We had opened the suitcase our Hiver backers had given us soon after we arrived at our room. It gave off a low hum that somehow acted as a password to the encrypted safe bolted to the floor of the room. There was not much there- Some tee-shirts with the Hiverās corporate logo on it, Name tags, pens with their logo. The only drones in it were low tech flyers armed with tee-shirt cannons. āHi, would you like to be an example of the future of Hiver-Kākree relations?ā The drone asked in a cute, friendly, mechanical voice. āThis is a self-dressing tee-shirt. Smart fibers and micro motors in the fabric let the shirt slip onto you without any effort on your part. Have a nice day.ā
The Hivers had sent Jack and I to act as their representatives. After the last war between the two races, they never interacted with each other directly. There was too much mutual distrust. As humans we were considered a neutral third party.
The whole idea was foolish at best. Jack was expected to do most of the talking while I stood there in a bikini. Jack couldnāt speak the Kākree language, while I could. Jack was an expert on robotics, I had a pair of PhDs in linguistics and xenobiology but the only thing the recruiter had cared about was my pair of D cups. Of course, the Kākree had no interest in human women. Most of them would likely not even be able to tell the difference between a human male or female.
I had checked into it before we left, assuming some sexist pig of a man had made the decision, it turned out the Hivers had used an AI for their marketing strategy. The AI had found that on the human populated world where they got their marketing data, having a human female with D cups in a pink bikini standing next to their droids had sold far more robots than any other strategy.
The Kākree were militant vegan centaurs. They had waged a genocidal war against carnivores that had lasted centuries and swept across hundreds of worlds. They abhorred meat and anything that ate meat, feeling that it reminded them of death and decay.
The Hivers were some of the smartest Sophonts in known space. With six manipulative tentacles and six eye stalks, they looked somewhat like a starfish. Unfortunately, they had the moral compass of unsupervised 13 year olds.
The Hivers had finally defeated the Kākree empire decades ago by secretly feeding the Kākree dead Kākree warriors mixed in with their food. It was such a taboo the Kākree had called off the war and retreated a few parsecs away, inviting humans to settle the worlds in between as a sort of buffer.
The robot, drone, and droid trade show started the next day. We had assumed the safe would be filled with examples of the latest models of Hiver manufactured drones. āWhatever.ā I shrugged wondering how we would sell the Kākree on the latest high tech Hiver drones if we didnāt even have examples āLetās get few drinks on our corporate tab before calling it a night.ā
We woke up the next morning to the smell of bacon.
We were able to find 17 separate objects in just the domicile we were staying in, that reeking of bacon. All of them had been manufactured from the same corporation. We started to understand what a problem it was when we realized the corporation manufactured everything from cloths to home building material to advanced robots and electronics to spaceship components. Every product they had manufactured at any point in the last decade all started reeking of bacon at the same time, on the same day. Based on the news reports, this was happening on at least 15 other worlds.
The corporation headquarters was based on a human world, but I knew it owned by the same Hiver controlled front company that had hired Jack and I. āThis was clearly the work of the Hivers, it was not an accident.ā Jack whispered to me, worry clear on his brow.
Being on a Kākree world I knew at once this was going to be a problem but I did not foresee at the time how big a problem it would become. Everything smelled of bacon. It was not the best way to start a trade mission, but Jack and I had gone through worse. The Hivers were paying us good credits to represent them and their business interests. Our mission was part of some larger plan, in the words of our Hiver backers āto get as much as possible from the Kākree with as low or no cost.ā
Within half an hour we had been able to buy up most of the worker drones and other robots being sold by our competitors cheap. The Kākree wanted them gone given that they now reeked of death. Then the public alarm system came on and the Kākree went from being upset and skittish to outright insane. I watched Kākree throwing themselves through the glass windows of the pavilion in an effort to get outside as quickly as possible.
Outside was pure pandemonium. Kākree were running naked through the streets in blind panic, their horse like fear-shits piled everywhere in great clusters. They had ripped their bacon smelling clothes off in an effort to escape the smell. Most of them were screaming in terror.
I was not wearing much more. Trying to move at a quick pace in a bikini top and high heels is not easy at the best of times. Trying to do it in what was quickly becoming a war zone was impossible.
I watched in horror as one of the tee-shirt drones we had brought with us flew low over the crowd. āHi, Would you like to be an example of the future of Hiver-Kākree relations?ā its friendly voice asked before firing a bacon scented smart tee-shirt directly into the face of some frightened Kākree. It immediately tried to crawl onto her. The Kākree screamed as she tried to claw it off. The shirt started wrapping itself around her wrist, clinging to her with what appeared to be considerable strength as she fought it off unsuccessfully. āHave a nice day.ā The drone cheerfully added before flying on to its next victim.
I ran to her aid. āMaybe we can help each other.ā I tried to explain trying to pull the smart shirt off her. The bikini top was not a bra, it offered no support to my breasts, I was bouncing with every step. A tee shirt would not be much better but at least I would be covered. For a split second most of the shirt twisted its self around me, latching onto what little I was wearing. I just exhaled a sigh of relief when suddenly the Kākree woman bolted, smart shirt still clinging to her wrist. And⦠I was naked.
Naked in a pair of high heel shoes on a strange world. Naked in the middle of the street with buildings on fire on both sides of the road. Naked in front of a man I barely knew. Naked in front of hundreds of pairs of alien eyes. Naked and terribly scared. I started crying. I could feel the big hot ugly tears slowly running down my cheeks.
I felt Jackās dress shirt slide over my bare shoulders. It still had his body heat which felt so good over my goose bumped flesh in the cool morning air. It smelled of his cologne, his manly scent, and of course the ever present bacon. āThanksā I muttered as slipped into the shirt. I watched him, Jack politely looked the other way as I dressed. He could have tried to sneak a peek but instead had respected my boundaries and personal space.
The Kākree communication differed greatly from humans. Where humans use sound alone, Kākree communication used both sound and smell. Once the public alert system had switched on it had turned into a disaster as the non-verbal pheromone base system had been produced by the same corporation as everything else that reeked of bacon. At the moment the system was pumping the stench of bacon directly into every part of the city. The bacon stink was so intense it drowned out the smell of anything else. In human terms it would be the equivalent of a public address message stating āWarning the city is under attack by scary monsters. To stay safe go at once toā¦ā and then just have monsters howling so loudly it drowns out every other sound.
āComputer! Directions to the nearest police station.ā Jack asked his smart phone.
āEvery police station with 40 minutes walking distance is currently on fire.ā The phone replied in its cute, friendly, mechanical voice. āWould you like directions to the nearest restaurant selling bacon?ā