Wasps!

The pyramids pulled back when the spacetubs did, so a diplomatic team was hurriedly sent out in a larger tub to try to communicate with the pyramids. The translator was able to communicate with the beings in the pyramids; an agreement was reached to allow the diplomatic team to land and discuss the situation.

Within a few hours of landing, the diplomatic team had a preliminary agreement of friendship between the locals and the Family, as they had started calling themselves. The Vagols looked amazingly like humans as long as they were fully dressed, but no human wanted to see them without a shirt—their skin looked like the skin of a common garden slug, slimy and wrinkled.

The story of the Wasp invasion of Vagol was similar to what had happened on Earth. The Vagols had driven off the Wasps after the Wasps had initially conquered most of the planet. However, a Vagol chemist had developed a gas which killed the Wasps quickly enough to give them the edge they needed. Their battle had taken a few twists similar to what the humans had enjoyed, such that the Vagols had captured a pyramid very early in the war, so they had access to a replicator when they most needed it.

The Vagols had worked out some of the offensive capabilities of the pyramid while they were still fighting the Wasps. They found how to use the guns mounted on the sides of the pyramid and duplicated enough of them to mount them on fliers that they already had. These guns fired a target-seeking bullet that was able to track a laser-designated aiming point. It was overkill when used against an individual Wasp, but nobody cared as long as they had the replicator to make more bullets.

The Vagols had not yet deciphered the mysteries of the antigravity belts, so they were delighted to get that knowledge. Access to the translator and to AI put them solidly in the Family's camp. They immediately set out to copy the tubs in all of their forms and soon had their own formidable air force. The Vagols had nothing especially useful to the Family, but it was still good to have friends in this part of the galaxy.

The inner planet of the system was a marked contrast to Vagol. The Vagols called the planet Inrha. It was different in that it was a desert planet, except for the oceans covering a lot of its area. There was no life on its surface, though the Vagols said that there was life in the oceans. It appeared that the Wasps had looked at Inrha, but had abandoned it because there were no life forms there for them to exploit.

Vagol was taking advantage of the technology they had captured from the Wasps to investigate Inrha, but had not decided when to try to colonize the planet. They probably would occupy Inhra after they had rebuilt their own planet, but that was an indefinite time in the future.

Freya remained in the vicinity of Vagol for the few days necessary to dump all of their knowledge into AI. It wasn't that the Vagols didn't have a lot of information, it was just that AI could absorb it so fast. A number of scanners and FTLRs were assigned to the task, and the people of Vagol were able to supply AI with what it wanted in a short time.

When that job was finished, Freya left on a course following the vector the Vagols speculated that the Wasps had followed to arrive at their planet. They had to travel nearly 22 light-years to find a planetary system that would meet Wasp requirements. Hadron IV was an oxygen/nitrogen planet that looked promising, so they veered toward it.

Scouts reported the presence of Wasps in great numbers. The host incubator for the Wasps was a six-legged creature about the size of a small cow. Sensors indicated that these hosts were not sentient. It might have been that the Wasps had used up all of the sentient hosts and been forced to use the current creatures instead. The entomologists who studied the sensor results reported that these Wasps were not identical to either of the two varieties that the Family had previously seen, though they appeared to be closely related.

A second flight of scouts sent to Hadron IV had dipped very close to the atmosphere, as this had been a safe maneuver on all previous encounters with the Wasps. However, this flight of scouts was in for a rude surprise. Suddenly, a swarm of 33 craft attacked the scouts, killing all of them, though several of the enemy were lost in the fight. The scouts were recovered by use of the recall mechanism that had been installed to call back errant teenage pilots when the fighting was still going strong on Earth.

Assuming that the attacking vessels were piloted by Wasps, this was the first time that Wasps had attacked with anything but their bare bodies or with a full-size pyramid. The attacking vessels must have been powered by modified antigravity belts or something similar, since they were shaped very much like cylinders with a point at each end and had no visible means of propulsion. If that was true, then these Wasps had to be a hell of a lot smarter than any the Family had previously met. If that turned out to be true, then life was going to get a whole lot more interesting and exciting in the near future, especially if there were more of them.

Freya backed away a bit while the problem was considered in detail and consultations were held with Earth. Also, there was the problem of notifying next-of-kin of the death of their relatives. This was an aspect of command that had never arisen before on Freya.

The decision was made to send in 33 flights of three spacetubs in waves to see how the Wasps would react. A second group of the same number of spacetubs was sent to act as cover and support if the first group ran into more trouble than it could handle. If this attack turned into a disaster, a second battle carrier, Dagda, would be dispatched to help in the fight. Surely, over 2,000 spacetubs would be enough to defeat the Wasps.

The spacetubs were sent to Hadron IV as planned. Nils, Han'lic, and David were in the leading flight. They were a little bit apprehensive, since they didn't know what they would be facing. This was nothing like what they had seen before. Nils led them in on the lower sweep just a few miles inside the atmosphere. Other flights were covering higher sweeps up to a few miles outside the nominal atmosphere.