Sodality: Vindication

Season Five...

Plot
The still-living Phaletori leader and his followers convene with their remaining Centhuen army at an Icy Finger secret base location to finalize a truce. It is discussed that the information about the Sodality of Gerosha leaked to the Society of the Icy Finger by Jim Oisdaat is all the info necessary to begin plotting their revenge.

Meanwhile, Shing Xu and Mingmei Cheng are having sex when Shing decides to inform Mingmei that their next mission had come in from Beijing - and that neither of them was going to like it. Mingmei discusses with Shing how she feels the same conscience pains as Miriam, and wants to meet with Wilbur Brocklyn about officially making her conversion to Christianity public. Shing reminds her that it would require both of them to abstain from then on until Beijing gives them the clear to marry, and Mingmei argues that it would be a small price to pay - that the final evening would be one she would "make count" until they could have another. She also reminds Shing that given his official status as her boss, they shouldn't be having a sexual relationship anyway due to it being unprofessional. Shing tells her that he too would like to visit Wilbur; but that he's afraid public conversion would be seen by their MSS superiors as an act of treason. She tells him that there are far worse things than being on the MSS' bad side. She finally lets slip to Shing that her greatest fear in life is that she is sterile - that she might never know Miriam's happiness at having children.

As the couple turns on the TV, they receive world news about the Beliah Amendments to the Tom Kirby Act, with the original act having been passed in 2015 - a full 11 years earlier. SCALLOP was embroiled in controversy, as the Beliah amendments were unconstitutional but were being enforced anyway. They made a special exemption for Meethexos; but declared that all Phexos and Marlquaanites were to be second-class citizens without breeding rights. Both sides of the issue had heated arguments. Both agreed that creating human-animal hybrids was morally wrong; but disagreed on what to do with those who had already been created by the Phaelites. Marlquaanites were of issue simply because their Marlquaan bonds made them so inherently dangerous.