"Come on, Annos, let me introduce you. This is Haituo from the Adeptus Mechanicus. He invented a powerful ship acceleration device. Coordinate with him on it." Evan walked in, dragging a fully mechanized monstrosity behind him.
"Hello. I'm Techmarine Annos."
After his Forge World had been destroyed, this bizarre member of the Adeptus Mechanicus had lacked the facilities to modify himself safely, so he had resorted to numerous emergency modifications. Even after throwing in his lot with the pirates, he had never properly repaired himself. As a result, he now looked like a display cabinet full of shoddy instruments.
But that did nothing to obscure his brilliant ingenuity. All these top-quality solid zones had been painstakingly assembled by his own hands.
As far as Annos was concerned, anyone who rose to a prominent position in the Adeptus Mechanicus had to possess some exclusive technology. Evan had simply abducted another member of the priesthood.
"So what did the Chapter Master ask you to research?"
"Just a hyper-acceleration device for use in realspace, and a warp bubble generated in realspace."
"Oh. Well, get to work. Tell me if you need anything... Wait, what's there to research about generating a warp bubble in realspace?"
"Inside the Mandeville Point."
Clatter! The focusing lens in the Techmarine's hand fell to the floor and shattered.
"What did you say? Warp technology inside a star system's perimeter?"
"To be precise, it generates a warp membrane that separates the realspace on the inside from the realspace on the outside."
"How is that possible? How do you breach the barriers of realspace to create a membrane of Warp?"
Annos felt as though he were dreaming. What the hell had happened to this universe?
(What can I say? Daemons can board the Phalanx directly in Terra's orbit now. I don't