As a crook, this Alien, Z'lor, had collected a lot of knowledge about the world out there. Their race had been traveling space for a long time, but they were also not the only ones. Not even the first ones.
This part of the universe, which included the milky way, was governed by a great alliance of different territories. Maybe the most interesting information was that many different races existed out there. Their nations made up this huge space-faring alliance.
Len was still working on assimilating the vampire cells, but getting all this information on other races made him think about what he could gain, from this vast buffet of diversity.
Their race, Len continued to call them beans, since their original name was too long for his taste, was just a small part of this alliance. there were many crooks like him, who broke the laws of the alliance and made a profit from exploiting less advanced races.
Though not all of them were as ruthless ass these two. Len found out what exactly the slime fungus, Krittons, was. It was an organism, that hijacked carbon-based living beings and mutated them into an energy reactor for further breeding.
The reason why they did this to ships like the Ankara was that it was not weird for the home planets of these primitive species to lose contact with the first colonization ships. It was a tried and true scheme.
As for why they did this in the first place, krittons were used to produce drugs. And they were especially banned, because of the cruel farming method.
Besides all kinds of rough information on the universe, most of it was useless, he also learned the language of this race and chunks of the universal language introduced by the great alliance.
The other more useful knowledge was on how to operate the kind of spacecraft they had used to enter the Ankara. If he got some practice, he was sure he could operate the thing.
He had been so immersed in all the new knowledge and almost forgotten his little prisoner. it was not so easy to consciously absorb knowledge and memories. It was easier to interrogate someone and close the gaps this way.
Having the possibility of space travel in the back of his mind eased the ghoul's worries. With reinvigorated motivation, his research made leaps and bounds. He continued his life on the Ankara with the small addition of his prisoner.
Every time when he was butchering his meal, eating, or researching, he would converse with his little bean, like talking to a parrot. Having a partner helped a lot in mastering the languages he had absorbed.
Len also used this chance to observe the bean's physical properties. the tentacle-like appendages would slowly regenerate over time. Over time, the bean grew numb to the ghoul's horror and they started having actual conversations.
The ghoul made sure to never really reveal anything about himself, but he got along well with his new pet. He fed the bean, his name was Z'Lar, with a slop that came from a fabricator on their ship.
Exploring the foreign ship also became part of the ghoul's interests. It was a shame the two pilots were little more than crooks. They were no mechanics and had no knowledge about how the technology actually worked.
However, what was it the ghoul had more than enough of? Time. With time he was sure he could use the knowledge of the scientists had digested, to reverse engineer the functions.
For now, he concentrated on his method to try and absorb the vampire cells. And soon, after slightly more than one year he finally succeeded. In his research, he had brought together two simple medicinal approaches.
Gene Therapy which was typically used to treat or enhance humans and traditional vaccinations. Len used the theory behind gene therapy to weaken and cultivate weaker tribed of vampiric cells, which he then used in a vaccine shot.
Now he could use this vaccination just like the gene thereby used on enhanced humans, to slowly absorb the powers of a vampire. Everything without the risk of vampirism suddenly taking over. because the ghoul was sure of one thing:
He did not want to turn into a vampire, like his master. A vampire was strong but had way too many weaknesses compared to a ghoul. Of course, he had heard of high-rankers and purebloods, but his master was not one of them.
His pathetic master would turn to dust in the sun, had to travel in the ground of his homeland, feared religious symbols, could not enter a home without being invited, got food poisoning from garlic, and had to regularly consume blood and only blood.
Being a ghoul was way better, especially after he was freed from his master. Even by just keeping a strict diet of enhanced humans he had long since grown stronger than his former master. At least physically.
What he lacked were a vampire's superpowers. But with his new injection, he should have been theoretically able to slowly trigger the disease that had made him a ghoul to mutate and absorb the power of the vampire shot. At least the ghoul hoped so.
If this succeeded he might at some point even be able to safely consume the flesh of his master.
The power he would gain could greatly ease future space travel since he had not found little signs of similar supernatural phenomenons in the universe. Many races could use Telepathy making it almost a common thing.
Rarer were races that could use abilities like hypnosis, telekinesis, or even short-range teleportation. Some could even change their form, but things like turning into mist, bats, or rats were unheard of. Len could not only gain the power of a vampire, but also a vampire's immunity to such influences.
Any race that tried to pick a fight with him, would be in it for a rude awakening. Except if he was blasted to pieces by intergalactic firepower. He wasn't sure whether he could survive something like that...
It relieved him to know, that it was not common for the races of the alliance to get into confrontations of new spacefaring races. The crooks didn't know a lot about the political intricacies that awaited freshly baked space nations.
However, it did not seem, that newcomers were met with weapons and hostility. On the contrary, it seemed there was a custom of non-interference or mild help.
Len did not have to fear beeing met with spacecraft gunfire, as long as he avoided causing an intergalactic war.
The bigger danger was people like the beans. The Crooks and Fraudsters that aimed to take advantage of the noobs without regard for their lives. The ghoul found out from the memories of the bean he ate, that non-interference also meant no big help.
Until they managed to make ties and become part of the alliance, there was no reliable protection through their laws. if others, more brutal criminals than the beans, were to appear th ghoul might be forced to flee from the ship.
He spend a lot of time thinking about these kinds of scenarios, since leaving the ship could be a potential problem. Although it had worked to eat the alien brains, a ghoul's diet was supposed to be humans.
Just like vampires could drink animal blood, but only thrive from humans.
As he had found out during the last decade, a healthy diet of human meat did wonders for in tan and posture. He had no idea what would become of him if he had to live off foreign animals or alien species.
In this regard, he was the same as humans. Dependant on his natural diet. At the end that meant that he not only had to make sure to bring his cattle to a world, a meadow, where they could live and multiply healthily.
The ghoul would be forced to protect them from the wolves and foxes on the way, like a cowboy. Len smiled at this comparison. It felt a lot less like a burden, or an anchor when he thought of them as his property.
They were his lifeline and his rations for a comfortable, immortal life.
He would need to make sure, nobody could touch his food.