Captain Drake Driscoll of the United Earth Republic Star Cruiser Delaware and his crew emerged from the time barrier into orbit above an Earth-like planet known as Quoris, about 35 light years from Earth with the newly developed spatial/temporal drive. When they opened hailing frequencies, they had found a colony of people descended from a lost convoy that was declared lost in space over a hundred years earlier.

“Lieutenant Coronado, I want you to take a shuttle craft down to their capitol, and make contact with their leaders. The United Republic will be very interested in making contact with a lost group of colonists.”

“Aye, sir!” said Lieutenant Coronado, as he proceeded to the shuttle bay. He entered a shuttle craft and the bay doors slid open, and he deftly piloted the craft to the surface. Once he landed in a space port on the outskirts of the main city, he was greeted by a group of delegates. It was lightly raining.

“I’m Lieutenant Chavo Coronado, I was sent here by Captain Drake Driscoll of the United Republic star cruiser Delaware.”

A woman in her early 20’s greeted the Lieutenant. “I’m senator Kylie Kessler, I was sent here to greet you by our President.”

“You’re kind of young for a senator, aren’t you?” Lieutenant Coronado asked.

“I’m 23. Don’t they have senators my age back on Earth?” Kylie asked.

“In our history we have, but it’s rare.” Lieutenant Coronado replied. “Most senators on Earth are in their thirties or even much older than that.”

Just then, Kylie slipped on the wet surface, and Lieutenant Coronado caught her before she fell, and grabbed her around the waist.

“You shouldn’t have done that!” Kylie shouted, as the body guards escorting her drew their weapons on him.

“What’s the problem?” Lieutenant Coronado asked.

“Civilians are forbidden to touch a senator,” Kylie explained. “You’re going to have to be miniaturized and sold at auction!”

“Are you people insane?” Lieutenant Coronado shouted. “I saved you from falling down! Any way, I’m not a civilian, I’m a military officer!”

“As far as our law is concerned, anyone not part of the Quoris military or governing body are considered civilians,” said Kylie, “and according to our laws, you are guilty.”

Lieutenant Coronado pulled out his communication device and contacted the Captain. “Captain Driscoll? I think you need to get down here as soon as possible!”

A short time later, Captain Driscoll was being briefed by his commander, a blonde woman in her thirties named Tiffany Thunberg on board the Delaware about the turn of events.

“So according to their law, Lieutenant Coronado is to be miniaturized and sold at an auction,” said the commander.

“Who typically buys shrunken captives at these auctions?” Captain Driscoll asked.

“According to what our artificial intelligence has learned, usually families with 12 or 13 year old girls buy them, so the girls can use them as masturbation aids so they can explore their sexuality. The captives are typically passed on to the girl’s daughter when she reaches maturity.”

“This is completely insane!” said Captain Driscoll.

“There’s more,” said the commander. “Draconian laws like this were passed because there is a shortage of captives. They lost contact with our civilization, so they developed their own weird culture based on shrinking criminals, and as the criminal population dwindled, they made the laws more strict so they could keep up with the demand for shrunken captives.”

“What legal recourse do we have?” Captain Driscoll asked. “Is there a way to acquire Lieutenant Coronado without violating their legal system?”

“The only way would be to win him back by gambling, but you would need to ante up with another potential captive, so one of us would need to volunteer.”

“Have our chief engineer try to tap into temporal space and find out what will happen to Lieutenant Coronado over the next 24 hours,” said the captain. “Our technology is more advanced than theirs, and hopefully we can use it to our advantage.”

Meanwhile, back on the planet Quoris, Lieutenant Coronado was led to the court room where he would be sentenced. The judge and lawyers were similar to judges and lawyers back on Earth, but the courtroom procedure was much more brief, however. Within a span of minutes, Lieutenant Coronado was tried, found guilty and sentenced to be miniaturized and sold at auction.

He was led down a hallway to the miniaturization chamber, where he was reduced to just under two inches tall. A young woman retrieved him, and carried him to the auction. Once inside the auction house, there were throngs of people in the bleachers waiting to bid on Lieutenant Coronado. They all held devices that would allow them to place bids.

Captain Driscoll read the temporal reconnaissance report given to him by his engineer, and memorized some crucial information. He took a shuttle craft down to the capitol city to try to reach the auction house when the buyer came into possession of Lieutenant Coronado.

Back in the auction house, an android led the bidding, and processed the bids from the audience members. Within fifteen minutes, the winning bid came through, and Lieutenant Coronado was handed to the mother of a 13-year-old girl with dark hair and brown eyes. The mother handed Lieutenant Coronado to her daughter. The girl had an older cousin accompanying her and her mother, she appeared to be in her early 20’s. Captain Driscoll approached her as she left the auction house with her family.

“Hi there!” Caption Driscoll said with a smile. “I’m Captain Driscoll, it’s my star cruiser up in orbit. Can I buy you a drink?”

The young woman was quickly taken by Captain Driscoll’s muscular frame and rugged good looks. “Sure!” she said, and she wrapped her arm in the captain’s arm and walked with him to a coffee shop. “I’m Bethany!”

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Coronado was held firmly within the hands of his teenage mistress. They arrived at her home within minutes, and the girl raced to her bedroom and closed the door, and set Lieutenant Coronado on her desk. He stood just under two inches tall, the people of Quoris use the metric system, so he was at a height that measured to an even number in centimeters. The girl was wearing a miniskirt and tank top, and mid calf boots.

“Do you think I’m sexy?” the girl asked.

Lieutenant Coronado didn’t know how to respond. The girl smiled when she saw how angry Lieutenant Coronado appeared to be.

“I always imagined my captive to be somewhat unwilling,” said the teenager, “so it’s kind of exciting to see you so upset about this!”

The girl set down a device on the desk.

“That looks like an antique neural stimulator!” said Lieutenant Coronado.

“It’s not an antique, it’s new!” said the girl. “I’ve always wanted to swallow a shrunken man, so now I’m getting my chance. This device will induce vomiting after I swallow you! Sending you crashing to the depths of my belly will make me feel like a goddess!”

“Can’t we talk this over?” Lieutenant Coronado asked.

“How will you feel when you surrender to the belly of a teenage goddess?” The girl asked, then she lifted Lieutenant Coronado up and above her mouth, and dropped him in. She forced him to the back of her mouth and swallowed him, then started laughing uncontrollably.

At the coffee shop, Captain Driscoll pulled out a chair for his female companion. As they sat at a table, the woman offered to buy him a cup of coffee because he didn’t have any form of currency.

“I wouldn’t want you to be put on the auction block for something as simple as stealing!” said the woman with a laugh.

When their drinks came, Bethany initiated a conversation.

“So, how does your new star drive work? Your vessel can travel faster than light?”

“It doesn’t actually move us past light speed, it works by manipulating time,” Captain Driscoll replied. “My engineer could explain it better than I can, but in layman’s terms it actually took us hundreds of years to get here, but because subjective time was slowed down almost completely, to us, the journey seemed instantaneous. We also moved back in time, so our chronometers match those back on Earth.”

“What about all that momentum?” Bethany asked. “I had a boyfriend who is a science major in college, and he said the immense speeds would crush the hull of a typical space craft.”

Captain Driscoll Continued: “We have inertial dampeners that are tied in with the time warp technology, it takes many months for that momentum to dissipate, but because of the way we can manipulate time, it creates the illusion that the momentum is dissipated instantly.”

“Are your people going to share that technology with our people?” Bethany asked.

“Eventually, but how and when depends on my government,” Captain Driscoll replied, then took a sip of his coffee. “So how important are shrunken slaves to your society?”

Bethany took a sip of her coffee and replied, “I was given my captive at thirteen, and I couldn’t imagine masturbation without a shrunken captive at my beck and call. I plan on turning him over to my daughter when she gets to be that age. Of course, I don’t have any kids yet, so I need to find a husband first. We’ve needed new people in this colony for quite some time, when more people settle here, that will really help us out.” Bethany took another sip of her coffee, and continued: “Our society is dependent on utilizing criminals as slaves, and our society can’t function any other way.”

“So your younger cousin owns my Lieutenant?” Captain Driscoll asked.

“Yes, she’s probably using him as a sex toy by now. We were worried there would be no further captives when she turned thirteen, but when your ship arrived in orbit, we knew we had another chance!”

“What if I challenged your cousin to a dice game, and the winner keeps Lieutenant Coronado?” Captain Driscoll asked.

“Who would you ante up as a bargaining chip?” Bethany asked. “It would have to be a member of your crew.”

“I’ll offer myself,” Captan Driscoll said, “if I lose the bet, she owns me as well as the lieutenant.”

Bethany almost choked on her coffee. “That’s unprecedented!” she shouted. “Whether you win or lose, that would be a major historical event on my world!”

“So you could convince her to gamble with me?” the captain asked.

“I’m sure she would have no problem with that,” said Bethany. “It would make her incredibly famous!”

Within an hour, Captain Driscoll was in the living room of Bethany’s younger cousin. Lieutenant Coronado was on the table, slightly smaller than two inches tall. Bethany’s younger cousin had long since vomited him back up. There were some dice on the table, and the room was crowded with people aiming their cellphones at the event to document this historic occasion.

“Whoever gets closest to whatever roll they predict wins that round,” said Captain Driscoll.

“Best three out of five!” said the thirteen-year-old. I predict I’ll get a ten and a twelve.” She threw first, and was off by a small margin. Captain Driscoll threw second. Two icosahedron twenty sided dice were being used, and the captain accurately predicted the numbers of his two dice, and won the first round.

The girl threw again, but was off by a larger margin than before, then the captain threw again, and beat her score. For a second time, Captain Driscoll accurately predicted the exact numbers his dice would land on. When he won the third round, she screamed: “Best four out of seven!”

“You lost!” said the captain, “you can’t change the terms of the bet! I won three out of five, so I won!”

“He’s right!” said Bethany. “You gambled, you lost, but look on the bright side, at least you’re the most famous girl on Quoris!”

The young teenage girl slammed her fist down on the table. “I don’t want to be famous! I want my little man back! I only got to use him a couple of times!”

Within the hour, Captain Driscoll and Lieutenant Coronado were back on board the Delaware, and Lieutenant Coronado had been restored to normal size.

“We’re about to leave orbit,” said the captain. “We need to bring a report of this previously unknown colony to the United Republic, we’ll all be seen as heroes.”

“Your plan to use time travel to win the bet was ingenious!” said Commander Thunberg. “You knew how those dice would land, they had no chance of winning against us!”

“Yes,” said the captain. “Hopefully they won’t catch on. Lieutenant Coronado, what exactly happened to you when you were alone with that bratty teenage girl?”

“I don’t want to discuss it!” Lieutenant Coronado said bitterly.

The other officers burst out laughing, and the star cruiser Delaware left orbit and returned to Earth.

To Be Continued!