Planet of the Titans

Chapter 19

Leo and Mason sat back as their new owner Melissa piloted her shuttle cruiser back to Thanatar. The other captives were friendly, and it seemed to be the truth that Melissa indeed worked for the underground resistance. When they landed in the parking structure of Melissa's condominium complex, she carried the containment unit with the captives and went inside.

She placed the containment unit on a coffee table in her living room, and opened a door in the side and instructed the captives to emerge.

"I'm Melissa! I'm sure the other captives have informed you that I work for the resistance movement."

"Yeah," said Mason,"Nick told us. I didn't want to believe it at first, but I'm glad to be rescued!"

"How long has the resistance movement been around?" Leo asked.

"The resistance movement has existed off and on for many centuries!" said Melissa. "We have tried unsuccessfully to get tiny people back to their home world for a very long time!"

"Why hasn't there been a successful mission of returning captives back to Earth?" Leo asked.

"All of the vehicles that have been pulled to Thanatar have been sea vessels and airplanes up until the arrival of your space plane." said Melissa. "It just wasn't feasible to try to send a boat or an airplane back through a dimensional space warp, because it would be too dangerous."

"What about bringing them here to begin with?" Leo asked. "If you can use a space warp to bring a plane or boat to Thanatar, then you shouldn't have a problem sending a boat or plane back through the space warp to Earth!"

"Vessels that aren't space worthy don't always survive the trip here," said Melissa. "We've sent planes back through a space warp, but they were destroyed before they made it back to Earth. Half the vehicles that are targeted never make it to Thanatar. Your space plane is different, it can survive the turbulent confluence of inter-dimensional space because it was built to fly in outer space! That is how we plan on sending you home!"

Melissa got up and got a bottle of whiskey, and poured some in a shot glass, and set it down on the coffee table within reach of the freed captives. She retrieved enough small mugs that were built to Leo and Mason's scale, and set them down.

"You guys deserve a drink after all you've been through," said Melissa. "I'm going to make some lunch for all of you while you enjoy your whiskey!"

Melissa got busy in the kitchen making tuna sandwiches, then she used a shrink-ray pistol to shrink them down to the scale of Leo and the other freed captives. When she set the food down, Nick served everyone, because he had been under Melissa's care the longest. There was more whiskey than all of them could drink, and both Leo and Mason only drank a small amount.

As the men dug into their sandwiches, Melissa pulled up a chair and sat down close to where the men were standing.

"I tell this story to all the new captives that join us," said Melissa. "The captives who have been here longer have heard this story, but Mason and Leo, this will be new to you. Many people on Thanatar want the conquest of tiny people to stop, but there doesn't seem to be much we can do to get legislators to make any changes. Young people have so much fun conquering little people from Earth, and politicians think of it as a way of life. Our goal is to send a group of tiny people back to their home world so we can shock society into realizing how wrong it is to exploit tiny people!"

Mason and Leo grabbed another sandwich, and Melissa continued. "There's something the two of you must do for me, as sort of an initiation ritual! I always have sex with new recruits, and we play a sex game called 'Escape from Thunder-Nipple Mountain' in my bedroom. Are you both game, Leo and Mason?"

Leo and Mason froze in place with tuna in their mouths. They looked at each other incredulously and thought the same thing: What have we gotten ourselves into? Did we jump out of the frying pan and into the fire?

Meanwhile, not far from Melissa's condominium, the University where Darian and Zima were students was located in the same town. Back at the lab, Zima returned to the lab to meet Darian and retrieve Nolan. Zima grabbed him none too gently and held him in her fist.

"Have you spent enough time with your sister?" Zima asked.

Nolan nodded his assent, and Zima carried him back to her dorm, where she enlarged him again with her shrink-ray pistol set on neutrino transfer protocol. When Nolan jumped down, Zima didn't rush up and hug him or kiss him this time.

"What did you and Adonis talk about earlier?" Zima asked.

Nolan had visualized this happening; he had promised Adonis that he wouldn't breathe a word of the plan to Zima or Darian or the passengers or crew of the Thunderbolt. He had managed to keep from mentioning the plan to Leo and the others, but if he told Zima, then Adonis wouldn't follow through with his plan to refuel the Thunderbolt so Mason, Tyler, Carmen, and Natalie could escape to Earth. Nolan had to play his cards right and keep his cool, but what about that mind control device Zima had? Couldn't she use it to scan his mind?

Nolan put his arms around Zima and said, "It's a surprise," then kissed her on the lips.

"Whatever Adonis has cooked up, I hope he doesn't end up winning the competition I have going between the two of you!" said Zima, putting her arms around Nolan. "I want you to win! I want to marry you!" Tears formed in Zima's eyes. "Adonis even came by while you were gone and took my mind control device so I can't use it on you to find out what his plan is! Whatever it is he's planning, he wants to win! You have to defeat him, do you understand?"

"I guess," said Nolan.

"I love you Nolan!" said Zima. "I want you to stay on Thanatar with me forever! We're virtually immortal here!"

"This would be a lot easier if you hadn't told Adonis you would marry him if he made a greater sacrifice for you than me!"

"I had to do that!" said Zima. "You don't know what it's like here on Thanatar! My parents and his parents arranged our marriage when we were young! If I didn't give Adonis a chance to win my hand in marriage, I would never hear the end of it from my parents!"

"Well," said Nolan, "Adonis has a plan to win your hand, that much I can tell you, but I have a trick up my sleeve, too!"

"What's your plan?" Zima asked.

"I can't tell you!" said Nolan. "But just trust me! We'll be together when all this is over!"

"There's something you can do to prove your love to me!" said Zima.

"Yeah?" said Nolan. "What's that?"

"You can go on a full tour of my body!" said Zima. "Adonis would never agree to do something like that for me!"

Nolan knew exactly what Zima was talking about, he had been to many giantess and vore sites on the Internet back on Earth, and understood that Zima was talking about sending Nolan through her digestive system and retrieving him after he passed through her colon.

"How will that be accomplished?" Nolan asked.

Zima got up and went to a drawer and got a package and unwrapped it, and pulled out what looked like a small spacesuit that was on the scale of someone from Earth when they were normal size.

"After I shrink you, just put this on and I'll swallow you!" said Zima. "This suit will protect you from my stomach acid, and we can stay in contact through radio! I bought it while you were with Darian on Arcadia earlier today!"

Nolan didn't even need to be convinced. "I've always wanted to go on a full tour!" said Nolan. "But it wasn't possible on Earth. Where do I sign up?"

"Stand on my dresser and let me shrink you!" said Zima. Nolan did as she asked, and Zima pulled out her shrink-ray pistol and zapped Nolan back down to normal size, tiny size from Zima's perspective. Zima unwrapped the protective suit and gave it to Nolan, and when he was dressed in it, Zima checked to make sure the openings were fastened properly. When everything was secure, Zima lifted Nolan above her mouth and swallowed him. When Nolan plunged down into her stomach, a speaker came on in his helmet, and he heard Zima's voice.

"How are you in there?" Zima asked.

"I'm doing okay!" said Nolan.

"Since you're going to be in my digestive system for quite some time," said Zima, "why don't you use this time to tell me more about yourself?"

Nolan thought this was a good idea. "I was born in Bellflower, that's a city near Long Beach, in California in 1990. My mother won the lottery when I was five years old, and we moved to Pismo Beach. I have an older half-sister, she is from my dad's first wife. My mom and dad had another kid together besides me, a sister. My parents split up when I was four, and my mother found a new boyfriend, and they had a daughter together a week before my ninth birthday."

"What did you like better," Zima asked, "Bellflower or Pismo Beach?"

"Pismo!" said Nolan. "But I always regretted never being able to be a true local, because I was from L.A. originally."

"When your mom won the lottery, how did it affect you?" Zima said into her microphone. She had a small device in front of her that allowed her to keep track of where Nolan was in her digestive tract.

"I always wanted to be a comic book artist, so she was able to buy me a drafting table, a computer with a Wacom tablet, and when junior college didn't pan out, she paid my way to attend the Joe Kubert school of art."

"Why didn't junior college pan out?" Zima asked.

"I went for a couple of semesters and got good grades," said Nolan, "but there were certain classes I couldn't get into because they were filled up by the time it was my turn to enroll. Since I wasn't an athlete or a disabled student, and I didn't qualify for any programs because my mom was rich, I just enrolled at the Joe Kubert art school in New Jersey."

"I got an A on that painting you did for me!" said Zima. "So that art school must've done you some good!"

"Yes, I've always excelled at art," said Nolan.

"Tell me about your relationships!" said Zima.

"I lost my virginity in high school," said Nolan, "and there were women in my life from time to time. I was going to ask my most recent girlfriend to marry me, but she used to boss me around in public, so I broke up with her just before I took off on the Thunderbolt and ended up here on Thanatar." Nolan looked around, and a thought occurred to him. "Zima? What happens if I get hungry while I'm in here?"

"There's a way you can scoop some chyme and pull it into your suit," said Zima. "It would be like drinking my vomit!"

"And if I get thirsty?" Nolan asked.

"There is a water supply built into the suit, and when you urinate, it is reclaimed and circulated back into your water supply."

Nolan was silent. "Nolan?" Zima asked. "Are you hesitating about eating my chyme?"

"Kind of," said Nolan.

"Haven't you ever swallowed an attractive woman's vomit before?" Zima asked, as if that was a common occurrence on Thanatar.

"Yeah," said Nolan, "some chick at a party was drinking beer and she needed to puke, so she grabbed me and puked into my mouth and I swallowed it!"

"So you're willing to drink the vomit of some bitch at a party, but you won't eat my chyme?" Zima asked through the radio microphone. Nolan realized he had little choice, because he had to prove his love to Zima at all costs. He didn't have the option of not eating for the nineteen or twenty hours he was passing through Zima's digestive system, because she would know he chose not to partake of her chyme.

While Nolan debated with Zima, Leo and Mason were still with Melissa after she delivered a bombshell.

"You want us to have sex with you?" Mason asked.

"Wouldn't that be kind of dangerous for us?" Leo asked.

A smile crept across Melissa's face. "I was just kidding with you! Thunder-nipple mountain is a joke I use on all the new guys! I'm not going to have sex with you!"

The other freed captives began laughing as Leo and Mason let out sighs of relief.