Chapter 9

There was no question in anybody's mind that Freya must continue scouring the galaxy for Wasps. Until they found otherwise, they had to assume that they were the only beings capable of halting the Wasp menace and cleaning up after them. That was the thought when the first of the unmanned spacetubs (very logically called USTs) was delivered to Freya. The USTs had the same capabilities as the regular spacetubs, except that they were flown by pilots who were located on Earth and were controlling the USTs by FTLR.

The people of Freya did not completely trust the USTs to be as effective as the normal spacetubs, so it was decided that they would operate as wingmen for the onboard-piloted spacetubs until they had proved themselves. Everybody in command agreed that this was the prudent thing to do, so that was the plan as soon as more Wasps were encountered.

The first encounter happened only a few hours after this deployment decision was made. Freya popped into real space at a planetary system just as the first pyramids were beginning their approach to the third planet, again dubbed by the Family as Loki III; Loki had become the routine temporary designation for a system until they had a chance to give it a formal name.

The spacetubs and USTs were launched at the pyramids closest to the planet with the intention of preventing even an initial landing. As the Family fighters approached the pyramids, defensive guns began firing and the first spaceworthy Wasp fighters seemed to pour from the pyramids.

Initially only 20 flights of three-each spacetubs and USTs had been launched, as this would have been enough to defeat the five pyramids if the attack had gone as all previous ones had. However, 100 of the Wasp fighters had been launched, so the fight was going to be more even than had originally been expected. The Family fighters bore in at the pyramids, mistakenly assuming that they were the more important target.

This mistake let the Wasps swarm against the attackers and knock a majority out of the fight. The result was that the Wasps continued to outnumber the Family, fighter for fighter, and something had to be done, immediately. The replicator aboard Freya began turning out USTs as fast as it could, and pilots on Earth took up the fight. So many USTs were produced that some of the pilots were only partly trained, but this was not so bad, since they were not killed even when their USTs were destroyed.

The partly trained pilots learned fast, and any defeated Family pilot simply jumped to the controls of a new UST if he lost the one he was in. If nothing more, the new pilots diluted the efforts of the Wasps, so even the least experienced UST pilot served a useful purpose.

When the Family woke up to the fact that they needed to defeat the Wasp fighters first, before attacking the pyramids, the resulting melee caused the USTs to be accepted into the fighters' fraternity without reservation. It was decided that the pilots aboard Freya would shift to USTs as soon as they could—it was stupid to endanger lives when it was not necessary.

Once the Wasp fighters were defeated, and this was inevitable because new USTs could be duplicated, but new Wasps could not, the pyramids were disabled and pitched into the local star per SOP. This fight had taken place in full view of the people on the ground, and they were ready to fight the Family as the spacetubs approached the planet.

Here were the octopus-like beings who had started all of the trouble by innocently landing an exploration ship on the planet of Salor III. Initially, all that the groundlings had seen was a bunch of ships attacking a spaceship of their outdated design. They no longer used the pyramid shape, but still had records of the design, so they had no trouble recognizing it.

The Octopuses still did not have FTL flight beyond about 12 light-years, so they had a small empire, but were very proud of it and wanted no interference. When the diplomatic team was able to talk to them, they thanked the Family for fighting on their behalf, but insisted that they could have handled the problem by themselves if they had been given the chance.

Furthermore, they were not interested in joining a Family of ruffians and wanted to be left alone, thank you. They were sure that they were superior to all other life in the galaxy, and, had it been possible, would have built a wall around their empire to keep the barbarians out. This reminded the humans of the Chinese Empire and the Great Wall of China. Oh, well, the Octopuses were not needed by the Family, so they were left in peace to wallow in their own superiority until they died of it.

Icktal was abandoned by Freya and a quick jump was made to the next potential problem on the list.

Freya was no longer needed for the preliminary surveys, so a different SOP was established. A single UST made an FTL jump to a potential problem site and performed a quick survey to get the general lay of the land. This way, hundreds of planetary systems could be surveyed at one time, something impossible when Freya had to be on scene for each survey. It was not considered safe to sent out a regular spacetub on its own, but a UST was expendable, if necessary, and the pilot was in no danger. This way, many planetary systems were screened and divided into three categories: Wasps were there or nearly so; the planet was not troubled by Wasps, but should be visited in case they wanted to join the Family; and the system was uninhabited. This SOP seemed so rational that Dagda, Thor, Odin, and Vali undertook the same procedure.

Within a few days, 37 planetary systems were identified as being in immediate need of help, so Freya jumped to the first one on the list. This was another one of those systems that had suffered under the Wasps for a long time. The advantage for the Family was that these Wasps were not advanced enough to have an air force of fighters. Tanktubs and USTs were sent in and quickly established that the sentients on this planet were long gone. Most of the Wasps were eliminated with the sprayers and the few that weren't were picked off by the rockets.

There were still some animals left, so there was hope that the ecology would recover without the Wasps to interfere. The empty pyramids were left in case somebody ever needed them. It appeared that the former sentient residents were not very advanced, so the Family was not surprised when they did not find any signs of native technology; thus, there were no books to be salvaged.

The next five planetary systems that Freya visited were pretty much a repeat of that first system where the Wasps had been around for a while. There was nothing to show for the "fumigation" of these five planets except for the satisfaction of ridding the galaxy of more dangerous pests. As Nils said, "I'm beginning to believe that Orkin Man joke was not so far off the target. Dammit, it's depressing to find that no matter what you do, you're just killing bugs. I wish we could find somebody to rescue!"

It took a year to cover the remaining 31 planetary systems and get rid of the Wasps. Routine had settled in to the point that pilots and other Freya crew members were being rotated home for some R&R.

Nils only had time to spend three nights with his girlfriend when he got the emergency recall. Freya had been attacked in deep space, and the attackers were not Wasps!

Freya had been parked in a segment of space free of planetary systems and virtually free of stars. She was sitting there patiently waiting while scouting missions were being run by her spacetubs and USTs. Out of the blue, as it were, 126 fighters had swarmed at her and done some significant damage before she had been able to accelerate to light speed and escape. All of the spacetubs were alerted and ordered home to Earth; Freya was going to need some significant rebuilding before she could return to deep space.

An unknown enemy in deep space was a subject for long and acrimonious debate in the halls of government. There were three sides, of course. One side wanted to recall all ships and to build an impenetrable defensive wall around Earth. Another side wanted to send envoys to try to find out why Freya was attacked. A third side wanted to hunt down the attackers and treat them the same way as the Salorans had been treated: annihilation.