Planet of the Titans

Chapter 6

Darian piloted her shuttlecruiser through space, away from the Arcadia space station. Zima sat beside her, and in between them was a habitation chamber that contained Nolan Ward, Tyler Chen, and the other three captives that Darian had won on Arcadia that she had given to Zima. Darian plugged in her device that kept track of the captives through the homing signals given off by the nanobots in their bloodstream that they consumed when they ate those protein bars Darian had given them on the day they were captured.

"I know exactly where they are!" said Darian. "I think I'll use some force-field mines to surround them."

"Do you really need to go through all that trouble?" Zima asked. "Why not just land and grab them?"

"Little people can move faster than you might think," said Darian as the shuttle cruiser pierced the atmosphere of Thanatar and descended toward the stream not far from her University campus. "It's really not as much trouble as it would be to try to chase them down through the smaller areas of the creek! It's better to be prepared!"

When they were about a mile above the creek, Darian pushed a sequence of buttons that released about a dozen self propelled mines that surrounded the captives at their campsite. On the ground below, Leo heard the sound of objects hitting the ground very firmly.

"What was that?" Leo asked Mason. Carmen and Natalie approached the men.

"What's happening?" Carmen asked.

"Darian must be coming for us!" said Mason. "She said she had some kind of a plan!"

"Everybody split up!" said Leo. "She can't capture all of us if we're not together, we have a better chance of escape if we're divided!"

The four fugitives split up in four directions. Leo came to a blue energy field that stretched from one large metallic mine to another about a football field away (on Leo's scale). Mason had the same luck when he came to an energy barrier in the direction he travelled. Mason threw a rock and when it hit the energy field, the rock bounced back. Mason tried to touch the energy field with his hand, but recoiled in pain instantly.

"Ouch! That hurt!" shouted Mason.

Darian's shuttle cruiser found a spot to land within a clearing not far from where the captives were. The gull wing door of her shuttle cruiser opened, and she emerged, followed by Zima, who held her three captives in a jar with a lid secured on top, with air holes cut out of it.

"Well, well, well!" said Darian. "What have we here? Four escaped fugitives who need to find themselves back in the loving hands of their mistress!"

Darien held a device in her hand that controlled the force-field mines. She adjusted the controls, and the mines began rolling toward a common center, where the shuttle cruiser was parked. Leo, Mason, Carmen, and Natalie ran toward the shuttle cruiser rather than risk getting burned by the shocking power of the force-fields. Before long, the mines were all less than ten yards (on Darian's scale) from the shuttle cruiser. All four captives were within view and earshot of Darian now.

"Just so you're in the know," said Darian, "I planted nanobots in those protein bars you all ate the day I captured you! They give off a homing signal that allows me to track you wherever you are!"

"We had you under our control all this time!" said Zima with a wicked smile on her face. "You're just a bunch of pathetic pawns!"

"Collect them, Zima!" Darian commanded.

"With pleasure!" said Zima as she unscrewed the lid from the jar with her three captives inside. There was more than enough room for an additional four captives. Carmen and Natalie didn't put up a fight, but Leo and Mason tried to run. Zima quickly stomped her left foot down in front of Leo, and knelt down and grabbed him. She made quick work of capturing Mason, too. Within one minute, she had collected all four former fugitives.

Darian and Zima returned to the shuttle cruiser, and Zima dumped all four former fugitives and the three captives belonging to Zima into the habitation module with Nolan and Tyler. Before the gull wing door to the shuttle cruiser even closed, Natalie ran up and hugged her half-brother Nolan.

"Nolan!" said Natalie. "I thought I'd never see you again!"

Carmen ran up and hugged her husband Tyler.

"Who are these guys?" Leo asked, indicating the three captives Darian had given to Zima.

"Don't trust them," said Nolan. "Any captive who is owned by titans are a bunch of little rats! If you want to keep anything a secret from Darian, they would drop a dime on you!"

Zima had been watching them and listening as Darian piloted the shuttle cruiser back to the campus. "I can take one of them off your hands!" Zima reached down and grabbed one of her three captives, and lifted him to her mouth.

"How does it feel to know you're going to surrender to the belly of a titan?" Zima asked.

"I'm terrified!" the man answered.

"Well," said Zima, "just remember to struggle when you're inside my belly, that would give me satisfaction if I could feel you squirming around inside me, okay?" Zima's face twisted into an evil smile. When the tiny man failed to respond, Zima repeated more loudly, "Okay?"

The tiny man in Zima's grasp spoke up: "I prefer if you'd call it your tummy!"

"What?" Zima asked.

"I'd like it if you said tummy instead of belly!" said the tiny captive.

"Oh, how sweet!" said Zima. "Do you want to surrender to the tummy of a titan goddess?"

"Yes!" said the captive.

"Do you promise to struggle when you're in my tummy, to give me a feeling of satisfaction?" Zima asked.

"Yes!" said the tiny captive, and Zima dropped him onto her tongue and closed her mouth. Several seconds later, after positioning him comfortably on her tongue, Zima swallowed him.

"That's so strange!" said Natalie. "It's like he volunteered to be swallowed by Zima!"

Zima heard this, and tilted her face toward the captives in their habitation module.

"That's because he's been on Thanatar a lot longer than you! When you've been here as long as he has, you'll realize that your destiny lies within the depths of the belly of a titan goddess, sooner or later!"

They arrived on campus, and Zima carried the habitation module containing the eight captives (it was nine, but Zima had just swallowed one of them, so their number had decreased by one). When they got to the building where the Thunderbolt was kept, Zima placed the habitation module right next to it.

"You can let them out," said Darian, "they can't get anywhere. It's not like they know how to use this equipment and can refuel their space plane!" Both giantesses laughed at this, and Zima pushed the button that opened the outer door of the habitation module. The six captives from Earth immediately exited and looked at the Thunderbolt.

"Is it okay if we get our luggage from our space plane?" Leo asked.

"By all means!" said Darian. "Make yourselves comfortable!"

Leo and Mason got busy unloading the luggage from the cargo holds. The women were especially happy to get their things back.

"Your habitation modules come equipped with warm showers," said Darian, "so if you want to get cleaned up and changed into nicer clothes, you can!"

Zima brought them some food to eat. "You must be hungry after living a fugitive existence for a few days!"

The food was similar to what they had eaten before, food bars wrapped in metallic wrappers. Zima also gave them water to drink. When Leo and Mason were done unloading the luggage, they all sat down to eat. Zima's two captives also ate with them.

"New arrivals always find it hard to accept their destiny on Thanatar!" said one of Zima's two captives. "Once you realize your destiny is to surrender to the belly of a titan goddess, you'll find peace!"

"No tiny person has ever escaped back to their home world!" said Zima's other captive. "Everyone who first gets here thinks they'll be the first, but no one ever does. The titans always win!"

"I don't know about that," said Leo, "I'm a betting man, and I've come up against some pretty bad odds and still came away a winner!"

"Don't try to reason with them," said Nolan. "If they find out you have an escape plan, they'll rat you out to Darian and Zima!"

"There's going to be a presentation tomorrow," said Darian to the captives. "I need the six of you to be well-rested, so don't try to escape again!"

When they were done eating, Zima collected her two captives, and Darian locked the captives in their habitation module for the night. Everyone got a hot shower and changed into clean clothes from their luggage, and there were extra food bars and water in case they were hungry again. There were beds built into the habitation module, and they all went to sleep. Nobody thought about escaping, at least not just yet.


The next morning, Darian and Zima arrived much earlier than they usually did. Darian activated the control console that slid the dome from the top of the habitation module, so she could see them and speak to them face to face, as they had when they were in the shuttle cruiser the day before when Zima had swallowed one of her captives.

"Are you guys ready? I'm taking you to an audience hall where I will present you for my junior thesis! People are going to watch you on stage! My advice to you is don't make me look stupid there! If you try to sabotage my presentation, I will end all of you! Do we have an understanding?"

Leo and the others agreed to Darian's terms. They weren't surprised, they had been expecting something like this.

"Zima, why didn't you bring your captives with you? The contrast between captives who are still defiant and captives who have accepted their fate would've been helpful to my presentation."

Zima broke eye contact with Darian and looked away, toward the floor.

"Zima?" Darian asked. "Where are your two captives?"

"I swallowed them!" said Zima. "I couldn't help it, they were so small and helpless, and I've never owned captives before!"

"You could've used them on Arcadia to win more captives!" said Darian. "Zima, you need to learn to control your animalistic desires!"

Darian closed the dome on the habitation module and carried it to the audience chamber several buildings away. Zima locked the door to the building that housed the Thunderbolt. When they arrived backstage, several other women were there with their projects, mostly of a technical nature. Darian was the only college student with tiny people as part of her presentation.

"Darian Wagner, you will be going first!" said the announcer.

Darian unlocked the outer door of the habitation module, and the six captives filed out.

"My junior thesis project involves how quickly the primitive people from Earth adapt to their new environment and learn to accept their fate! As you can see, I have six people whom I acquired with a space warp cannon at one of the school laboratories. None of them suffer from post traumatic stress disorder!" Darian looked at Zima. "My assistant Zima will now demonstrate something!"

Zima got a string and told the captives to hold on, and when they did, she held them above her mouth.

"People who want to pass laws to protect little people like these are misguided, because there are so many alternate realities to choose from that we have probably only taken less than ten people from any given reality, despite the trillions of captives that have been captured since inter-dimensional space-warp technology was perfected five thousand years ago!"

Zima slowly lowered the string down toward her open mouth. Carmen and Natalie were on the bottom trying to hold on, and they were the first to enter her mouth, followed by Nolan. Darian saw her out of the corner of her eye and said, "Zima, stop it! Don't put them in your mouth!"

People in the audience laughed at this, but there were a vocal group of protesters who booed. Some of them were carrying protest signs.

"Gaming is vitally important to our economy," Darian continued, "protesters don't understand that without tinies, our economy would collapse! We have no choice but to keep conquering tiny people from other realities!" Darian also gave some statistical information and concluded with her presentation by offering people from the audience to come up onstage and hold some of the captives.

A young woman was among the audience members who got onstage, and unknown to Darian, she was one of the protesters. She stuck something in Leo's hand and said, "Keep this and learn how to use it! It will help you escape!"

Leo slipped it in his jacket pocket before returning to the habitation module, and Darian was completely unaware that he had it.