Planet of the Titans

Chapter 5

Earlier that day, after Leo had escaped and was heading back toward the camp, but before he got back, Rikki looked at Tyler as he stood on the dining room table, next to Nolan, Jace and Trevor. "So you're a pro tennis player on your home world?"

"I might be!" said Tyler.

"He is!" said Trevor. "On the version of Earth that I come from, everyone has heard of Tyler Chen! He must've came from a world that is an analog of mine! If he plays for you, it's a guarantee that he'll win some game pieces for you!"

"You're just their little minion, aren't you?" said Nolan.

"I've found it pays to serve the giants well!" said Trevor. "The sooner you realize that, the better off you'll be!"

"I still plan on getting back to Earth somehow!" said Nolan.

"It'll never happen!" said Trevor. "No tiny has ever escaped back to their home-world! It hasn't happened in the history of Thanatar, and they've been conquering alternate realities for thousands of years!"

"Yeah!" said Jace. "What makes you think you'll be the first?"

The next morning, back at the camp, Leo was sleeping in. He was catching up on some much needed rest. By walking back from Rikki's house and making two round trips there and back again, he had walked and jogged ninety miles in one twenty-four hour period, and it had caught up with him.

Mason, Carmen, and Natalie were sitting around contemplating their options.

"I guess I could get back to the campus and try to see if there's some way to refuel the Thunderbolt!" said Mason.

"You'd better wait until Leo wakes up," said Carmen. "He's in charge of our welfare."

"Do you think we really have a chance to ever get back to Earth?" Natalie asked.

"To be honest, it doesn't look good!" said Mason. "But Leo wants to keep trying until we've exhausted all of our possibilities."

Mason snapped a twig in half that he had been holding in his hands and tossed it into the stream. "I think I'd better do some recon and try to spy on Darian and Zima, and try to see if I can find anything out." Mason stood up and began to walk away. "When Leo wakes up, tell him where I went!"

"Mason, I don't think Leo will be happy when he wakes up and finds out that you've left!" said Carmen. "We already lost Nolan because he took action without the consent of the captain, then we lost Tyler on a rescue mission to retrieve Nolan! We don't need to lose you, too!"

"If I don't do anything, we won't be any better off," said Mason. "At least if I go try to spy on Darian, I can find out if there's a chance of refueling the Thunderbolt and using Darian's technology to get us home!"

"Mason, Carmen's right!" said Natalie. "We'd be lost without you! We can't afford to have you get captured!" Natalie tried to use her body to block Mason's path. Mason held her in his arms.

"Don't worry about me!" said Mason. "I won't get caught, I'm not as stupid as your brother Nolan! Trust me, I'll be back!" Mason grabbed Natalie by the shoulders and gently pushed her aside, and stepped around her.

Mason walked toward the trail that led to the road. He remembered how to get back to the University campus, so he followed the procedure and stayed in the gutters and tried to lay low. It took a couple of hours, but he got to the campus without getting caught. Now he just had to make his way to the building where Darian was keeping the Thunderbolt. He saw that the cord they had climbed down had been removed, but the door was open. He hid behind the front of the door and tried to listen. Mason could see the Thunderbolt on a table top. Peeking inside, Mason could see Darian and Zima were in between classes and Darian was adjusting some equipment.

"With this interface," said Darian, "we can use the crew and passenger manifest to run the names of the captives through this space warp Internet scanning technology; we can check the Internet of their own world to find out who they are and what skills they have!"

Several read-outs appeared on the screen in front of Darian. One of them interested Darian.

"It says here that Tyler Chen is a world renowned tennis champion! If I can get him back, we can't lose on Arcadia!"

"But what if he's already been captured by someone else by now?" Zima asked.

"Then we'll just have to go to Arcadia and claim him if anyone tries to register him as a game piece!"

"Did you register him as your own game piece when you took the captives to Arcadia?" Zima asked.

"Yes, of course!" said Darian. "So if someone tries to register him, I'll find out! There's also something I'm not telling you, Zima! I have a secret plan for getting all the captives back!"

"What did you do?" Zima asked.

"You'll find out later this afternoon!" said Darian.

Mason overheard the entire conversation, and decided that he had heard enough. He made his way off campus and returned to the camp, where Leo was awake sitting with Carmen and Natalie.

"I found something out!" said Mason. "Darian has something up her sleeve, and she plans on capturing us again later this afternoon!"

"How is she going to catch us?" Leo asked.

"I don't know," replied Mason, "I overheard her telling Zima, but she didn't reveal all of her plans to Zima yet. And she also found out that Tyler Chen is a pro tennis player!"

Leo cursed and shook his fist in the air. "Damn! Now he'll be used as a game piece by her for sure!"

"That other giantess already captured him, and she's probably going to use him as a game piece," said Natalie.

"Yes, but as soon as she does, Darian will go to Arcadia and retrieve him because she registered all of us already!" said Mason. "I heard her explaining that to Zima.

Meanwhile, back at Rikki's house, Rikki was planning on taking Tyler to Arcadia. She took Nolan along with her also, and her friend Britney came along with her in Rikki's shuttle cruiser, and she brought her two captives, Jace and Trevor.

"We can't lose with Tyler as my game piece!" said Rikki as she piloted the shuttle cruiser up through the clouds and into space. The Arcadia space station could be seen in the distance on the view screen. It only took a few minutes to reach Arcadia. Rikki parked her shuttle cruiser, and took Nolan and Tyler in her hands and carried them to the registration office.

"There's a problem," said the woman in the office.

"What's the problem?" Rikki asked.

"This game piece has a quantum signature that matches the one already registered to Darian Wagner! I'm notifying her now."

"But this game piece escaped from her!" said Rikki. "If I re-captured him, shouldn't I be entitled to a payment of some kind?"

"I'll let you negotiate with her about that!" said the woman.

Meanwhile, back on campus, Darian received a call from Arcadia.

"So they captured him?" Darian asked. "I'll be right there!" Darian put her phone away and turned toward Zima. "They captured Tyler Chen! We're going to Arcadia!"

Darian and Zima got into Darian's shuttle cruiser and took off into the sky, flying at a forty-five degree angle through the clouds. The blue sky soon gave away to the blackness of space, and they closed in on the Arcadia space station. Within minutes, they were parked and Darian, followed by Zima, headed to the registration office.

The office worker introduced Darian to Rikki.

"I captured two of your game pieces!" said Rikki. "Do I get a reward?"

"I'll tell you what," said Darian, "we'll set Tyler up with a match, and you can keep ten percent of the winnings!"

"That sounds good to me!" said Rikki, and the two women shook hands.

Before long, a match was set up, and Darian bet a lot of money on Tyler to win. Tyler was in his element, the game they played was very similar to tennis, and he only needed a brief orientation before he played his match. The racquets were made of an energy field, and the ball was made of an energy that reacted to and was repelled by the energy field on the racquet.

Tyler got busy and smashed his opponent. The opponent was just a guy who had been good at tennis back on his home world, but was no match for a seasoned pro like Tyler. When the game was over, Darian went to retrieve Tyler, but he shouted, "I want to play some more!"

Darian decided to let him keep playing. The next match was played against another man who was considered good, but he also was no pro. Tyler defeated him with ease. After playing three matches and dispatching three opponents with relative ease, Darian decided that he had played enough games for one day.

Darian cashed her game card and gave ten percent of her winnings to Rikki by plugging both cards into a machine and conducting the transfer. As Darian got up to leave with Tyler, Nolan, and her three other captives that she had just won, Rikki stopped her.

"Can I keep one of the captives you just won? After all, I did find your tennis champion and return him to you!"

"Sorry, but I promised them to my assistant Zima!" Darian had the three captives she had just won in her left fist, and Tyler and Nolan in her right fist. She told Zima to hold out her hand, and deposited the three newly won captives into Zima's waiting hand. Zima stuck her tongue out at Rikki as they walked off.

While Zima held her three captives and Darian held Nolan and Tyler, they decided to take in a match. They sat and ordered drinks and watched as tennis players fought to avoid getting defeated. Neither Darian nor Zima placed any bets, they just enjoyed the action. Darian was pleased when the woman who owned the winning player raised the losing opponent to her lips and swallowed him. The stadium erupted in cheers at this action.

"That's what I love about this place!" said Darian. "For the captives, there is no escape from our bellies! They all end up there eventually!"

"We have our presentation tomorrow," said Zima, "and you still don't have all of your captives collected yet!"

"Don't worry about that!" said Darian. "Before tonight, we'll have those tiny fools back in our clutches!"

"Can you tell me your plan?" Zima asked.

"Just wait until we get back to the surface," said Darian. "I'm tracking all of them at all times, I know exactly where they are!" Darian pulled out a small hand-held device. "I low-jacked them with nanobots in the food they ate!" said Darian. "We're going to have fun collecting them!"

Zima smiled. "You've thought of everything! Let's go get them right now!"

"After one more match!" said Darian. "I want to watch another captive get swallowed!"

Darian handed the scanning device to Zima. Zima could see where the captives were, and each of them had a position of latitude and longitude, except for Nolan and Tyler.

"It looks like they're close to the campus!" said Zima.

"They've been camped out at the creek that winds through town not far from the University. "When we return to Thanatar, we'll pounce on them!"

Zima sucked on her drink through a straw as they watched the match, holding her three captives firmly in her other fist.

"Think of how it must seem to the people from Earth who get captured!" said Zima with an evil smirk on her face. "To them, we must seem like a race of gods!"

"We're more than a race of gods to them, Zima!" said Darian. "We're a race of titans!"

"They are so trusting of us," said Zima, "But they don't suspect that each and every one of them will surely end up in the belly of a titan at some point!"

This conversation sent chills up and down Nolan's spine, and gave him resolve to try to help Leo and Mason find a way to get them back to Earth.

Just then, the current match was over, and the loser approached the giantess who owned the winning game piece, and she snatched him up. She lifted him over her mouth, and dropped him in and swallowed him. The crowd went wild, people were cheering and clapping. Darian and Zima rose to leave.

"Let's go capture those escaped captives!" said Darian.