FADM: Fleet Admiral (four stars)
VADM: Vice Admiral (three stars)
RADM: Rear Admiral (two stars)
CMRE: Commodore (one star)
CAPT: Captain
CMDR: Commander
LCDR: Lieutenant Commander
LT: Lieutenant
LTJG: Lieutenant junior grade
ENSN: Ensign
PC-4 Patrol Craft, Type 4. A sublight only, high-speed patrol and light attack craft used for system and planetary defense as well as for light intrasystem escort duties. Length: twenty-seven meters. Beam: three and a half meters. Crew: one officer, eight enlisted. Armament: one 75-gigawatt pulse cannon, five Raytheon-Hughes Talon (see) ship-to-ship missiles. Top speed .97 c.
percom A wrist-carried communication, computing, and control device worn by all naval personnel when on duty.
point defense Weapons, or integrated systems of weapons and sensors, designed to destroy incoming weapons and attacking ships at close range. All warships from destroyer on up are equipped with sophisticated, multilayer point defense systems that must be penetrated by any incoming missile in order to reach the ship.
poo yai An inarticulate exclamation of amazement used by Cajuns and occasionally by Creoles, roughly equivalent to “my goodness” or “wow.”
posident POSitive IDENTification. The identification of a contact as hostile, neutral, or friendly by at least two different phenomenologies from two different sensors.
pulse cannon A ship-mounted weapon that fires a pulse of plasma diverted from the ship’s main fusion reactor and accelerated to between .85 and .95 c by magnetic coils. The plasma is held in a concentrated “bolt” by a magnetic field generated by a compact, liquid helium–cooled, fusion cell–powered emitter unit inserted in the bolt just as it is about to leave the cannon tube. When the emitter stops generating the field, either because it has consumed its coolant and is vaporized by the plasma, because the timer/fuse turns the emitter off at a set range, or because the bolt strikes a target destroying the emitter, the bolt loses cohesion and expands explosively with the force of a small nuclear munition.
Queeg, Phillip Francis, Lieutenant Commander Fictional commander of the destroyer-mine sweeper (DMS) USS Caine during World War II in Herman Wouk’s classic novel The Caine Mutiny. The book was made into an equally classic film, with Humphrey Bogart playing Queeg. Queeg suffered from paranoid personality disorder, progressing during the course of the novel to paranoid psychosis, which caused him to give increasingly bizarre and erratic orders to his crew. He had a compulsive habit of rolling two ball bearings around in his left hand and suffered a breakdown while commanding the ship in a storm. This resulted in the executive officer relieving him of command, for which act the XO was charged with and tried for mutiny.
Raven A large antiship missile carried by Union Warships. Much larger than the Talon (see) and with a higher top speed, the Raven accelerates more slowly, is less nimble, and is more vulnerable to point defense systems and countermeasures than the Talon, due to its larger size. Manufactured by Gould-Martin-Marietta Naval Aerospace Corporation, the Raven finds its target with both passive and active multimodal sensor homing and then inflicts its damage with a 1.5 megaton fixed-yield fusion warhead powerful enough to destroy all but the largest enemy vessels and to cripple any known enemy ship. Ravens are equipped with an innovative system known as Cooperative Interactive Logic Mode (CILM—pronounced “Kill ’em”). When more than one Raven is launched against the same target, CILM causes the missiles to communicate with one another and attack the target jointly, closing on the enemy from multiple vectors, to render defense more difficult, and exploding at the same instant to inflict the most damage.
regardez donc (Cajun French) An expression of awe and amazement, roughly equivalent to an extremely emphatic “Wow!” Literally translates as “look at that.”
saltwater navy: a navy comprised of ocean-going ships as opposed to one comprised of ships that travel in space.
Schweinhund (German) An insult that does not translate very well into Standard. The word literally means “pig-dog” but has connotations that go well beyond the translation. It is best understood as meaning that the person to whom it is applied is vile, disgusting, and utterly devoid of decency. It is a fitting insult for someone who steals little old ladies’ pensions, runs a child prostitution ring, or sells out his shipmates.
Scotty The traditional nickname for a warship’s chief of engineering, irrespective of the national origin of his ancestors. The term is of great antiquity and uncertain origin.
SDMF Self-destruct mechanism, fusion. A fusion munition carried on all Union warships prior to the Battle of Han VII, for the purpose of destroying the vessel as a last resort to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
SIGINT (also SigInt) Signals Intelligence—the branch of Intelligence that attempts to determine the dispositions, intentions, and capabilities of the enemy by intercepting its communications, sensor emissions, navigation beams, and other signals.
six Shorthand for “six o’clock position,” or directly astern.
SOP Standard operating procedure.
squeaker a particularly young or puny midshipman. Also “squeekie,” “deck dodger,” “panel puppy,” and “hatch hanger” (the last for their habit of standing in the hatches while holding the rim, thereby blocking the way).
SSR Staff Support Room. A compartment, sometimes called a “back room,’ located in the general vicinity of the CIC, containing between three and twenty-four men whose duty it is to provide support to one CIC department by performing detailed monitoring and analysis at a level impossible for one or two people assigned that function in CIC. For example, in the Sensors SSR, one man would be monitoring graviton emissions; one man, the output from optical scanners; another man, neutrino flux; yet another, a given portion of the EM spectrum, and so on. The CIC officer communicates with the senior officer in the SSR, who in turn assigns tasks to the other personnel in that room and then communicates their observations and conclusions to CIC. The SSR has the capability to communicate with CIC by voice or text and by transferring data files. Frequently, the SSR will indicate to the CIC officer which sensor display he should be reviewing, allowing the CIC officer to pull up that display on his console.
Standard The official language of the Union; also, the official language or a widely used second language on virtually every non-Union human world. Standard is derived mostly from the English that was the most widely spoken second language on Earth and was the language of international science, commerce, shipping, and aviation when human beings first traveled to the stars in the late twenty-first and early twenty-second centuries.
SWACS Space warning and control system. An integrated sensor, computer, and command/communications/control suite placed on various spacecraft to provide an exceptionally high level of sensor coverage and detail and to coordinate the defense against attacking vessels.
Talon The primary antiship missile carried by Union warships. Manufactured by Raytheon-Hughes Space Combat Systems, the Talon is an extremely fast, stealthy, and agile missile with both passive and active multimodal sensor homing and a 5–150 kiloton variable-yield fusion warhead. The Talon is designed to elude and penetrate enemy countermeasures and point defense systems; use its on board artificial intelligence and high-resolution active sensors to find a “soft spot” on the enemy ship; and then detonate its warhead in a location designed to inflict the most damage. One Talon is capable of obliterating ships up to frigate size and of putting ships up to heavy cruiser size out of commission. Against most targets with functioning point defense systems, the Talon is a better choice than the heavier Raven (see).
TDY Temporary duty.
TEMPCOM Temporary command
Terran Union The common name for the Union of Earth and Terran Settled Worlds, a Federal Constitutional Republic consisting of Earth and (as of January 2315) 518 of the total 611 worlds known to be settled by human beings. Often simply
referred to as the “Union.” Formed in 2155 upon the collapse of the Earth and Colonial Confederation (commonly referred to as the “Earth Confederation” or simply the “Confederation”) resulting from the Revolt of the Estates, which began in 2154. The territorial space controlled by the Union has an ellipsoidal shape (roughly like that of a watermelon) 2500 light-years long and 800 light-years wide, aligned lengthwise through the Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. Population: approximately 205 billion. With the possible exception of the Krag Hegemony, the Union is the most populous and largest political entity in Known Space.
TF Task force. A group of warships assembled for a particular mission or “task.”
type When applied to warships, this term refers to the general category and function of the vessel, as opposed to its class, which refers to a specific design or production run of vessels within a type. The most common types of warship, in decreasing order of size, are carrier, battleship, battlecruiser, cruiser, frigate, destroyer, corvette, and patrol vessel. There are, of course, other types of naval vessel that are not categorized as warships, including tanker, tender, tug, hospital ship, troop carrier, landing ship, cargo vessel, and so on.
UESF United Earth Space Forces. The international military arm formed in 2034 by United States and Canada, the European Union, and the China–Japan Alliance to retake the Earth’s moon from the Ning-Braha who had occupied it, presumably as a prelude to a planned invasion of Earth. The UESF is the institutional successor of the armies, navies, and air forces of the founding powers, but drew its personnel primarily from their navies and air forces and drew its command structure, regulations, traditions, and other institutional foundations mainly from their “saltwater navies.” The Ning-Braha technology captured by the UESF in this campaign was the catalyst for mankind’s colonization of the stars.
Union See Terran Union.
UNREP UNderway REPlenishment.
USNGS (Uniform Sierra Nebula Galaxy Sierra) Union Space Navy Galactic Survey. The most important star catalog in Known Space—used universally by the Union Space Navy as well as by the Union Merchant Naval Service, most human navigators even outside of the Union, and many alien species.
watch The period of time that a member of the crew who is designated as a “watch stander” mans his assigned “watch station.” Also, the designation of the section of the crew to which the watch stander belongs. On Union warships, there are three watches, usually known as Blue, Gold, and White. They stand watch on the following schedule:
First Watch: 2000–0000 (1 Blue) (2 Gold) (3 White)
Middle Watch: 0000–0400 (1 Gold) (2 White) (3 Blue)
Morning Watch: 0400–0800 (1 White) (2 Blue (3 Gold)
Forenoon Watch: 0800–1200 (1 Blue) (2 Gold) (3 White)
Afternoon Watch: 1200–1600 (1 Gold) (2 White) (3 Blue)
First Dog Watch: 1600–1800 (1 White) (2 Blue) (3 Gold)
Second Dog Watch: 1800–2000 (1Blue) (2 Gold) (3 White)
The captain and the XO do not stand a watch. Rather, all officers other than the CO, XO, and the CMO serve as Officer of the Deck, serving as the officer in charge of minute-to-minute operations in CIC when neither the CO nor the XO is in CIC. Officers of the Deck stand watch for eight hour shifts on a rotating basis.
XO Executive officer. The second in command of any warship.
Z (when appended to a time notation) Zulu Time. Standard Union Coordinated Time. So that all USN vessels can conduct coordinated operations, they all operate on Zulu Time, which is, for all intents and purposes, the same as Greenwich Mean Time—mean solar time as measured from the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England, on Earth in the Sol system.
Zhou Matrix A standard fleet static defensive formation in which ships are arrayed in a plane perpendicular to the threat axis with more powerful ships interspersed with less powerful ones to provide mutual fire support and to avoid giving the enemy a “weak zone” to exploit. Named for Rear Admiral Zhou Chou Dong, who first proposed it in a lecture on hypothetical future space combat tactics in the former People’s Republic of China in 2022. The Zhou Matrix can also be used offensively as the “anvil” portion of the “hammer and anvil” formation invented by Admiral Kathleen “Killer Kate” Phillips at the Battle of Sirius B on 22 August 2164.
* * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* * *
To some degree, every book is a distillation of everything an author has learned and experienced in his lifetime. Naturally, that legacy cannot be articulated in a few paragraphs. There are, however, a few individuals whose contribution to my learning and experiences is so related to the contents of this volume that they deserve particular recognition.
The author is indebted to Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox for their outstanding nonfiction book, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, which I believe to be the best single book ever written about the American space program, bar none. Readers familiar with that work’s clear and evocative description of the inner workings of the Mission Operations Control Room and the Staff Support Rooms during the Gemini and Apollo Programs will be able to discern the shape of those rooms in these pages. Any resemblance between the brilliant Mission Control teams of those years and the CIC of the USS Cumberland is entirely by design.
Readers who know well the history of those endeavors may recognize several names in this book, scattered throughout as respectful nods to some brilliant individuals who made largely unsung contributions to what has been, thus far, mankind’s greatest adventure. With one exception, mentioned below, the similarity of any other names to those of any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
I also acknowledge a profound debt to Gene Roddenberry and to the many writers, producers, and other creative people involved in the Star Trek franchise over the decades. Despite a few remarks directed in these pages at some aspects of those programs and many, many deliberate choices to make the ships, weapons, tactics, and procedures of the Union Navy radically different from those of Roddenberry’s Starfleet, any modern author of military fiction set on a starship must deal in some way, overtly or covertly, with Mr. Roddenberry’s creation. I hope my approach was original, respectful, and humorous. The original Star Trek series, watched so avidly during its first run on NBC, triggered my first crude efforts to imagine and write about brave men fighting on powerful starships to preserve mankind against deadly enemies. This book is a direct product of those imaginings, begun in that bygone era that we now know as “the Sixties.”
Also, I offer a tip of the hat to early pioneers and modern masters of the genre that we call science fiction, whose imaginings helped shape and encourage my own: Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Robert Silverberg, Poul Anderson, Keith Laumer, Norman Spinrad, Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. LeGuin, Frederick Pohl, Larry Niven, Doris Lessing, Jerry Pournelle, Greg Bear, David Weber, Joe Haldeman, Timothy Zahn, Robert L. Forward, and many, many others whose works have so entertained and inspired me over the years. I ask that they and their many fans forgive my temerity in aspiring to follow in their footsteps.
More thanks to Ronald D. Moore and David Eick and all of those involved in the production of the excellent television series Battlestar Galactica, which, in addition to captivating me for many hours, taught me that one can tell inspiring and uplifting, yet gritty and realistic, stories about warriors among the stars—and that there might be a market for more such stories.
My thanks also to the originators and the many contributors to Wikipedia.org. Were it not for the ready availability of this site to tell me the diameter of our solar system as measured in astronomical units; the density of gold in tons per cubic meter; whether the element mercury has multiple isotopes and is used in ion propulsion; the names of the twenty star systems closest to Earth and their distances in light years and parsecs; the status of the evolutionary development of rats on Earth eleven million years ago; and hundreds of other facts that a conscientious author of “hard science fiction” must verify, this bo
ok would have been incalculably more difficult to write.
For many lessons taught and the outstanding example provided by the late Dr. George Middleton, educator, psychologist, mentor, and leader, I extend my heartfelt thanks. The Commodore/Admiral Middleton mentioned in these pages is a poor and grossly inadequate tribute to Dr. Middleton, though the fictitious admiral is not a depiction or even a parody of the real doctor, who was so gentle a spirit that he could never have made warfare his life’s work. The respect and esteem that my characters have for the fictitious “Uncle Middy” in this book are, however, designed to be a reflection of the respect that the real, and ever so profoundly missed, “Uncle Middy” enjoyed in life. Ab illo cui multum datur multum requiritur.
On Cajun French: I grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana; my mother’s family is from the heart of Acadiana and Cajun to the marrow, and my maternal grandmother’s first language was Cajun French. Unfortunately, although I grew up hearing a fair amount of Cajun French from time to time, from relatives and neighbors, I did not grow up speaking it, much less writing it. Every Cajun expression in these pages is one that I remember hearing from my youth; nevertheless, I would have been clueless, left to myself, about how to put those expressions into writing. Therefore, it is with sincere thanks that I gratefully acknowledge the essential role served by the Dictionary of Louisiana French: As Spoken in Cajun, Creole, and American Indian Communities, University of Mississippi Press (2010), in the writing of this book, as a source for spelling, and to verify the accuracy of my recollection. This dictionary is an astonishingly thorough and authoritative work of scholarship, eminently usable and beautifully printed. I could not recommend it more highly.
And finally, I humbly offer my eternal gratitude to Patrick O’Brian, whose splendid “Aubry/Maturin” series of seafaring novels set in the Napoleonic Wars is the most direct inspiration for this book and for the volumes that I hope will follow. In September 2012, when I sat down to begin writing, my ultimate goal was to pen a series of tales that realized in space some of the adventure, wonder, excitement, and vivid realism that O’Brian’s novels realized at sea. If this book has transported the reader to far reaches of space one-tenth as compellingly as O’Brian carried his readers to the Far Side of the World, I will have succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.
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