In the vacuum of the orbital dock, no sound could travel. Only through bone conduction and electromagnetic communication could one feel the cataclysmic changes occurring.
As Six issued the final electronic command, the indicator lights on the six massive anti-gravity generator arrays—installed only days prior—flickered out one by one.
Clang—
Following that was the sound of physical locks disengaging. Dozens of thick, heavy mechanical maintenance arms peeled away in a white mist of hydraulic venting, slowly releasing the steel behemoth they had been clutching.
Workers in fully sealed vacuum suits, clinging to the ship like barnacles on a whale, quickly unhooked their safety lines and leaped onto open-air engineering lifts waiting nearby. They retreated to the edges of the dock.
Thus, the starship named the New State was finally revealed without obstruction to all eyes, standing under the cold gaze of the stars.
This was no longer the rusty, mud-caked Rogue Trader wreck that had been dug out of the dirt. Using top-tier materials produced by Andy's molecular reconstructors and the relentless day-and-night repairs of engineering drones, the ship had undergone a total blood transfusion.
"If every plank of a ship is replaced, is it still the same ship?"
To Andy, as long as the core logic remained and the sequence of the keel was unchanged, it was the same vessel—even if its performance was now twice as powerful as when it first left the factory.
Yes, twice.
The current "New State" no longer bore a mottled gray-black hull. Instead, it was a heart-stopping pale white—the natural color of high-purity ceramic composite adamantium armor, devoid of paint or superfluous decoration. Its lines were incredibly smooth; aside from the ferocious conical ramming prow kept for impact, the entire hull presented a perfect streamlined structure.
At that moment, everyone finally realized that before it crashed, the New State had been a very, very beautiful ship!
Imperial Navy ships, even the smallest frigates, usually tried to graft an entire Gothic cathedral onto their spines. Flying buttresses, spires, massive stained-glass windows, and countless brass hooks for hanging skulls and scriptures were the standard. In the Imperial mindset, a ship wasn't just a vehicle; it was a mobile temple—it had to be majestic and complex.
But Andy didn't buy into that. He tore down all the "illegal" architectural clutter.
Magnificent bridge towers? Scrapped for an inlaid bridge, increasing safety tenfold. Open-air macro-cannon battery decks? Sealed into fully enclosed, automated loading casemates.
The "New State" now looked sleek, white, and lean. Floating in the dark of space, it exuded a sense of extreme calm, harmony, and an almost non-human level of precision.
Priest Zor stood at the observation window of the dock, staring at this masterpiece. His cybernetic eye was full of conflict. From a technical standpoint, the ship's specs were perfect, making his semi-mechanized heart race. But from an aesthetic and doctrinal standpoint—
"What kind of heretical ship is this—" Zor couldn't help but mutter. "It doesn't even have a proper prayer room, nor are the armor plates carved with binary hymns. Can a ship like this fly without being cursed by its Machine Spirit?"
Mutter as he might, his body was honest. This ship was their only ark to escape this hell.
"Everyone! On my mark!"
Gamma-9's voice boomed over the comms. The once-submissive Underhive priest, now wearing a Commissar's greatcoat with a straight back, stood at the boarding ramp maintaining order.
"Board by department number! Don't push, don't mess around, there are plenty of bunks! If anyone tries to bring private junk up to take up space, I'll throw them out the airlock!"
Under his direction, hundreds of technicians and workers began crossing the gangways into the starship. Inside the titan, Powell and Roger were sweating as they diverted the crowd.
"Engineering Sections 1 and 2, go to Sector C! It's near the reactor, easier to work! Storm squads and heavy guards to Sectors A and B! Man the critical nodes! The rest of you, cram into the Sector E hab-blocks! Tell them this isn't a luxury cruise—one bed and one locker each!"
As everything proceeded in an orderly fashion, Zor took one last look at the dock. His gaze lingered on the six massive anti-gravity rings and the slowly closing vacuum shield generator.
Sigh, those were all good things! Even on a Forge World, such heavy equipment was reserved for top-tier factories. Especially that vacuum shield generator—he'd spent thirty years of savings to buy the blueprints from a destitute Rogue Trader. And now, they were just leaving it here?
"Lord Andy." Zor turned to the tall figure in yellow robes standing behind him. "Are we... really not taking these? Thousands of tons of precision equipment... if we dismantled them and put them in the hold—"
"We can't take them." Andy's voice was calm but brook no argument. "Dismantling them would take at least two days. We have three hours. Besides, the cargo hold is full."
Andy pointed to the New State's slightly deepened waterline; gravity sensors showed the load was near the limit. "It's packed with raw materials, ammunition, and the machine tools we need. Any more, and this ship won't be able to fly."
Andy walked to Zor and patted the priest's cold mechanical shoulder. "Zor, you must understand one thing: only the living have the right to talk about assets. If we die here, this equipment is just a chew toy for the Tyranids. As long as the people and the technology remain, we can build as many of these as we want later."
Zor was silent for a moment. He was a smart man; despite the heartache, he knew the priorities. "You are right, Lord Andy. As long as the knowledge in our heads remains, we can build as many as we want."
"Let's go." Andy turned toward the boarding ramp. "To the bridge. It's time to leave."
---
### The Core Bridge
The bridge hadn't been overhauled as drastically as the exterior; it retained a retro-sci-fi style filled with instrument panels and holographic projection tables. Andy sat in the captain's command chair, facing the massive observation window. Outside was the burning planet and the approaching ink-like shadow of the Warp.
All crew members were at their stations. Zor sat as the Master of the Fleet; though overqualified, he knew the engines best. Powell ran the weapons, Roger monitored damage control, and Gamma-9 managed internal personnel. Everyone was tense; the air was thick with the gravity of stepping into the unknown.
Andy tapped his fingers on the armrest. Now, he faced the most central, critical, and headache-inducing question.
Where to fly?
This wasn't just about coordinates; it was a strategic choice concerning thousands of lives and the survival of his entire "tech-upping" ambition. The ship was fixed, supplies were loaded, and the engines were warm. But where to go?
In Andy's mind, a massive galactic map unfurled. He had to make the right call in the shortest time possible. It was the end of the 41st Millennium; the galaxy was a mess. The Imperium of Man looked vast, but it was a rotting corpse covered in maggots. At this point, the safest places were the ones the Imperium couldn't reach.
Andy first looked East. There was a very tempting option: The Farsight Enclaves. Located on the eastern fringe of the Ultima Segmentum near the Damocles Gulf, led by the famous Commander Farsight.
Why was it tempting? First, the T'au were a young, vibrant race. They believed in the "Greater Good." While essentially a form of brainwashing, compared to the Imperial religious fanatics who used orbital bombardment and turned people into servitors at the drop of a hat, the T'au were a beacon of civilization. Most importantly, the T'au used AI extensively—they called them "Drones," but they were AI. In their society, self-aware machines weren't hunted; they were valued comrades.
If Andy went there with his Golden Age tech and his "Iron Man" identity, he would be treated as a guest of honor. Furthermore, Farsight himself was a pragmatist who had stopped listening to the Ethereals; he valued strength and results. As long as Andy helped him fight and produce, Farsight would provide sanctuary. The environment for "farming" and building was good, with plenty of undeveloped worlds and pre-Imperial ruins.
But... Andy sighed. "Dammit."
It was too far. The Farsight Enclaves were at the far east of the galaxy, while Forge Seven was in the Segmentum Obscurus, in the northwest. Between them lay half the galaxy! Holy Terra, the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, and the Maelstrom of the Red Corsairs! Most lethally, the Great Rift was about to open. If Andy chose the Enclaves, he'd have to pilot a three-kilometer ship through countless war zones and Warp storms. He'd hit Tyranid hive fleets, Orks, Chaos Space Marines, or be purged as a heretic by the Imperial Navy. The risk was 99% death on the road.
He crossed out that option. Since he couldn't go East, he looked West. Or... further out?
Andy shifted his gaze to the very edge of the map, the dark zone surrounding the galactic disc: The Halo Stars (or Halo Zone). This was a collective term for the wild reaches of space at the galaxy's edge. Stars were sparse and matter was poor, but it had one great feature: absolute freedom.
Because it was too remote and dangerous, the Imperium didn't care and couldn't control it. No tithes, no Inquisitorial checkups—it was more remote than Forge Seven. A true lawless land for explorers, pirates, exiles, and xenos. More importantly for Andy, it had irresistible archaeological value. During the Dark Age of Technology, human colonization spanned the whole galaxy and even reached beyond. The Halo Stars were still littered with colony ruins and station wreckage from that era, unrecovered for tens of thousands of years.
If Andy went there, he could climb the tech tree without restraint, mass-producing forbidden weapons that would get him executed ten thousand times by the Imperium, and building a mechanical apocalypse army that would make the Adeptus Mechanicus weep.
But the Halo Stars had one fatal flaw: The Darkness.
This wasn't just a physical lack of light, but a psychic "blindness." Imperial ships navigated the Warp thanks to the Emperor sitting on the Golden Throne, burning his soul to light a psychic beacon—the Astronomican. It was a lighthouse in the sea. But the Astronomican had a range.
The Halo Stars sat right in the shadow where the light didn't reach. Ordinary Imperial ships there were like blind men in a maze. Navigators couldn't see the light, so they couldn't make long-distance jumps; they had to "blind jump" short distances like snails. One wrong move and you were lost in the Warp forever. That's why it had remained undeveloped.
Thinking of this, Andy's eyes lit up. Six.
He had Six! He had a perfectly intact Warp Sextant from the Golden Age! Six didn't need the Astronomican; she relied on raw calculation! Using incredibly complex mathematical models, she calculated Warp turbulence in real-time to find safe paths. That was how humanity colonized the galaxy before the Astronomican existed!
This meant the Halo Stars—a forbidden zone for everyone else—was Andy's private backyard. He had the only "God's Eye View." He could take the paths others feared, mine the resources others couldn't find, and use dangerous zones as natural barriers. If he dove deep into the Halo Stars, even if Abaddon brought the Black Legion or Guilliman brought the Indomitus Crusade, they'd never find him.
Perfect strategic depth. A super-base for "farming."
Sure, there were dangers, like ancient xenos like the brain-eating Slaugth or the remnants of the Rangdan. But for an Andy geared out with god-tier tech and the ability to hand-craft forbidden weapons, fighting xenos was much better than fighting the Imperium or Chaos.
"It's decided." Andy slammed the armrest and stood up. "Six!"
"Present," she replied instantly.
"Chart the course." Andy traced a red line on the star map toward the northwest corner of Segmentum Obscurus. "We head northwest at maximum speed to cut into the outer borders of the Calixis Sector."
The Calixis Sector was a major sector on the edge of the Segmentum Obscurus, bordering the Halo Stars. Beyond it lay the vast, free Halo Zone. "We cut in at max speed, leave Imperial space, and enter deep space!"
"Understood, Lord Andy," Six said without fluff. "Calculating optimal jump points... Calculation complete. Three short-range jump nodes locked. Estimated arrival at Calixis Sector: 48 hours. Warp engine charge 100%. Gellar field stable. Ready for departure."
Andy looked around at everyone on the bridge—Zor, Gamma-9, Powell, Roger, and the crew. They looked back at him with fear of the unknown, but a greater hunger for survival.
"Everyone," Andy began, his voice broadcasting throughout the ship. "We are leaving. Where we are going, there is no order. It is full of danger, but also full of opportunity. We will build a new home there. We will build our own order. Now, say goodbye to the past. We rush into deep space!"
Andy turned. The sky was dyed purple-red—the dusk of Forge Seven.
"Engage!"
VROOOM—!!!
The New State's aft thrusters erupted in brilliant light. The massive starship broke free from the orbital dock and pierced the dark void. Its speed climbed until it became a meteor. Behind it, the planet once called home shrank until it was a mere speck of light.
Until it vanished completely.