I remember when I was a little girl.

I asked my dad, what was the worst smell in the whole galaxy?

He told me about a livestock colony he visited as a young man,

one of those places that grows the kind of meat that they advertised to health nuts as non-synthetic,

raised outdoors.

The reality was revolting.

Cattle packed in shoulder to shoulder all the way to the horizon.

They were jammed so tight, feeder bots outfitted with buggy wheels, literally drove across

their backs.

The air was thick with flies and disease, and the stench of

cows that got sick and died where they stood, their meat putrefying under the red sun.

He described it all so vividly. It felt like I was there. And when I was growing up, I was so proud that my dad had smelled the worst smell in the galaxy.

But of course he hadn't, because he hadn't smelled the inside of a Kigiar pirate ship.

Let me go!

Please don't antagonize the bird monster!

They dragged us through the belly of their ship.

The walls and flora were covered with years of soot.

Juano, purple, blood, everything kicked so thick, it took on an almost cave-like texture.

Baby, what are they saying?

They're taking you to the airlock just up ahead.

Are we going to die?

That is a likely scenario.

...