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Kadar? The time is almost near.”
    “Time?”
    She batted her long lashes and gave me a coy smile.
    “Oh.” I snapped my fingers. “
That
time.”
    “I have our conjoining bed already prepared. There is a lock on the door that will not open again for nine days once we are inside. The pantry is stocked. I have your cocktail materials ready. Are you ready, Kadar?”
    “That is me — Ready Freddy.”
    “Ready Freddy? Is that a term you borrow from the Humans with whom you associate?”
    “I do not associate with Humans.”
    “You are in their military.”
    “It is our military as well as theirs.”
    “Then why are you not an officer? Answer me that.”
    “I do not want to quarrel with you, Mina Li.”
    “Yes. Politics is not for lovers. Politics will work themselves out.”
    She ordered a Coca Cola from the barkeep. “Coke says it best,” she said.
    Humans didn’t need weapons to conquer the universe. Not when they had Coca Cola, Wrangler jeans, Chevrolet hovercraft and Ford Fanger Sky Rovers.
Coke Says It Best
. The slogan was emblazoned on the cloud cover so that when the smog cleared out and you looked up, that was what you saw.
Coke Says It Best
.
    What did it say best?
    “You are ear-flicking,” Mina Li noticed. “You are excited about our conjoining?”
    “Excited.”
    She looked disappointed, sipping on her Coke. Her tail waved above her head, then caressed the back of my neck in a sensuous manner.
    “I have an appointment next week to remove my tail,” she blurted out.
    “Why would you do that?”
    “So you will not be ashamed of me. I will look very good in tight jeans.”
    “Mina Li, I am not ashamed of you. It is just that …”
    “Just what?”
    I didn’t understand what it was just.
    “Just that you are more Human than Zentadon,” she accused. “I have seen you look at the Human females with their tight little no-tail asses and their round no-ears that they have to move with their fingers.”
    Here we went again. I tuned her out. All I wanted was a bracing cocktail and a good mope before I had to prepare for the mission.
    “I will conjoin with Mishal,” she threatened finally. “Would you like that?”
    “That would be fine.”
    “You would let me?”
    “How could I stop you if that is what you want?”
    “Mishal has a tail and he is proud of it,” she scolded. “He is very brave.”
    “He is a terrorist and will likely die before breeding season.”
    “He is a Homelander patriot,” she flared. “He has learned to use taa so that it will not destroy him.”
    She turned her back to me and sulkily sipped on her Coca Cola. The tip of her tail lashed reprovingly against the back of my head.
    “He has dedicated tonight’s mission in my honor,” she added, intending to make me jealous. “He would be exclusive with me if I say yes.”
    I snatched her tail away from my head and held it. “What mission are you talking about?”
    “It is none of your affair, Kadar. You have turned your back on your people. When the dreadnought explodes at its docking …”
    She caught herself, realizing in the middle of the sentence that she had said too much. Mina Lee was never the brightest coin in the fountain. The USS
Admiral Tsutsumi
had arrived earlier in the day. Although not yet official, it was assumed in SpecOps that it arrived in order to transport a DRT to a reconnaissance of a potential or actual Blob base site. DRT-213 was the next intended activation unit.
    I looped Mina Li’s tail around in front of her and gave it a yank to spin her face to my face. I gripped her shoulders.
    “Mina Li, you are going to tell me about this mission. Understand?”

C·H·A·P·T·E·R
 
FIVE
    T he Zentadon Homeland Movement enjoyed at least the passive support of many Zentadon both on our home planet of Ganesh, now garrisoned by the Humans instead of the Indowy who once occupied us, and here on Galaxia where we flourished as a considerable minority settlement. I thought of going to Commander