"Exactly, Father! This is the most precious gift I could give you: a ship capable of faster-than-light travel." Russ glanced at the Emperor with some pride as he spoke.
So you have a side like this after all, my dear father! I thought you'd always remain completely unruffled!
The vision I saw had been real after all. The Emperor was obsessed with the FTL Engine in a way that was impossible to put into words.
"Is it really powered by an FTL Engine? Where did you find it? Where did you get this ship, Russ?
"Judging by the comfort of the seat and its appearance, the pilot should look exactly like us humans." The Emperor began carefully examining the small ship before him.
Could such a small ship really travel faster than light? His Primarch wouldn't lie to him, surely!
How did its FTL Engine work, then? What kind of fuel did it use? The Emperor was curious about all of it.
"I stumbled across an ancient ship on Fenris. Perhaps it was a relic of our human civilization, or perhaps some other being left it behind. Who knows?" Leman Russ said.
Don't ask. If you do, I'll just say I stumbled upon it and have no idea where it came from. Anyway, it's an FTL ship. Do you want it or not?
The Emperor nodded at his words. As long as it hadn't come from the Warp, that was all that mattered.
"Can it fly properly?" the Emperor asked.
"Of course! Here's the ship's manual, and this is its remote control." Leman Russ pulled a calculator-like controller from his robes and handed it to the Emperor, along with a small booklet.
During the days Axis had spent on Fenris, he'd not only learned the Fenrisian language, but also translated the language of the Dragon Ball World. The manual had therefore already been translated into High Gothic.
The Emperor took the manual and studied it carefully. Before long, he had learned how to operate the ship.
"I'm going to test the ship's capabilities. Take Leman Russ back to rest. Once I've finished testing it, we can discuss your reward." The Emperor waved at Axis and Leman Russ, then picked up the eyeball-shaped ship and turned to leave.
The Emperor had no interest in anything else right now. All he wanted was to confirm whether the FTL Engine was real.
Two Adeptus Custodes followed the Emperor away, while the other two led Axis and Leman Russ to a room to rest.
"Russ, do you think the Emperor will believe where this ship came from? Calling it an ancient ship sounds a little far-fetched," Axis asked after they returned to the room.
Saiyan ships were standard-issue equipment manufactured by the Frieza Force in large quantities, so they hadn't been made very long ago. The Emperor should be able to tell quite easily that this ship was less than ten years old.
"Hahaha! Don't worry, Wolf Cub. My father won't care about something so trivial.
"As long as your ship can travel faster than light, that's all that matters." Leman Russ patted Axis on the shoulder as he spoke.
There was no need to dig into everything. As long as it benefited the Imperium and humanity, that was enough!
Axis nodded thoughtfully. Leman Russ was right. The little ship's origins didn't matter. What mattered was the value it could bring to the Imperium, the Emperor, and humanity. That was enough.
"Get some rest, my little Wolf Cub. I need to go check on my warriors! Stay here and don't wander off." Leman Russ patted Axis on the shoulder, then got up and left the room.
He was much busier than the little Wolf Cub. He still had to look after the warriors in his tribe and attend to his gene-sons, the Space Wolves' Astartes.
At that moment, aboard the Emperor's Dream, the Emperor and his most loyal Adeptus Custodes boarded a Landing Craft. They left the human fleet and headed to the far side of Fenris.
Once there, they opened the landing craft's hatch. The Emperor's body shrank, changing from more than four meters tall to that of a two-meter-tall, powerfully built man.
He climbed into the spherical ship and, following the manual's instructions, started up the eyeball-shaped craft.
Its FTL Engine engaged, and the ship shot away, trailing red flames. In an instant, it had vanished from the star system.
Sitting in the cockpit, the Emperor watched everything through the red canopy. The lights outside the ship flashed continuously. From the perspective of faster-than-light travel, everything seemed to slow down.
In just over ten minutes, the eyeball-shaped ship had already left Fenris behind and reached a nearby planet.
After an hour, it had reached the gas giant in the star system. At that speed, it would take only seven or eight hours to leave the entire system!
What kind of speed was that? A thousand times the speed of light! It was more than enough for short-distance travel across the Milky Way.
Thousands of years ago, when human civilization stood at its peak,
human science and technology had nearly reached the limits of advancement. The nanobots humanity commanded back then could consume an entire star in an instant.
Their power was beyond anything humanity today could even imagine. Yet even humans of that era had never invented a stable FTL Engine.
An FTL Engine wasn't simply a matter of going faster than light.
To travel across the universe, a few times the speed of light wasn't nearly enough. Even traveling at dozens of times the speed of light wouldn't suffice.
At a hundred times the speed of light, crossing the Milky Way would still take a thousand years.
A journey through the Warp took only a few months, or even just a few minutes at its fastest. Of course, in the worst cases, it could take a thousand years—or leave you missing forever.
Over distances greater than a thousand light-years—thousands, or even tens of thousands—the difference between traveling at a hundred times the speed of light and traveling through the Warp was enormous.
Humanity at its peak could indeed build ships capable of traveling several times faster than light. But exploring the Milky Way that way was utterly impractical, which was why the Emperor hadn't pursued FTL ships and had instead sought the Eldar's Webway.
But this little ship changed everything. At a thousand times the speed of light, crossing the Milky Way's hundred-thousand-light-year diameter would take a hundred years.
Even so, this method of travel was far better than the Warp. For distances within a thousand light-years, this little ship would take a year to make the journey; for distances under a thousand light-years,
it could arrive in just a few months, making it entirely comparable to Warp travel. Journeys of less than a thousand light-years could be made without the Warp altogether.
Although humanity couldn't abandon Warp travel entirely, this could still greatly improve the conditions under which humanity lived.
Before you continue