"They have nowhere to go and neither have we. Close the well."Grand Admiral Irene Zheng, signal to the Retribution Fleet, 24 September 2451
The Battle of Exedor of 24 to 29 September 2451 was the largest fleet action of the Scouring, the Republic's campaign to destroy every monolith of the Red Khanate that did not withdraw beyond the Veil. The Retribution Fleet under Grand Admiral Irene Zheng fought the six monoliths that held Hiverion, the Voor capital, in the planet's gravity well. The monoliths had nowhere to retreat to, because the Veil lay beyond the Republic's fleet and not behind them. All six were destroyed, with 11 million Fevarians, for 70 hulls and 30,000 dead.
The Corps landed on Hiverion on 2 October 2451. The planet's Voor, 800 million of them, rose against the tributary garrison on the day of the landing. The Voor Confederacy was restored at Hiverion on 1 January 2453.
An earlier battle in the same system, in March 2336, is the Battle of Exedor (2336).
Background
The Scouring
The Red Khan Thurva died at the Second Battle of Talandra on 19 June 2449, and his Khanate broke into the holdings of eight rival khans. The Chamber's Scouring Resolution of 2 February 2450 ordered the destruction of every monolith that did not withdraw beyond the Veil, and refused the surrender of any clan aboard one. The Retribution Fleet was constituted on 1 March 2450 under Zheng in the Hangzhou. It retook the Binami and Saolea sectors through 2450 and early 2451.
The road to Exedor
The fleet came to Haedius on 4 May 2451 with 720 hulls, eighteen Retributions and 3,500 platforms. In the Third Battle of Haedius it destroyed five monoliths for the loss of 40 hulls and the Retribution Ijax, and the Haedus Territory's council came out of Indata Mog's tunnels on 14 May. Kastaba and Myrum were retaken in June and July. The Voor of the Haedus Territory sailed with the fleet in The Hearth That Waits, the captured hearth whose crew had brought her over to the Republic at Saolea in 2434.
Hiverion under the Khanate
Hiverion had been a tributary world since the Khan took the Krakre on 4 September 2427 and sat in the Kindling to receive its submission. By 2451 it was held by six monoliths and a tributary garrison of 2 million. The garrison's khan, Ruvash D'Ravek, had been appointed by the Khan in 2440 and had refused to join any of the eight claimants after the Khan's death. He held Hiverion as his own.
Opposing forces
Retribution Fleet
Zheng brought about 700 hulls to Exedor, with seventeen Retribution-class battleships of 2,600 metres and six projectors each, the platforms the fleet carried into every system's well, and The Hearth That Waits under her Voor Commander, Vaal Tesh.
The garrison
| Monolith | Clan | Fate |
|---|---|---|
| The Ninth Fire | D'Ravek (the khan's own) | Destroyed in low orbit, 29 September |
| Dhen's Promise | D'Sarum | Destroyed 26 September |
| The Long Hunt | D'Varra | Destroyed 26 September |
| Iron Mother | D'Kaal | Destroyed 27 September |
| The Unanswered | D'Okhet | Destroyed 28 September |
| Silence Before Rain | D'Imar | Destroyed 28 September |
Battle
20 to 24 September: the fall inward
The fleet arrived at Exedor's edge on 20 September 2451. It fell inward with its platforms in the formation it had used at Haedius, the platforms ahead and the Retributions behind them, so that the monoliths' lances met the platforms first. D'Ravek kept his six monoliths in Hiverion's well, inside the old orbital belt the Legion had built in the Voor War and the Khanate had rebuilt.
No jump is possible inside a gravity well, and every monolith that wished to leave would have to climb out past the fleet. The Veil lay beyond the fleet. The monoliths had nowhere to retreat to, and they fought where they were.
24 to 27 September: the well
The fleet engaged on 24 September at 300,000 kilometres. Zheng's signal that morning closed the well: the platforms and the outer squadrons took station round the planet's sphere of approach so that no monolith could climb out unseen. The monoliths' lances destroyed 900 platforms in the first two days.
On the 26th the Retributions closed to their projectors' range. Dhen's Promise and The Long Hunt were destroyed that day by the combined fire of six Retributions. On the 27th Iron Mother came out against the Retributions' line and destroyed the Nomotar and the Kastaba, the fleet's heaviest losses of the battle, before The Hearth That Waits and four Retributions broke her at 40,000 kilometres.
28 and 29 September: the last monoliths
The Unanswered and Silence Before Rain tried to climb out of the well on the 28th on opposite sides of the planet, and were caught by the outer squadrons and destroyed. The Ninth Fire, D'Ravek's own, stayed in low orbit over Ekhar Vin. She was destroyed on the 29th, after the fleet's rails and projectors had reduced the orbital belt around her. Her wreck fell on the Northern Reach.
All six monoliths were destroyed, with 11 million Fevarians. The Republic lost 70 hulls, the Retributions Nomotar and Kastaba among them, and 30,000 dead.
The landing and the rising
The Corps landed on Hiverion on 2 October 2451 with the 103rd ROD Division, which had dropped on the Krakre in 2338. The Voor of Hiverion, 800 million of them, rose on the day of the landing. In a week, on the Institute's estimate, they killed 400,000 Fevarians and tributary troops on the ground. The Republic's histories record that the Corps did not stop them. The surface was taken by December, but the orbital ring, held by 6 million Fevarian settlers and the tributary garrison, fought on for fourteen months and fell on 30 November 2452.
The Kindling was found empty. The Khan's household had stripped it in 2448.
Aftermath
Exedor was the Scouring's largest fleet action. The fleet went on into the Confederacy's south from November 2451. The Voor worlds were fought for siege by siege, and the last two were not freed until the Fejantris Peace in 2460. Vi Simni's garrison of three monoliths surrendered the world and jumped for the Veil under the Resolution's terms on 4 December 2451, the first garrison to do so, and was let go.
The Voor Confederacy was restored at Hiverion on 1 January 2453, under a presiding member from the Haedus Territory. The Republic recognised it on 14 January, and the Chamber released it from the Treaty of Ximpok's military clauses on 1 February. The Legion was refounded at Hiverion in March 2453. The wreck of The Ninth Fire was left where it fell in the Northern Reach, and the Voor call the crater D'Ravek's Grave.
BOOK SOURCES
- Solar Eternal, Part XIII, §13.10 "Death of the Khan: The Second Battle of Talandra"
- Solar Eternal, Part XIV, §14.2 "Retribution Fleet"
- Solar Eternal, Part XIV, §14.3 "The Voor Worlds"