Megan and Her Shrink Ray Gun

Chapter 1: Thursday, June 26th, 3321

Chapter 1: Thursday, June 26th, 3321

Story Notes:

I started this story in 1999, and have worked on it off and on for many years. I've written and finished many giantess stories, and I decided to finally finish this story. There will be non-fatal vore, but it will happen in later chapters. I plan on making it into a graphic novel, as I am also an artist.

I recently revised this chapter and got rid of references to hyperspace and changed the reason they go back in time to the continuators malfunctioning.

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Miniaturized military crew:

Captain Lobo Vargas

Commander Carlos Cruz

Sergeant Desiderio Diego

Corporal Luis Lopez

Corporal Huan Hangchow

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Space pirates:

Scrapper

Gator

Slackjaw
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Normal-sized 21st century characters:

Megan Weiss, 13 years old

Margaret Weiss, Megan’s 35-year-old mother

Shelly Krieger, Megan’s 13-year-old best friend

Christopher Krieger, Shelly’s 16-year-old brother

Leila Landa, 13-year-old school-mate of Megan and Shelly
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Chapter 1: Thursday, June 26, 3321, the Kuiper Belt

A cloaked, heavily armed warship hid somewhere inside the Kuiper Belt far beyond the orbit of Neptune. On board were three brothers, all three of them space pirates. Gator was the second oldest of them, the helmsman and astronavigator. Scrapper was the leader despite being the youngest of these three brothers, because he had military experience. Slackjaw, the oldest, was the communications and weapons expert.

“So what’s happening?” Scrapper asked Slackjaw. Gator sat at the piloting console.

“Every space pirate in the Kuiper belt is concentrating on that convoy that’s heading toward Earth. Its transponder signal indicates a top-secret military payload.”

“What’s up with this little blip over here?” Scrapper asked, as he looked at the scanner console.

“The metadata from the transponder signal says it’s hauling ore to a processing station orbiting Mars,” Slackjaw replied.

“I think that convoy is a decoy,” said Scrapper, “and that freighter hauling ore to Mars might be the ship carrying that new weapon prototype!”

“How can you be sure?”

“Why would a freighter from Alpha Centauri haul ore through the Kuiper belt? They only carry cargo that has been processed into goods, never raw materials.”

“You know, he’s got a point!” said Gator from the piloting console.

“Gator,” Scrapper ordered, “bring us around to intercept that freighter!”

“With pleasure!”

“Slackjaw, try to pick up any conversations inside that space freighter with your scanners.”

Meanwhile, in the cockpit of the space freighter, Captain Lobo Vargas sat in the command chair, while Commander Carlos Cruz piloted the ship. Sergeant Diego sat twiddling his thumbs as he supervised Corporal Hangchow, who was repairing a conduit in one of the walls of the large cockpit. Corporal Luis Lopez sat at the scanner console.

“Captain Vargas,” Corporal Lopez asked, “what is it we’re hauling in this old rust bucket, anyway?”

“Space Command didn’t specifically tell me to keep it a secret from you guys, so I guess I can tell you. We’re hauling a new type of neutrino dissimilator cannon that was developed on a space station in the Alpha Centauri system. It’s supposed to be able to slice through a quantum force field using a new technology. Size inhibitors will be ineffective against this new type of shrink ray!”

“You guys should be quiet about that,” said Hangchow. “The walls have ears.”

“Oh, nobody’s going to pay attention to us, Hangchow!” said Sergeant Diego. “As far as the rest of the solar system is concerned, we’re just another freighter hauling worthless ore to a processing station. Any space pirate in his right mind is guaranteed to ignore us!”

Corporal Lopez looked up from his scanner console. “Hangchow’s right, sir! Pirates could pick up the conversation without our equipment detecting it!”

“Commander Cruz laughed and said, “You guys are getting worked up about nothing!”

Scrapper’s pirate ship closed in on the freighter, but Captain Vargas and his crew didn’t detect it because of the sophisticated cloaking device. Scrapper, sitting in the command chair, waited for an update from Slackjaw.

“We’re within radio and energy weapons range, Scrapper! But we’re too far to engage the freighter with our missile weapons system.”

“Slackjaw,” said Scrapper, “open an audio-visual channel to the captain of that vessel!”

In the cockpit of the freighter, Commander Cruz picked up the signal from Scrapper’s ship.

“Captain, we’re being hailed!”

Put it on the forward view-screen,” Captain Vargas ordered. “I didn’t expect any radio contact with Space Command this early in our mission!”

“The transmission isn’t from Space Command, sir,” said Corporal Lopez. “It’s coming from a nearby cloaked vessel, but I can’t pinpoint its location!”

“Put it on the main screen!” Vargas ordered.

Just then, an image of Scrapper, Slackjaw, and Gator filled the main forward view-screen. Captain Vargas stood up in utter amazement and whispered, “Scrapper?”

“Lobo Vargas?” said Scrapper. “By the moons of Neptune, I didn’t expect you to be in command of this vessel. It’s because of you that I was kicked out of space command and sent to that prison colony on Triton. Now I have two reasons to kill you!”

“There’s nothing of value on this freighter-” said Vargas, but he was cut off by Scrapper.

“Can the alibi, Vargas! I’ve got your entire conversation with your junior crew members describing the weapon prototype in vivid detail. Would you like me to play back the recording?”

“Corporal,” said Captain Vargas, “close channel, shields up!”

Corporal Lopez did as Captain Vargas ordered, and the cockpit of Scrapper’s ship disappeared from the main forward view-screen.

Scrapper's ship fired energy weapons.

"Captain, our freighter has sustained damage!" said Commander Cruz. “Another hit like that, and we're through!"

“Commander, set a course through a separate space-time continuum, then use the continuators to shift back and forth between that reality and realities chosen at random, it’ll be harder for Scrapper to track us!”

“Yes sir! It should take about thirty seconds!”

“We don’t have thirty seconds, commander! Activate the continuators now, that’s an order!”

Back on Scrapper’s ship, Slackjaw informed Scrapper that they were in missile firing range of the freighter.

“Hit them with about three warheads, that ought to wake them up!”

Slackjaw fired the warheads, and the freighter was rocked with explosions. The shields held up until the last warhead hit. The shields were breached just before the freighter entered another reality.

“We scored a direct hit with that last warhead,” said Slackjaw. “They must’ve shifted into another continuum. We have no way of knowing where they went, so there’s no way to track them. Either way, we caused a lot of damage!”

“Slackjaw, I want you to scan every continuum you can for traces of their ship. I won’t be satisfied until Vargas is dead!”

“That might take time,” said Slackjaw, “but we should be able to track them down eventually. So far, I'm not picking up anything in any of the continuums used by space command.”

“Time,” Scrapper muttered. “That’s the ticket! Scan temporal space, Slackjaw!”

Meanwhile, on the space freighter, Commander Cruz was frantic. “Captain, five of our six continuators and our main fusion reactor have been damaged, we’re losing power fast, and we’re trapped in temporal space. We can’t break free!”

“What exactly is the problem?” Captain Vargas asked.

“Continuators make a breach in other continuums, that’s what allows us to travel through temporal space or other continuums. With one left functioning, we won’t be able to return to normal space, and with our reactor leak, we are running out of options!”

“Does anyone have a solution?” Captain Vargas asked.

“I’ve got one option,” said Diego, “but it depends on whether or not we can get the dissimilator cannon online and functional.”

“I have the access codes to get it working,” Vargas replied. “Why? What’s your plan?”

“I say we jettison the main reactor, hold it in place with a tractor beam, and with a second tractor beam, we jettison the dissimilator cannon, and use it to shrink the ship with us on board. If we use the deflector shields to contain the neutrino dissimilator cannon, it should shrink along with us. With our decreased mass, the larger reactor should have enough power to return us to normal space.”

“Has anything like this been tried in a situation like this before?” Captain Vargas asked.

“Anyone who has become trapped in temporal space like this has never made it out alive. If this plan works, once we return to normal space, we can send a radio signal to an outpost in a system the same number of light years away from Earth as the distance back through time that we’ve traveled. If our signal is received, help should arrive at the exact time we transmit it. This solution seems like the only way!”

“You’re on!” said Captain Vargas. “Let’s do it!”

After the main reactor was jettisoned and held in place by a tractor beam, the cargo bay was opened, and the neutrino dissimilator cannon was jettisoned. A second tractor beam was used to hold it in place. Captain Vargas gave the command codes to Corporal Lopez to activate the dissimilator cannon, then he gave the order to activate it. The entire freighter along with the neutrino dissimilator cannon had decreased in size, weight, volume, and mass instantly. The fusion reactor remained at normal size.

“We’re about nine-sixteenths of an inch tall, captain!” said Corporal Lopez.

“Pull the neutrino dissimilator cannon back into the cargo bay, and channel power from the reactor to return us to normal space, Commander Cruz!”

The miniaturized freighter and the normal sized fusion reactor were pulled back to normal space. Soon the blackness of temporal space was replaced by a view of the Earth on the view-screen.

“We did it!” said Sergeant Diego announced. “We’re back in normal space near Earth!”

“Uh, captain?” said Corporal Lopez. According to my astrometric scanners, the positions of the planets and the constellations indicate that we’re in the 21st century. Thursday, June 12th or Friday, June 13th, 2008, to be exact. The damaged continuators shot us precisely thirteen centuries and thirteen days into the past, but from our perception, the trip happened instantly. Luckily, the navigation computer kept us on a trajectory that would take us into Earth orbit.”

“That’s only the half of it!” said Commander Cruz. “We’ve entered Earth’s gravity well! We’re heading on a course that will take us down into a crash landing on the central coast of California!”

Meanwhile, back in the 34th century, Scrapper and his brothers were trying to figure out what happened to Captain Vargas.

"I picked up a neutrino signature in temporal space," said Gator, "but not enough to warrant a full-size ship!"

"Do you think they're shifting back and forth between temporal space and another continuum?" Scrapper asked.

"No. There’s not enough neutrino emissions for that, I think they got blasted into oblivion.” said Gator.

"I won’t be satisfied until I know Vargas is dead. Scan temporal space and see if anything materialized there within the past couple of minutes."

Gator did as Scrapper instructed. "Yep! I tracked a neutrino stream there! It has to be Vargas's freighter!"

Scrapper took a look at Gator's equipment. "Based on this trajectory, it looks like they are traveling backwards through time!”

"Let's follow them!" said Gator.

"Yeah!" said Slackjaw.

"If these read-outs are accurate," said Scrapper, "then the continuators of Vargas’s freighter were damaged, causing them to journey into the past. If they emerged from temporal space in this region of space, they would be near Earth in the early 21st century. We need to get into a trajectory in orbit around the sun and reach a third of light speed before we breach temporal space, then follow the sun’s gravitational signature into the past. We're going to have to use our cryo-tubes and go into suspended animation! It'll take us a long time to get to the same destination as Vargas, but when we get there, we'll be the same age we are now!"

“The cryo-tubes are ready, Scrapper!” said Slackjaw.

“How close can we get to the time Captain Vargas emerges into normal space?” Scrapper asked.

“We should arrive less than a week after they do,” Slackjaw replied, “maybe a day or two after if we’re lucky.”

“Take us into temporal space!” said Scrapper.

Back in the 21st century, Vargas and his crew had their own problems. “Diego!” Captain Vargas ordered, “Drain all on-board weapons batteries and divert all power into the remaining functional inertia dampeners! We’re in for a rough ride!”

"We now stand less than an inch tall!" said Diego. "Are you sure you want us to divert all power from our weapons systems? We'll be defenseless!"

"Don't argue with me, Diego!" shouted Vargas. "Just do it!"

"Yes sir!" Diego replied.

About that time in Bullet Bay, a small town on the central coast of California, a girl named Megan was excited because June 13th was her 13th birthday, and she was too restless to sleep. She got up to get a drink of water in the middle of the night and saw the miniaturized ship from her living room window, and assumed it was a meteorite. She didn’t suspect that what she saw streaking across the sky and slamming into a local hillside would affect her destiny!

To Be Continued!