Explorator Fleet KX-557.V
Explorator Fleet KX-557.V is an Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator Fleet assigned to explore the Halo Stars.[1a]
Composition
The fleet consists of seven cruisers and numerous escort vessels, towing several self-sufficient orbital sensoriums which are to be left at sites of particular scholarly interest.[1a] The flagship is a Lathe-class monitor-cruiser named Eternity Bell.[1b] Three other named cruisers are the Deimos-class monitor-cruiser Light of Rhea,[1c] the Synford-class light cruiser Cogitus Rex[1b] and the Corpus Ferrum.[1d] Some of these ships were many millennia old though.[1a]
Despite being an Explorator Fleet rather than a Battlefleet, the cruisers and escorts are heavily armed with plasma batteries, lances, and more rarely-seen Mechanicus starship weaponry, as well as being staffed with large numbers of advanced murder-servitors, and members of the Crimson Guard to defend against hostile boarding parties, plus large numbers of Assault Boats to transport those warriors to ships which the fleet wants to capture.[1b]
History
The Light of Rhea pre-dates the formation of this fleet and was once under the command of the since-executed and excommunicated Magos Explorator Klanstap Violaab, who became an arch-Heretek in late M39.[1c]
The fleet was assembled before the rediscovery of the Koronus Passage, and may not even have used that relatively safe route to enter the Koronus Expanse. It had been refitted during its assembly to be able to function for prolonged periods of time without the need to regularly refuel and resupply. The fleet's primary task was to recover STC fragments from lost human colonies out in the Halo Stars, but it also dutifully documents unusual phenomena it encounters along its way.[1a]
Sporadic astropathic messages between the fleet and the Mechanicus in the Calixis Sector reveal that it is exploring far beyond the shipping routes established after the Koronus Expanse was rediscovered, and that they have installed four of their orbital sensoriums at sites of interest so far, but without an astropath to receive and deliver messages on those stations, they have no way to know what they might have learned,[1a] or even if they're still intact. The fleet's leader is currently Magos-Commodore Gnothis Trannarch.[1b]
