To Honor You Call Us (57 page)

Chief of the Boat:  the senior non-commissioned officer on board any naval vessel.  He is considered a Department Head and is the liaison between the Captain and the non-commissioned ranks.  Sometimes referred to as COB (pronounced “cobb”) and informally known as the “Goat.”

CIC:  Command Information Center.  The compartment on a warship from which the ship’s operations are controlled, analogous to the “bridge” on an old seagoing vessel before the functions of that space were split between the Bridge and CIC during Earth’s Second World War.  The concept of a “bridge” located at the peak of the dorsal portion of a space faring warship is not only laughably absurd, but impractical and not used by any Navy in Known Space   CIC on most ships is surrounded by an extremely robust, multi-layer pressure bulkhead and is located deep in the heart of the ship where it is most completely protected from damage by enemy action and close to the computer core of which it is the heaviest user.  Access to CIC is tightly controlled by code access systems and by armed Marines.  CIC personnel receive assistance from several “support rooms” in which a team is assigned to support each major station in CIC, providing the man at that station with more information and analysis than he could provide on his own, making the CIC the peak of a pyramid of information.  The “support room” system is derived from the “Staff Support Rooms” or “back rooms” that supported NASA flight controllers who worked in the Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR, rhymes with “poker,” popularly known a “Mission Control”).  This space is sometimes referred to as “Command” by people who serve on Carriers, Battleships, and other ships that frequently serve as flagships, and as “Control” by people who serve on smaller vessels. 

CIG:  Change in Grade.  Promotion or demotion.  Official orders will never state that a person is “promoted to Commander.”  Rather, they will say that the person is “CIG to Commander.”  A CIG order always states the date, hour, and minute the CIG becomes effective, so that there is no question of the relative seniority (and, therefore, who gives orders to whom) of two officers of the same grade. 

Class:  A production series of warships of highly similar or identical design, designated by the name of the first ship of the series.  Accordingly, if a series of Heavy Cruisers is produced from the same design, and the first ship of that design to be produced is the
U.S.S. Faget
(pronounced “fah zhay”), then the vessels of that class are known as
Faget
Class Cruisers.  Vessels of the same class are usually named after the same thing.  For example,
Faget
Class Cruisers are all named after influential designers of Aircraft, Launch Vehicles, and Space Vessels:  Hence the class contains the
Faget, Wright, Bleriot, Langley, Kelly Johnson, Von Braun, Korolev
,
Caldwell Johnson
,
Northrup
, etc. 

Class (Krag Vessels):  The Krag apparently have a class system similar to the Union, producing warships of similar design in series.  Because Krag vessel names are, however, unknown, difficult to pronounce, or impossible to remember, the Navy uses a system of “Reporting Names” for Krag vessel classes.  Essentially, when a new class of Krag vessel is identified, a name is assigned to that class by Naval Intelligence.  Class names generally start with the same letter or group of letters as the name of the vessel type, with the exception of Battlecruisers, the class names of which begin with “Bar” to distinguish them from Battleships.  In this way, a ship’s type can immediately be determined from its class name, even if the name is not familiar.  Examples of class names for each major warship type follow:

Battleships:  Batwing, Battalion, Battleaxe, Baton.

Battlecruisers:  Barnacle, Barnyard, Barrister, Barsoom, Barmaid

Carrier:  Carousel, Carnivore, Carpetbagger, Cardigan

Cruiser:  Crusader, Crucible, Crustacean, Crumpet

Frigate:  Freelancer, Frogleg, Frycook, Frigid

Destroyer:  Deckhand, Delver, Dervish, Debris

Corvette:  Corpuscle, Cormorant, Cornhusker, Corsican, Cordwood

Clear the datum:  as a “datum” or “datum point” is a location from which a vessel has been observed, “to clear the datum” is for a ship to move away from a point in space where it (1) has been observed or (2) it did something that might have allowed it to be observed.  Since a ship coming out of a jump emits a detectable burst of Cherenkov-Heaviside radiation, most Captains will want to clear the datum by leaving the vicinity of the jump point as soon as possible after completion of the jump. 

Comet:  colloquial term for the Warship Qualification Badge, a medal—shaped like a comet with a curved tail—indicating that the wearer has passed either a Warship Crew Qualification Examination or a Warship Officer Qualification Examination, showing that he can competently operate every crew or officer station on the ship, perform basic damage control, engage in close order battle with sidearm and boarding cutlass, use a pulse rifle, and fight hand to hand.  The Comet was created in the early days of space combat to be the equivalent of the “Dolphins” from the United States Submarine Forces.

compression drive:  one of the two known technologies that allow ships to travel faster than lightspeed (the other being the jump drive).  The compression drive permits violation of Einsteinian physics by selectively compressing and expanding the fabric of the space-time continuum.  The drive creates around the vessel a bubble of distorted space-time with a diameter approximately thirty-four times the length of the ship.  This bubble, in turn, contains a smaller bubble of undistorted space-time just large enough to enclose the ship itself.  The density of space time is compressed along the ship’s planned line of travel and expanded behind it (hence the term “compression drive,” which was thought to sound better than “Expansion Drive” or, heaven forbid, “Warp Drive”), creating a propulsive force which moves the ship forward faster than the speed of light as viewed from the perspective of a distant observer.  This superluminal motion does not violate Einsteinian physics because the ship is stationary relative to the fabric of space time inside the bubble and, therefore, from the point of view of an observer located there, does not exceed the speed of light.  Because the volume of distorted space rises as a geometric function as ship size goes up under the familiar V = À r
²
formula multiplied by thirty-four (pi times half the length of the ship squared times thirty-four), even a small increase in the ship’s dimensions results in substantial increases in the energy required to propel it through compressed space.  Accordingly, only smaller ship types can move at high speeds or for any appreciable distance using compression drive, which means, in turn, that major fleet operations and planetary conquests require the taking and holding of jump points so that Carriers, Battleships, Tankers, and other larger or slower vessels can be brought into the system.

compression shear:  a dangerous phenomenon caused by a compression drive experiencing poor speed regulation, a common occurrence at speeds of less than about 80 c.  Compression shear occurs when radical fluctuations in the degree of space-time distortion caused by a poorly regulated drive exert variable and rapidly fluctuating force against the “bubble” of normal space-time surrounding the ship.  As the small undistorted bubble around the ship must exist in precise equilibrium with the larger zone of differentially compressed and expanded space that surrounds the smaller one, sharp variations or “shear” along the boundary rupture the bubble and destroy the ship.

Conviction by Order:  a procedure by which an officer of Command Rank (Lieutenant Commander or higher) in actual command of a rated warship in a combat zone on detached service during wartime can, on a finding of clear and convincing evidence that the offender committed a felony on board the convicting officer’s vessel or in interstellar space, can find the offender guilty of the offense and impose any sentence prescribed for that offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, provided that no sentence of death shall be imposed and executed without review by higher authority except in the certain cases of Treason.  If the vessel is not in a combat zone or is not on detached service, the Captain must hold the offender to be tried by a Court Martial. 

Core Systems:  the fifty star systems located near the astrographic center of the Union which, while constituting only about 10% by number of the Union’s inhabited worlds, are home to 42% of its population and 67% of its heavy industrial capacity.

crawl (a duck pond):  a hunting technique used to hunt migratory waterfowl (mainly ducks and geese) which have a habit of lighting for the night on small ponds.  The hunters approach the pond stealthily right after sunrise on their hands and knees from the side of the pond with the highest bank until they reach the edge, at which point they either shoot the birds on the water or flush them into the air and shoot them before they can develop significant altitude and velocity.  This technique is particularly effective on cattle land in Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas as that kind of property is often dotted by “windmill ponds” excavated to water the cattle; the ponds are far enough apart that hunters can “crawl” them in succession, bagging a large amount of game.

Cruiser:  a large, heavily armed, and heavily armored vessel providing an excellent mix of firepower, armor, speed, and endurance.  Cruisers are highly powerful and flexible warships that can operate as component parts of large task forces or as the center of small task forces of their own.  Cruisers are capable of delivering heavy doses of sustained weapons fire against warships, orbital installations, and surface targets, and can operate without support for more than a year.  Most Cruiser types mass between 25,000 and 40,000 metric tons and are often loosely divided into the subtypes of Light, Medium, and Heavy.  A heavy cruiser is only slightly smaller and less powerful than the smaller classes of Battlecruiser. 

DC:  Damage Control.  The set of duties and techniques associated with limiting and repairing damage to a ship sustained in space, particularly battle damage.  The term is also used to refer to the CIC station used to display damage to the ship and coordinate the efforts of damage control parties as well as to the person who mans that station.

delenda est Krag
:  (Latin) Literally, The Krag must be destroyed.  An allusion to Cato the Elder, the 2
^nd
Century B.C.E. Roman statesman who, in an effort to induce the Roman Republic to declare the Third Punic War and wipe out its arch rival Carthage once and for all, ended every speech in the Senate, irrespective of subject, with: “
et ceterum censeo, delenda est carthago
,” meaning, “and, furthermore, I believe Carthage must be destroyed.” 

Destroyer:  the most numerous Type of Rated Ship in the Navy, Destroyers are comparatively small vessels optimized for speed, maneuverability, and firepower.  Known as the “workhorses of the Navy,” Destroyers typically mass in the 16,000 to 20,000 ton range.  They are not heavily armored and are not capable of carrying enough stores, fuel, and munitions to operate for long periods of time without resupply, but carry pulse cannons equal in power (though usually fewer of them) to those carried by most Cruisers.  They also carry anti-ship missiles identical to those carried by larger ships, although they carry fewer and have fewer missile tubes.  Destroyers are typically operated as escorts to larger vessels as part of a fleet or task force.  When a Destroyer encounters a ship of greater force, it is supposed to either call upon a heavier vessel with which it is operating or, if none is available, rely on its maneuverability and speed to evade and run away (ELEVES or “elude, evade, and escape”).  The CO of Destroyer is typically a Commander, although ships in the smaller Destroyer classes sometimes have an unusually able Lieutenant Commander as a skipper.

Dummkopf
:  (German) Stupid.  In German, though, the term
Dummkopf
can be used as an appellation in a way that “stupid,” which is primarily an adjective, is rarely used in Standard.  Accordingly, in some ways, the term may equate better with the Standard nouns, “idiot” or “moron.” 

“E” for “Excellence”:  an award, conferred upon a vessel by a Task Force Commander or higher authority, for conspicuous excellence or achievement in any area of endeavor.  The award is displayed by illuminating running lights arranged in the shape of a large letter “E” when the vessel is not stealthed.  The award is typically made for some demonstration of outstanding proficiency by the vessel and is authorized to be displayed for a limited number of days, usually 60. 

EM:  Electromagnetic.  Usually short for the term “electromagnetic radiation,” meaning visible light, radio waves, ultraviolet, infrared, and similar forms of energy forming a part of the familiar electromagnetic spectrum.  Often used to distinguish sensors that detect EM radiation from those that detect other phenomena such as gravitational effects or neutrinos.  

 EMCOM:  Emissions Control.  A security and deception measure in which a warship not only operates under what 21
^st
Century readers would call “radio silence” but also without navigation beacons, active sensor beams, and any other emissions that could be used to track the ship.  When a ship is under EMCON, active measures are taken to ensure that there are no unauthorized transmissions:  transmitters are deactivated and placed under high level security lockouts, portable transmitters are inventoried and placed in high security areas, and equipment that could if used improperly accidently give off a signal is powered down and, in some cases, physically disconnected from its power source or operational components needed to transmit (such as meta-spacial emitter coils) removed from the device.  Except when actively engaged in offensive operations, it is very unusual for a modern warship to operate under EMCOM for anything more than a few hours.