[DELETED]

[Asymptotic]

And I replied in turn, "You don't always have to repulse the ladies, you know. Maybe try leaving the wife a gift of goodwill next time!"

We laughed. Once we arrived at our rendezvous with some camaraderie of ours we'd be able to snuff these piggy police with but a flick of the wrist.

That brought me back to my old days in Rheinland... My family had been a reluctant assimilant into the strange, warlike, industrious people, only weeks before the sleeper ships finally left for orbit. Though my people had been harassed by hers for millenia, we trusted in her equally as long tradition of workmanship. And it had turned out that the superior metalworking enabled my ancestors to survive...

But I was suddenly snapped back to attention when we were intercepted at the end of the trade lane. These pigs would have no such chance as my predecessors did.