Len has a new Ship

This guy was quite strong. It had taken a while to bewitch the captain of the Retriever-33. He and part of his family officially entered the Retriever. Sean Bean and some of his children stayed back at the Ankara to take care of the ship.

In the eyes of modern Earth, the Ankara was no better than scrap metal at this point. it was just a waste of resources to try and retrieve this outdated vessel.

Although the Ankara was slightly worse than the Retriever, Len was not willing to give it up. The upgrade with bean technology was almost completed. Despite being unable to compare to the endo drive which could jump across vast distances instantly, something that could travel just below the speed of light was not bad.

It just took a bit longer to travel far distances. Time was not really a problem for his family members. They could even go into hibernation if they wanted to.

It was the seed for his very own intergalactic fleet.

As he entered the Retriever, Len couldn't help but chuckle a little at the thought that he would get his hands on another ship. Once they entered the Retriever-33 he would slowly turn the whole crew into his people. It was enough to turn the Captain later on and hypnotize the rest to take over control of the ship.

Modern humans of this age tasted disgusting and he didn't want to create too many mouths to feed.

The inside of the Retriever-33 was not much different from the Ankara. Human aesthetics had not evolved over the last centuries. Everything had a clean and clinical look as if the place was a flying hospital.

Len didn't feel out of place thanks to this, but it didn't mean there were no differences. What made the ghoul feel out of place was the crew itself. Centuries of genetic modification and splicing had blessed, or cursed, the crew with all kinds of inhuman features.

Humans that fit his definition as "normal" like the captain were far and few between. People's height and width differed by huge margins. There were some that were almost dwarf-like and others with a build comparable to a barbarian. Even people with pointy elven ears.

Those were the features still closest to original humans. Len also spotted many with additional beats features, such as reptilian or feline eyes. Some kinds of animal ears. he even saw some people with patches of scales and hands like claws.

Seeing this, Len was assured that he wouldn't stand out to them. The explanation for these various changes came to him through the knowledge of the medical officer. the reason for these changes was the same as that for the genetic impasse present earth was struggling with.

Centuries of genetic modification for practical or optical reasons. What started with Super Soldiers created through gene therapy, cloning, or gene designing soon became public customs. Designer babies, gene splicing, plastic gene modifications became a new craze.

And like with most fads, nobody thought of the children. They only realized their mistake when children were born with the unplanned features of animals and deformities.

According to the Medical officer's education, it had taken almost two centuries to barely deal with the kind of live-destructive deformities. All of it led to the current situation, where it became hard for humans to have children without deformities.

Most of the people here were not even born naturally, but only had a chance for a normal life because of heavily monitored artificial conception. Even those that looked outwardly normal, had these kinds of hidden dangers.

As he saw it with his own eyes and processed the information, Len realized how screwed earth was. The ghoul faced this problem with absolute indifference. He didn't give a fu*k. As far as it concerned him, humanity did this to itself.

This only further convinced the ghoul that he was right in protecting his cattle. Not just for his sake, but for theirs, too. it was not just about the kind of experiments they would go through on earth. If these people were brought into the environment of the present earth, it was unavoidable for them to mix with these mutts.

He was aware of the way this would sound to humans, but in his opinion, the colonists were better off founding a healthy colony and paying a blood toll to him, than returning to that kind of dystopian earth.

Len, the bloodthirsty maneater, was not the monster in this story. He was the hero. With the mindset of a martyr, he endured the disgusting taste of Captain Fawx blood. he bit the captain after they entered his cabin for a further talk.

Instantly, a rush of the most superficial knowledge of the captain entered his mind. This was the difference between Len sharing information with his kin or servant and him eating the brain of someone else.

The information flow was much more digestible, but also more incomplete. it was not possible to completely assimilate all the information, but it was easier to selectively take what was needed.

With this first extraction, Len gained knowledge of all kinds of security measures, management processes, and passwords of the Retriever-33. When he realized that it would be a lot harder to instate him as the new captain of the retriever, he sliced his finger and dripped a small drop into Fawx's mouth.

If he couldn't become the captain himself, he would turn the Captin into proper kin. The difference to a servant was huge. Since his powers were based on those of a vampire, they were also very comparable to one.

However, thanks to his own centuries of research, Len had managed to evade some of the weaknesses of the Vampire disease. The magical virus was very demanding on a human, which was why ghouls and servants created by them, would often become stupid or suffer physical degradation.

Len had evaded this, by inherently weakening the disease. In exchange, there were no huge gains either. His servants saw almost no physical degradation, the only change was the mental subjection to their master.

His kin only shared his immortality and some of his powers or weakened version of them. Compared to him, they had a much lower need to consume human meat. They could survive on lab-grown human organs without a problem.

Len also suspected that they would get along well, with feeding off of corpses. It was different for him. As the progenitor, he now had the most powerful version of ghoulism. He needed fresh ingredients to sustain his peak condition.

He had made sure that he could not easily infect someone else with this variant. It would be bad if some idiot poached his herd.

The ghoul sat down on the surprisingly comfy sofa in the captain's private cabin, as he watched Fawx twitch on the ground. The man was slowly turning. Like with the bean, the process was different from that of his human kin.

All the genetic mutations and changes seemed to make the process much more violent and painful than with an ordinary human. Len could only shrug his shoulder. One had to break an egg to make an omelet.

To honor the captain's heroic sacrifice, Len made sure to properly observe the process for future reference. With how mixed the current human race was, they might be a lot of changes he couldn't account for.

All crew members were comparable to a unique specimen of their own race. it was almost a wonder, that two humans like that were even able to conceive children. He let his thoughts wanter like this, as Fawx slowly calmed down.

The man drowsily lifted his head, blood and salvia were running over his chin. He had probably bitten on his tongue in his spastic throws. Len could feel the establishment of his mental connection with Fawx.

"W-What happened?" the captain asked confused.

Surprised, the ghoul noticed that the connection was weakened. He frowned when he found that it was unlike the absolute control he was used to. Fawx was not automatically installed with the slave software that saw him as his master.

"Well, this is awkward," Len commented.

"What did you do to me? This feeling..?"

However, it was undeniable, that Fawx had become his kin and the man himself also started to realize the change.

"I gifted you eternal life."

"...fuck off."