Overview
"We have determined with 27.439% accuracy that the xenos dwellings are built atop a human city, pre-dating the Age of Strife. The virus bombs are being consecrated as we speak. Cleansing can begin upon your order."
— Technomancer-at-Arms Gryfe to Magos-Commodore Gnothis Trannarch, translated from binaric cant.
Tasked with exploring the Halo Stars, the route of Explorator Fleet KX–557.V brought it into the
Koronus Expanse many solar decades ago -- possibly without traversing the Koronus Passage. Since that time, however, interactions between the Explorator Fleet and the Rogue Traders
Rogue Traders who ply the Expanse have been almost nonexistent, so far is their route from the almost civilised regions of the Expanse known as
Footfall and
Winterscale's Realm. Year after Terran year, the fleet continues its ponderous journey of exploration, a community of Tech-priests and gene-locked servants, isolated from the rest of Mankind.
Contact between the
Adeptus Mechanicus of the Calixis Sector and Explorator Fleet KX–557.V is sporadic, to say the least. Thanks to the venerable technologies of the Priesthood of Mars, the fleet is capable of operating for extended periods of time without the need to refuel or resupply.
Apart from the occasional astropathic message -- many of which never reach their intended destination -- Explorator Fleet KX–557.V had had no known encounters with other Imperial forces in over a solar decade as of 815.M41. The fleet's mission is one of ongoing exploration, into the deepest reaches of the
Koronus Expanse.
While the Tech-priests of the fleet take an appropriate interest in unusual stellar or geologic phenomena, their primary goal is the pursuit of the Quest for Knowledge in the form of a search for archeotech, driven by the possibility of recovering STC database fragments left behind by the ancient human inhabitants of the Expanse.
Explorator Fleet KX–557.V comprises seven vessels of cruiser class, accompanied by numerous escorts. Additionally, this stellar caravan tows several orbital sensoriums, that it might leave a
Mechanicus presence to observe any particularly worthy phenomena or star systems.
These orbitals are designed to be entirely self-sufficient, accommodating a single Tech-priest and a servitor crew almost indefinitely. Without an astropath to transmit messages, however, the findings of such an installation can only benefit the Adeptus Mechanicus should a vessel return to retrieve the data at a later date.
Thus far, Explorator Fleet KX–557.V has seeded four such orbital stations in the depths of the
Koronus Expanse, but has yet to make further contact with any of them. These sensorium platforms feature formidable automated defences, as the augury arrays and other sophisticated sensor systems with which they are equipped would prove a tempting target to pirates or even unscrupulous Rogue Traders.
The fleet has no way of knowing if these stations are even still intact, or if the Tech-priests left to monitor them are still alive. Some of these stations have been in operation for solar decades, all the while collecting data, to fill extensive Cogitator banks. All manner of secrets may be held by these isolated stations, perhaps never to be shared with the Mechanicus -- particularly if someone else collects them first.
Explorator fleets, as with the fleets of
Rogue Traders, stand to encounter any number of perils in their journeys, not least of which are ravenous xenos and piratical raiders. As befits the holders of the rarest weapons and technology known to Mankind, the Adeptus Mechanicus does not send their envoys into the cold of space unprepared.
While warfare is not the function of Explorator Fleet KX–557.V, it is fully capable of defending itself, and of demolishing those xenos and heathen creations which are so great an affront to the Omnissiah that they cannot be permitted to exist. The cruisers and escorts of the fleet mount a fearsome array of plasma batteries, Lances, and even more esoteric ship-based weapons.
The disciples of the Machine God are loathe to allow their works to fall into the hands of unbelievers, and so mount a formidable defence against boarding actions, in the form of Combat and Murder Servitors, and even the infamous Crimson Guard of the Calixis Sector's Lathe Worlds.
Large numbers of these mechanical and cybernetic warriors are retained to ensure an insurmountable defence. Additionally, should the Explorator fleet encounter an enemy in possession of sanctioned voidships that need be returned to the fold, waves of assault boats, carrying advanced Murder Servitors, allow for the Tech-priests of KX–557.V to acquire control of a vessel without risking its destruction through ranged fire.
In the case of a truly hopeless scenario, the masters of the fleet would destroy their own vessels, rather than let them fall into the hands of Heretics or aliens. By the grace of the Omnissiah, the Tech-priests pray that these self-destruct protocols need never be tested.
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