Mech Zero: The Dominant by Larson B. V

Author:Larson, B. V. [Larson, B. V.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

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The Dominant had seen the alien vessel approaching, and had scarcely been able to believe her orbs. The propulsion emissions trail appeared remarkably short and dim, indicating the incoming craft was small. This was further positive news from her standpoint. She could safely dominate only one alien mind at a time, and she was out of practice in even that regard. A smaller ship would have a smaller crew, and thus be more easily controlled.

It took her only seconds to plot the probable landing site. They were coming down on the far side of the ice volcano. She crossed her frozen world with surprising alacrity. Her numerous, segmented legs churned. Fortunately, the icy rock wasn’t very large, but there was no time to waste. The aliens might land and leave quickly, changing their minds about the wisdom of their mission.

Reaching the craft, she found the design strange. It was made of hard metals formed into angular planes and curves. This ship had a definite and uniform shape to it. Her people preferred to grow their vessels, and no two were identical.

Although she was less than a meter in height, she was big enough to scuttle up the ladder to the hatch door and open it. She clattered inside and let the hatch slide closed behind her. The air automatically cycled, blanketing her with heat such as she’d not felt for many long years. The Dominant drew upon her final reserves of glucose.

This was her chance—most likely the only one she would ever get. Once the aliens learned of her presence, if they were not able to defeat her directly, they would either mark the planetoid for destruction or avoid it entirely. Thus, if she failed to take the ship but survived the encounter, she would be doomed to spend the rest of her existence on this frozen rock. The eons would drift by until the tug of gravitational forces drew her world into a spiral that took her close to the burning star at the center of the system. Gathering her wits as best she could, she probed the beings on the far side of the airlock’s inner hatch.

The Dominant class of offspring was something of an experiment at best. They had been designed by Savants and Parents working together during the long war with the Tulk. Mistakenly believing the Tulk were a true telepathic species that controlled their hosts through mental projection, they came up with their own counter-being: the Dominant.

Unlike the Tulk, her kind did not reside inside the braincase of an alien. Instead, it clutched to the body of its host, usually riding upon the back in the case of vertebrates. From there, the spines could be deeply inserted for maximal contact with the nervous system, thus affording direct interaction with the host brain.

The difficult part, of course, was the initial mounting of the host creatures. They tended to resist, and that was where the Dominant’s probing became critical. By reaching out with her mental senses, she could locate and analyze suitable nearby minds.

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