Chapter 46 – Drain Knowledge

"I am Darth Anakkona, I lived on Mustafar a few thousand years ago and created a holocron to store my knowledge of Sith Alchemy and the dark side. I fought numerous times against Jedis, Siths, and everyone who opposed my will."

Layan was listening to the hologram of the near human while trying to place the near human in the timeline, but was unable to. He heard of a legend about a Darth Anakkona who created using the Sith alchemy a monster living in space and able to eat ships whole. This legend wasn't precisely dated and had several discrepancies in it.

"The Darth Anakkona who create some sort of space monster eating ships?"

"Yes, the Exogorth. I modified an already existing specie to create an unstoppable weapon which would eat the worlds of those daring to oppose me. It took time and when they were created, I realized that I was unable to control them."

Layan was thinking at the famous rare species which was terrifying for any space pilot and could only sigh at the irresponsibility of the Sith lord.

"Fortunately, I made of them an unaggressive specie, otherwise at the first mishap they could have killed me. When I wanted to create something to control my creations, a Jedi named Chu-Gon-Dar started to hunt me down, it was around this time that this holocron was created."

"Good, I can say that I love history lessons, but for now I need to learn a dark side skill named Drain knowledge. Is the knowledge of it inside this holocron?"

Layan was a bit in a hurry as the travel for Kamino would still take some time, but not enough to learn a force skill, even one he tried to recreate by himself in the past.

During a fight with Vader, the Sith lord took the information out of his head as he let his psyche unprotected. He knew from Shaak Ti that this skill could forcefully take information of someone's brain and if he resisted, cause psychological damages.

In his case, he was taken by surprise, thus Vader had no problem to extract the knowledge. It was exactly what he wanted to do and one of the three reasons he kidnapped Pre Vizsla, to obtain Jango consent to take his fighting knowledge and give it to the clone. And if he refuses, then he would have to do it forcefully.

"Yes, it is. To use it, the practitioner must expand his mind to detect the wanted knowledge in the memory of the target and then create a copy of it, or for the less gifted take it and thus creating an amnesia. The knowledge extracted being not from the mind of the user has a temporary nature, a few hours at least, days at best. And don't forget that you obtain the knowledge, but not the talent in it."

The explanation he just heard was good and was corresponded with his past tries, but he wasn't expecting the temporary nature of the extracted memories.

"Temporary? it will be a problem. Do you have a way to put this knowledge in a device using your alchemy? After this, using flash-learning, the knowledge would become definitive."

The Sith got a thinking expression on his face before answering at Layan.

"Yes, but I don't have a body and you have no experience in Sith alchemy. The fastest way would be to use several skills in coordination to put the knowledge into a memory crystal. Crystals are more malleable and adaptative with organic and technology, that's why the lightsaber crystals can be imbued with the force."

Layan was thinking to the possibility and yes, it was roughly making sense, and with the force, almost anything could be achieved.

"Which skills?"

"Drain Knowledge, Mechu-Deru, and you will need to manipulate the memory crystal using the force, otherwise the crystal won't withstand such a manipulation."

"That's good, I already know how to use Mechu-Deru."

At his word, a mocking smile came to the lips of the hologram. He was certain that someone searching balance like Layan would never try to reach the maximum potential of a skill as it would be dangerous for him.

"You may know how to use it, but you're far from mastery. Mechu-Deru can merge organics and cybernetics, tapping into the dark side, you can create a new specie surpassing every other."

Layan saw the barely hidden intent of the Dark Lord and dismissed it without a hesitation. He knew about the nanogene spore created by a Sith in the past which transformed living things into technobeasts, a hybrid of machine and organic.

"To create what? Abominations like Grievous? No, thank you. Give me all the details about Drain Knowledge."

The dark lord was angered at Layan dismissal of the use of the dark side, but he continued to teach him. Other opportunity to corrupt him may arise. Layan listened to the old Sith talking for several minutes before finally obtaining everything he needed to learn the dark side power.

"The problem with this type of skills is that I need a test subject to improve and check my proficiency. Fortunately, I ordered the droids to caught prisoners just in case I succeeded in persuading you. As for the inhumane torture imposed to the subject, it's not really my concern when experimenting on murderers and terrorists."

He closed the holocron and headed for the detention room. Inside Pre Vizsla and the other two captives were awake. He said nothing and dragged one of them using the force before heading back in his room.

"Listen to me Sithspawn…"

Before he could continue his insult, Layan gagged him with a piece of cloth before giving his best smile to the mandalorian.

He put his hands on the temples of his captives and followed the procedure indicated by the old Sith lord while fueling his powers using his emotions. His goal was to search for all the fighting skills of the individual as it was the procedure, he would try on Jango Fett.

At the beginning, it was like searching for a word in a dictionary. Everything came in order, the first thing being the childhood memories. After a few efforts of concentration, he succeeded in dividing everything by category and finally found the skills further divided by genre.

The problem arose when he tried to copy and extract the skills. The mandalorian started to bleed at the corner of his eyes and was shaken by seizures.

"Kriff, don't die. I only have another test subject left after you."

Layan immediately used his force healing skills and called the medical droid through the ship's intercom. Before the droid could arrive, he succeeded to stabilize the health condition of the man. After this, he was taken to the infirmary by the droid, and Layan ordered an HK-61 to keep watch over him.

"So, how is he?"

He asked the 2-1B surgical droid, interested by the result of his failure.

"He suffered cerebral damages, which may lead to a motor disability and a short-term memory loss. I'll have a better understanding of his condition after a day of rest. In any case I can't heal him here, he needs advanced medical assistance."

The droid explained in his perfectly flat tone while looking at his patient.

In any case, Layan succeeded and got the skills, at least partially, he didn't get everything he wanted. It wasn't what he wanted for Jango Fett; He may become an ally, or at least a good pawn to change the fate of the galaxy.

In the worst case, he would do it nonetheless. Even if Fett wasn't on Kamino for Kenobi arrival, he was sure that Palpatine would find a way to start the Battle of Geonosis. He can create several excuses as to how he got the information on what was going on in Geonosis.

"Keep him alive for the time being."

He left the infirmary and headed for his room to recollect his experience on his first try using Drain Knowledge. The problem lay in taking the information out of the brain of the victim. He needed to establish a new way of action and maybe ask for a further detailed explanation of the matter to the Sith Lord.

After a short conversation with the gatekeeper of the Sith holocron and recollecting about what could have led to his failure, he was ready to try again.

He entered the room where the other two captives were kept. He dragged the other one left like he did before, using the force. Pre Vizsla was surprised and soon overtaken as he saw his jailer came back, but without his subordinate.

"You will pay for this. You hear me?!"

He ignored the distinguished leader of the Death Watch and dragged the other one to his room. Then he restarted the procedure he used on the previous one. He was going more swiftly through the memories of the man and soon found what he was searching for.

This time, he did something else. He limited himself to only one skill, to say his mandalorian close combat martial art. After a few minutes, he took back his hands and looked at the man who was looking at him with a dazed expression on his face.

"I'll bring you to the doc."

The results were satisfying; the mandalorian had apparently overtaxed his cerebral activity in a short time, but should recover in a day, maybe two.

"See you tomorrow."

The man shuddered at these words as he was dragged back to the training room and put under the custody of the droids.