It went dark again.

IV

[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @n4.28.882.4656]

xLSV Serious Callers Only

oEccentric Shoot Them Later

It's war! Those insane fucks have declared war! They're mad!

oo

[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @4.28.882.4861]

xEccentric Shoot Them Later

oLSV Serious Callers Only

I was about to call. I just got the message from the ship I requested attend Pittance. This looks bad.

oo

Bad? It's a fucking catastrophe!

oo

Did your girl get her man?

oo

Oh, she got him all right, but then a few hours later the Affront High Command announced the birth of a bouncing baby war. The ship Phage sent to Tier was standing a day's module travel away; it decided it had better things to do than hang around on a mission it had never been very happy with even from the beginning. I think the declaration of war came almost as a relief to it. It promptly announced its position to the Steely Glint and was immediately asked to ship out at maximum speed on some desperate defence mission. Bastard wouldn't even tell me where. Took me real milliseconds to argue it out of confessing all to the Steely Glint and telling it exactly why it was anywhere near Tier in the first place. I was able to persuade it Phage's honour rested on it keeping quiet; I don't think it'll squeal. I let it know I give serious grudge.

oo

But it was Demilled. Hasn't it just gone back to Phage for munitioning?

oo

Ha! Demilitarised my backup. Fucker left Phage fully tooled. Phage's own idea, sneaky scumbag. Always was over-protective. What comes of being that geriatric I suppose. Anyway, the Frank Exchange Of Views is cannoned to the gunwales and itching for a brawl, apparently. Whatever; it has gone. Which leaves our lass and the captive Genar-Hofoen floating in a module nearly a day out of Tier with nowhere to go. Tier is requesting — make that insisting — all Culture and Affront craft and personnel leave it for the duration of the hostilities and nobody's being allowed in. I've tried to find somebody else within range to pick them up but it's hopeless.

A Tier deep-scan inventory has already identagged their module. The Meatfucker is skimming in a day away and the module can make, oh, all of two hundred lights… Guess what happens next. We've failed.

oo

So it would appear. Was this the aim and is this now the result of the conspiracy? War with the Affront?

oo

I believe so. The Excession is still the more important matter, but its appearance and the possibilities it may open up have been used by the conspiracy to tempt the Affront into initiating hostilities. Pittance is worse, though.

That Pittance has fallen implies entrapment. It points to treachery. The Killing Time believes there was another Culture or ex-Culture ship there; not one of the stored vessels but another craft, something no less old than the stored vessels, but wiser and more experienced; something that's been around as long as they, but awake all that time.

It believes that this ship was taking the part of the Pittance Mind when it communicated with it on its approach. I suspect it will prove to be a warship which apparently went Eccentric or Ulterior at some point in the last five hundred years and was — supposedly, not actually — demilitarised by one of the conspirators. I have a list of suspects.

The Killing Time suggests that this ship tricked its way beneath the Pittance Mind's guard and either destroyed it or took it over. The store was then turned over to the Affront. They now have a ready-made instant battle fleet of Culture warcraft tech generations of development beyond their own ships and just nine days" journey from the Excession. Nothing we can put in place in the time available can stop them.

For what it's worth, the Killing Time is making all speed for Esperi. Nine days from now we'll have the Not Invented Here and the Different Tan from the Gang there. The NIH has two operational Thug class ROUs it's in the process of cannoning-up, a Hooligan LOU and a Delinquent GOU. Another couple of GSVs should be there too if they aren't diverted because of the war, with a total of five OUs, two of them Torturer class. Eight of Phage's Psychopath ROUs are bound for the Excession but the rest are down for defensive duties elsewhere to cope with likely threats from Affront battle units. Even those eight won't get within punch-throwing range of the Excession until two days after the Affront can be there. Bottom line is there are a total of ten warships of various classes capable of making it to the Excession in time to make a stand against the Affront; enough to hold off the entire Affront navy if that was all we were going to be faced with, but simply not capable of holding back more than an eighth of the ships that could come out of Pittance. If they all go straight to the Excession, it will be theirs.

For the record, all the remaining ship stores are breaking themselves open, but the nearest is over five weeks" travel away. A gesture, that's all.

Oh, and a few other Involveds have offered help but they're all either too weak or too far away. A couple of other barbarics are probably going to declare for the Affront once they've stopped scratching their heads and worked out what they might be able to get up to with the Culture's attention diverted, but they're even less relevant.

And if we were expecting some well-disposed Elders to step into the nursery and confiscate all our toys and restore order, it doesn't look very likely so far; no notice taken, as far as anybody can tell.

oo

So. That just leaves our old friend, currently — possibly, probably, almost certainly — also en route. Wild card? Somehow part of the conspiracy? Have we any more thoughts? Come to that, have you had any reply from it?

oo

None, and no. No offence, but the SS is one of the more unfathomable Eccentrics. Perhaps it thinks the Excession requires Storing, perhaps it intends to ram it at that speed, or attempt to plunge into it and access other universes… I don't know. There is some private issue being played out in this, I believe, and Genar-Hofoen fits in somewhere. I have almost given up thinking about this aspect of affairs. I shall continue my attempts to contact it but I don't think it's even looking at its signal files. The point is that the war itself takes precedence, with the Excession prioritised beyond that.

oo

No offence taken. So we are left with the Affront on the cusp of apotheosis or nemesis.

oo

Indeed. Quite how they intend to use these elderly but still potent warships to take control of the Excession one can only hazard at; perhaps they intend surrounding it and charging admission… But they have begun a war which — unless they can somehow gain control of the Excession and exploit it — they can only lose. They have a few hundred half-millennium-old warships; capable of inflicting untold damage let loose in a peaceable, un-militarised if relatively un-populated section of the galaxy, certainly, but only for a month or two at most. Then the Culture gathers the force to crush them utterly, and moves on to rip the Affront hegemony to shreds and impose its own peace upon it. There can be no other outcome. Unless the Excession does come into play. Which I doubt.

Maybe it is some sort of projection; maybe its appearance was not fortuitous but planned. This looks unlikely, I know, but everything else about this has been so cunningly put together… Whatever; the argument which everybody had thought was lost at the end of the Idiran War is about to be won. The agreement come to then is in the process of being overturned.

I for one am not going to stand for this. We may have failed to frustrate the conspiracy but it will still be possible to work towards the discovery of the guilty parties involved in its planning and implementation, both during and after the hostilities. I intend to copy all my thoughts, theories, evidence, communications and all other relevant documentation to every trusted colleague and contact I possess. If you have any intention of taking part in the course of action I am suggesting, I urge you to do the same and to relay this advice to The Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival.