Battle of the Ikeopo Asteroid Field

The Battle of the Ikeopo Asteroid Field, the largest space naval engagement in the history of the Royal Naval Service, took place in 2921. A fleet of warships under the command of Admiral Lord Horatio Evander engaged the full might of the ruthless and powerful Polydenum Pirates, a band of marauders who had intercepted millions of yojj worth of polydenum from convoys over the previous decade.

The battle began when the HMS Swiftsure, a small sloop of the line, made contact with a pirate frigate and followed it back to the main fleet. Though hopelessly outmatched the Swiftsure's captain, Sir Robert Edwards, offered action, hoping to buy time for the fleet, then in orbit around Morrigan, to reach the asteroid field and pin down the dreaded pirates. Unfortunately, Sir Robert was killed in the first volley, and Lt. Commander Thelonious Cobb, his first officer, took command, managing to dart through the much larger and clumsier pirate ships until the fleet arrived.

The main Sivadian fleet, consisting of twelve ships of the line, twelve cruisers, fifteen frigates, and some twenty unrated vessels, engaged the pirate fleet of approximately seventy five vessels. Admiral Lord Evander drove his ships through the pirate line, raking them with broadside fire. Of the seventy five enemy vessels which began the engagement, twenty were destroyed, fifteen rendered hulks and scuttled, and twenty-one taken as prizes. More than five thousand pirates were captured, and their leaders hanged, after a series of trials on Sivad.