We have no special inclination toward any of the posters on this thread. Nevertheless, it's remarkable that an entity that has not revealed its location or special interests — namely "Hanse" — should be smearing the efforts of the Alliance for the Defense. The Alliance kept its constituents secret only during that period when its forces were being gathered, when a single stroke of the Perversion's power might destroy it entirely. Since that time, it has been quite open in its efforts.
Hanse wonders how a single starship could be worth the Alliance's attention. As Harmonious Repose was the site of the latest turn of events, we are in a position to give some explanation. The ship in question, the Out of Band II, is clearly designed for operations at the Bottom of the Beyond — and is even capable of limited operations within the Slow Zone. The ship presented itself as a special zonographic flight commissioned to study the recent turbulence at the Bottom. In fact, this ship's mission is a very different one. In the aftermath of its violent departure, we have pieced together some extraordinary facts:
At least one of the ship's crew was human. Though they made great efforts to stay out of view and used Skroderider traders as intermediaries, we have recordings. A biosequence of one individual was obtained, and it matches the patterns maintained by two out of three of the Homo sapiens archives. (It's well known that the third archive, on Sneerot Down, is in the control of Human sympathizers.) Some might say this deception was founded in fear. After all, these events happened after the destruction of Sjandra Kei. We think otherwise: The ship's initial contact with us occurred before the Sjandra Kei incident.
We have since made a careful analysis of the repair work our yards performed on this vessel. Ultradrive automation is a deep and complex thing; even the cleverest of cloaking cannot mask all the memories in it. We now know that the Out of Band II was from the Relay system and that it left there after the Perversion's attack. Think what this means.
The crew of the Out of Band II brought weapons into a habitat, kill several local sophonts, and escaped before our musicians [harmonizers? police?] were properly notified. We have good reason to wish them ill.
Yet our misfortune is a small thing compared to the unmasking of this secret mission. We are very grateful that the Alliance is willing to risk so much in following this lead.
There's more than the usual number of unsubstantiated assertions floating around on this news thread. We hope our facts will wake some people up. In particular, consider what "Hanse" may really be. The Perversion is very visible in the High Beyond, where it has great power and can speak with its own voice. Down here, it is more likely that deception and covert propaganda will be its tools. Think on this when you read postings from unidentified entities such as "Hanse"!
Ravna gritted her teeth. The hell of it was, the facts in the posting were correct. It was the inferences that were vicious and false. And she couldn't guess if this were some shade of black propaganda or simply Saint Rihndell expressing honest conclusions (though Rihndell had never seemed so trusting of the butterflies).
One thing all the News seemed to agree on: Much more than the Alliance fleet was chasing the OOB. The swarm of ultradrive traces could be seen by anyone within a thousand light-years. The best guess was that three fleets pursued the OOB. Three! The Alliance for the Defense, still loud and boastful, even though suspected (by some) of being opportunistic genocides. Behind them, Sjandra Kei… and what was left of Ravna's motherland; in all the universe perhaps the only folk she could trust. And just behind them, the silent fleet. Diverse news posters claimed it was from the High Beyond. That fleet might have problems at the Bottom, but for now it was gaining. Few doubted that it was the Perversion's child. More than anything, it convinced the universe that the OOB or its destination was cosmically important. Just why it was important was the big question. Speculation was drifting in at the rate of five thousand messages per hour. A million different viewpoints were considering the mystery. Some of those viewpoints were so alien that they made Skroderiders and Humans look like the same species. At least five participants on this News thread were gaseous inhabitants of stellar coronas. There were one or two others that Ravna suspected were uncataloged races, beings so shy that this might be their first active use of the Net ever.
