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Author's Note:
Dear Readers,
You are the driving force behind my writing journey. Your comments not only encourage me to improve but also inspire me to forge ahead and craft the next chapters of this story.
Recap:
Ari embarks on a mission to a distant planet with the urgent task of locating her colleague and friend, Gabby. What she discovers upon arrival is nothing short of shocking: Gabby has been reduced to a pony girl serving the Goblins. Determined to reconnect with her friend, Ari skillfully negotiates with the Goblins, securing some precious time with Gabby. They escape to a local inn, where Gabby begins to recount the harrowing tale of her experiences since she arrived on this planet.
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Ari and I were sitting on the bed, both playing with the soft pillows as I started my story.
As you may recall, I went to a top secret meeting in GC area headquarters before I left. Sorry I could not tell you about the mission as it was classified and on a need-to-know basis. Since you are here now, I guess you have the clearance so no need for me to hide anything from my boss now.
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Ari smiled and asked me to continue
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Since you were out, Katherine had asked me to take your place in the speaker debate series about "GC Feminism vs Patriarchy in Musly society" as a guest speaker. I tried to wiggle out of this but she was insistent. I spoke after Andrew Tateson. He babbled on and on how patriarchy has benefited the Musly society. He spouting the usual nonsense how our society is going down the drain because we do not prioritize what nature offers. I tuned him out after first few minutes.
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Ari exclaimed "oh I am sorry you had to listen to him. You know he is spiritual successor to the representative from Rotterham. I won't be surprised if he ran for election next time. I am surprised that there are still folks in GC who would support his misogynists views. He has huge following on the Unisphere. I had a run in with him earlier. I am not sure if he just puts on an act or really believes the bullshit that comes out of his mouth. He once told me that I would make an awesome harem slave. Can you believe that?". "He is a misogynist pig. I told him so before the debate". I agreed and continued with my story.
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After finishing my talk, the graduate students were asking all sort of questions. I did my best to answer the questions but I am not you and I am not sure if I did a good job. One of the female student asked "We all hear about the patriarchal society that is the foundation of Musly religion. Half of their population is subjugated and relegated to sub human standards. Despite this, they are almost on par with GC as far as technology is concerned. Some may argue that they have better technology than us. How would you reconcile this fact?". We had similar discussions earlier, if you recall so this was not a difficult question. Before I could answer though, I was called to office.
I was excited when Michelle told me that our section head - Sabrina - you remember her right? .. had specifically asked for me by name. I did not know what the mission was nor did I care much as I was eager to get on with next mission. As I went into the meeting to meet with Sabrina in high spirits. Sabrina was waiting for me when I walked into the conference room. There were three other people in the room. Michelle was there off course and there were two other guys I had not met before. Michelle did the introductions. She introduced the the first well built man as Roger Kruger - head of internal security for our section of GC. The other one she introduced as Mo Mustaf but did not give his designation or rank. He was older man about fifty years old with a scar on his cheek. I figured he was from civilian oversight committee or something going by the way he was dressed and his chubby figure. After the brief introductions, Roger took over the conversation. He informed that one of his agents had intercepted communication between the Musly high command and their operative on Delta Colony on New Jupiter. Apparently, the planet of Ayers in the Skrish system, has abundance of dilithium ores in almost pure state. As you know we have shortage of dilithium in GC and they are essential for our FTL drives. Roger told us that he was not sure how the Muslys found this information about the dilithium ores. Since learning about this, GC had sent unmanned stealth probes to Ayers and confirmed this information. Rogers continued telling us that the Muslys were discussing plans to absorb Ayers in their dominion. Luckily for us, Ayers is closer to our borders in the neutral zone in the Gamma sector than it is to them. They will have to fly through the Suplar belt to reach there which will take then at least 3 earth standard years even with their superior FTL tech. We can reach there within a month.
He then went on to give what little information they had about the Ayers - which wasn't much at all. All he knew was that Ayers had been flagged as pre-industrial planet in the last survey that was conducted about 50 earth standard years ago. The next survey was not due for another 50 earth standard years. Since the civilization on Ayers was classified as Level 1 - GC could not reveal themselves to the planet, nor could they use any technology more advanced than what the sentient on the planet had developed. During the last survey, GC had records of Goblin like sentient species. They seemed to be the dominant species on that planet. Nothing more was learnt from the survey as the stealth craft that was doing the survey had to be called back on an emergency due to the Suriskh war with the Musly dominion.