Len says Hello

A damaged ship was leaving the small solar system they had been monitoring for the past solar period.

"I that the ship?"

"Yes, that should be it. See the hole at the heck? At anything alive on it should be assimilated by the Kritton."

"hehe, will make a pretty buck with so much Krittons. These low-level civilizations are really the best. Sending so much unprotected fertilizer out here for us to harvest."

The alien ship neared the primitive spacecraft and adhered itself to the hull, before proceeding to cut an entrance hole to hijack the primitive ship. What they did not expect was a survivor.

The ugly beast with just 4 limbs, a deformed torso, and a bulbous head, lifted its claws with five weird tentacles and waved at them, talking in its barbaric language.

"A survivor, what should we do?"

"Isn't it easy?" the other space bandit asked, drawing his blaster and shooting at the creature. He would risk their harvest because of some backward beast. He aimed for its head, but the creature was incredibly fast.

A soul-piercing pain flashed through the shooter's body, as his tentacle with the blaster was ripped out and an appendage with sharp claws was rammed through his reproductive organ.

His unearthly screech echoed in the hallway.

...

A decade had passed in the blink of an eye. The Ankara had made two thrust jumps and left earth's solar system far behind. It was currently at the far etches of the Oort Cloud.

-Captain, the sensors have detected foreign spacecraft nearing the Ankara-

"Ankara, show it to me on the main screen." the ghoul, sitting on the commando bridge, stated.

The past decade of work and good nourishment had tremendously changed Len. His appearance was now almost human and resembled what he looked like as a human before his transformation. On the screen appeared the live feed of a UFO coming closer to the Ankara.

The alien vessel resembled not from the earth with its bulbous, almost organic-looking, main body and several extrusions Len could not make sense of. At the tip that was pointed in the direction of the Ankara, he could see something like a round latch, surrounded by mechanical arms.

As this part latched onto Ankara's hull, it looked almost like a squid was attacking the ship.

-Detecting high temperature on the hull. Hull is beeing breached-

The ghoul hurried to the place where the thing was now cutting a hole into his ship. Not only his outer appearance had changed, but also his knowledge and ability. He had eaten several experts for a case like this.

Xenobiologist, Xenoanthropologist, really all kinds of Xenoist had found their place on Len's platter. He knew several ways of approaching the communication with a foreign race now. On top of that, he had also learned many different languages from Earth, even sign language.

When h reached the place, a perfectly round part of their hull had already fallen to the floor and the aliens had entered the Ankara. The creatures that entered his ship looked...weird. It was the best identifier for their appearance.

An elongated ball, propped up by for tentacle-like appendage at the bottom and another three pairs as something Len would describe as arms. There was nothing like a head, but the ghoul could make out something like the visor of a helmed at the upper part of the bean-shaped body.

Following the accumulated knowledge of experts, he tried several ways to greets these alien visitors in a friendly manner. The two seemed to communicate using a series of clicks and currs when one of them drew a device from a pocket at the waist of its bean.

Even if they were aliens, the gesture was too distinct for the century-old ghoul instincts to not react. Len had already moved when a bright laser shot the space where his head would have been. Even with his improved strength and immediate reaction, the beam shaved off part of his shoulder.

Was there a misunderstanding? A small voice tried to argue, that this could be solved peacefully, but it wasn't really the moment for this voice to speak up. It didn't matter, they had attacked him and damaged his ship.

Before the squiggly offender could even think of a second shot, Len charged at him. His sharp ghoul claws penetrated the visor made of unknown material as if it wasn't there and went on through the bean-head as if it was butter.

The creature let out a terrified scream of agony and fear. Pain and terror, truly universal languages. When its companion showed signs of drawing a similar device, Len showed no mercy and directly amputated its six arm-like appendages and four leg-tentacles.

His inborn weapons had further strengthened with his experiments. The meat of the enhanced humans had improved his overall constitution while it also gave him the chance to find a way, how he could use the technology of human enhancement on himself.

Even his experiments with the vampire cells were making progress. Slow progress, but progress.

The second bean lay on the ground flailing around the stumps of its cut-off limbs and whimpering in horror. Frantic clicks and currs were either begging for mercy or cursing him to hell. Len didn't know.

But the Ghoul had an idea how to change this. Showing no signs of mercy Len grabbed the still struggling bean at one of its stumps and started dragging it to the laboratory. After locking it into a chamber for specimens, he went and retrieved the dead bean that shot at him.

For the living bean to see, Len slammed the dead one onto a dissecting table. Meticulously he prepared the surgical instruments for the autopsy. he would take apart the bean's friends like a butcher, and force it to watch.

As mentioned before. Fear was a universal language. Even if they were not humans, he didn't believe there would be any intelligent race in space, that could not feel fear. Not for one moment.

Len was a beast of nightmares, a monster of legends, and a dweller of the night, fear was a language he had become most proficient in over the last centuries. A frightened prisoner was a lot more useful than a calm one.

About not being able to communicate with his prisoner? The ghoul wasn't just cutting up the alien to incite fear in his buddy. What kind of effect would the body have on him? What knowledge would he be able to attain, when he ate an alien's brain?

Scientific curiosity and the chance o communicate with the first intelligent creature humanity had ever met were driving him. Len couldn't deny that the past decade had changed him. Whether it was because his master's shackles were gone or the consumption of fresh and high-quality humans, he couldn't say.

Very unlike an undead, Len started to dislike stagnating. He still enjoyed just sitting around for one or two days however, he became restless without a task to think about. He dreaded millennia of boredom after he was done with what he wanted to do. It was to the point that he might have even subconsciously procrastinated on his current experiments.

However, if he got his hands on alien knowledge and especially how to operate their ship, space exploration could become his backup plan. With the knowledge he had collected over the past decade, it might not even be farfetched to research and understand their technology.

Bee it as it may, for now, Len was occupied with dissecting the bean in front of him. i's body was nothing like a human's. It wore some kind of space suit below the suit's fabric, its skin was blueish and veiny.

Cutting it open he found its organism more similar to an insect than a mammal's. cartilage, right below the skin gel all the organs in place, like a mix of an exo- and endoskeleton.

Behind the smashed visor, Len found the smashed residue of what could be a compound eye he could not be sure since this was where his hand penetrated.

What the ghoul identified as the brain was largely undamaged. Fortunately, this species's brain was separated into four quarters that had some distance between them. His attack had damaged two of these, which was the probable reason for its death.

After separating the creature in all its components, Len finally looked up again. his imprisoned bean was shivering and shaking. Len gave the thing a toothy smile, exposing his sharp fangs, as he listed the brains from the trey he had collected them in.

Playing with the balls between his finger, he made sure to give the alien ample chance to watch him consume its buddy's brain.

The ghoul's eyes widened, as he experienced the closest thing to a trip he felt for the last three centuries. Most drugs didn't work on undead, but these completely foreign memories, the knowledge, and the feeling that accompanied them were as close to a high, as he had gotten as a ghoul.

Len left the lab and looked stumbled to the observation deck to digest the flood of information... and enjoy being stoned. Except for some gaps, he let the alien's whole life wash over him.

It was a shame this guy was but a crook and there was not much technical knowledge to learn. Which didn't mean t was useless, as he learned a lot about the universe out there. People said humanity had entered the space age, but few ships had traveled far beyond the solar system.

Even the Ankara was technically still among the first wave of colonization ships send onto a venture into the unknown. From the knowledge of the alien, Len got a bigger picture of the universe.