To Honor You Call Us

by Harvey G. Phillips

  jump drive: one of the two systems that allows a space vessel to cross interstellar distances in less time than it would take to travel at sublight speed (the other being compression drive, see). The jump drive transfers the vessel in a single Planck Interval from one point in space, known as a jump point, to another jump point, in a nearby star system, and never less than 3.4 nor more than 12.7 light years away. Jump points are generally located between 20 to 30 AU from a star, and almost always lie at least 45 degrees away from the star’s equator. For some unknown reason, systems either have no jump points, three, or a multiple of three, most commonly three, usually located several dozen AU from each other. Jumping is always more energy efficient and much faster than traversing the same distance with compression drive. However, it is almost impossible to jump into an enemy held system, because the enemy will almost always have weapons trained and ranged on the jump points and the process of jumping requires that the jumping ship power down all sublight drives, weapons, shielding, and point defense systems, making it virtually helpless when emerging from a jump. Accordingly, in order to take a system, it is usually necessary to send in ships from a system within ten light years or so under compression drive, and take the jump points, thereby allowing heavier ships, troop carriers, and supply vessels to jump in.

  Khyber Class: a class of Destroyer, the first of which, the U.S.S. Khyber, was commissioned on 24 April 2311, making these vessels a “new” class in 2315. The Khybers are exceptionally fast and maneuverable, even for Destroyers. The thrust to mass ratio of these ships is in the same range as those of many fighter designs; accordingly, it is said that they handle more like large fighters than escort vessels. They are equipped with pulse cannon as powerful as those on many capital ships (although they have only three of these and a smaller rear-firing unit whereas a Capital ship might have a dozen or more). Ships in this class are extremely stealthy, possess a sophisticated ability to mimic the electronic and drive emissions of other ships, and have a highly effective sensor suite. They are also equipped with SWACS (see). The trade-offs made to optimize these characteristics include highly Spartan crew accommodations—even as compared to other Destroyers—a radically reduced number of reloads for her missile tubes (20 Talons and 5 Ravens versus a typical Destroyer load out of 60 and 12), a small crew making for a heavy workload for all personnel, modest fuel capacity, and a reduced cargo hold. Unsupported endurance is rated at 75 days (as compared to 180 days for most Destroyers) but, in practice, is somewhat shorter. It is believed that the class was designed to make quick stealthy raids into enemy space and destroy his supply lines and means of communication, thereby disrupting his logistics and command/control/communications. Mass: 16,200 metric tons. Top sublight speed: .963 c. Compression drive: 1575 c cruise, 2120 c emergency. Weapons: 3 forward-firing Krupp-BAE Mark XXXIV pulse cannon, 150 gigawatt rating, 1 rear firing Krupp-BAE Mark XXII pulse cannon (colloquially known at the “stinger”), 75 gigawatt rating. Two forward and one rear firing missile tubes. Standard missile loadout of 20 “Talon” (see) and 5 “Raven (see) anti-ship missiles. Ships in this class are named after historically significant mountain passes and ocean straits. Length: 97 meters; beam: 9.5 meters. Commissioned ships in this class as of 21 January 2315 are Khyber, Gibraltar, Messina, Cumberland, Hormuz, and Khardung La. The projected size of the class is eighty-five ships.

  kill: military slang abbreviation for “kilometer.” Replaced the former term, “klick” beginning in the 2150’s when humans encountered and fought a brief war against a race of aliens known as the “Khlihk,” at which point the similarity in pronunciation between the two words became confusing as it was sometimes ambiguous whether “fifty klicks” was a distance or a moderate body of enemy troops.”

  Kuiper belt: (rhymes with “piper”) a belt of bodies, made mainly of frozen volatiles such as water ice, methane, and ammonia, found in the outer regions of many star systems. In the Sol system, it begins about 30 AU from the sun (the orbit of Neptune) and extends out to approximately 50 AU. Kuiper belts typically contain several planet sized objects, known as Plutinos, a name taken from Pluto, a Kuiper belt object discovered in 1930 and classified as a planet for more than 70 years. Kuiper belts are tactically important mainly because the large number of massive icy objects provides a good place to hide a warship’s mass and heat signatures.

  lentement: (Cajun French) slowly.

  LumaTite: a registered trade mark of APG-Owens-Corning Corporation for its transparent armored viewport material for spacecraft, consisting of a Titanium-Silicon nano-crystalline matrix microlaminated with frequency-specific EM rejecting polymer films. The resulting material is as durable as warship hull material and is opaque to all forms of EM except visible light. It is, however, more expensive, kilogram for kilogram, than gold.

  M-22: (Model 2222) also known as the HASG (or Haz-Gee), the Naval-Military Systems, Inc., Heavy Automatic Shot Gun is an “Eight Gauge,” belt fed, swivel mounted, fully automatic shotgun designed specifically to repel enemy boarders at the close ranges and in the confined spaces found on board a warship. The weapon was originally designed to kill the insect-like Keelingu who would capture a ship by sending across millions of their quarter-meter long juveniles, whom the Keelingu regarded as cannon fodder, to swarm throughout the ship eating the crew. It is capable of firing a number of different kinds of ammunition, but the standard round is a shell loaded with twenty hard cast lead 00 buckshot which the weapon is capable of propelling at a muzzle velocity of 312 meters per second. As the weapon has a rate of fire of 500 rounds per minute, it is capable of filling the air in front of it with a staggering number of lethal projectiles.

  M-62: Model 2162 Pistol. One of the two side arms approved for use by Union Space Navy Personnel (the other being the M-1911) the M-62 is a ten millimeter, semi-automatic, magazine fed handgun. It was introduced to naval use in 2162 during the First Interstellar War when the Glock polymer-framed weapons then issued were found to become brittle, to warp, and even to sometimes melt in the temperature extremes of space combat, requiring that the Navy issue an all metal handgun to supplement the M-1911. The resulting weapon, designed by the Beretta-Browning Arms Corporation, was based largely on the venerable Browning Hi-Power design modified to fire the larger cartridge (the older weapon was originally designed for the 9 mm cartridge but was also manufactured for the .40 S&W round). It has a 14 round magazine.

  M-72: Model 2072 Close Order Battle Shotgun. The Winchester-Mossberg Arms Company Model 2072 is a semi-automatic 12 gauge shotgun designed for close order battle against boarding parties or for use by boarders. It has a “sawed off” thirteen inch barrel and is fed from a ten round box magazine rather than the traditional tube magazine so that it can have a short barrel for use in close quarters while retaining high magazine capacity. The most common load fired in this weapon is a high-velocity 00 Buckshot shell that propels ten .33 caliber (8.322 mm) hard-cast lead balls at a muzzle velocity of approximately 350 meters per second. The weapon is also capable of firing various slug, slug-sabot, dart-penetrator, and exploding rounds. It is of steel and composite construction (no polymer parts) and is equipped with fixed military aperture sights.

  M-88: Model 2288 Pulse Rifle. The Colt-Ruger Naval Arms Corporation Model 2288 is a 7.62 x 51 millimeter, select fire, magazine fed battle rifle issued to Navy personnel for boarding actions, ship defense, and ground combat similar in form and function to the M-14 battle rifle issued by the United States of America in the mid twentieth century, but made significantly lighter through the use of aluminum and composite materials (5.56 mm rounds were found to lack sufficient penetrating power to reliably kill Krag wearing combat gear). It is also the standard issue personal weapon of the Union Space Marine Corps. The rifle is fed from a thirty-five round box magazine and is of all metal/composite construction (no polymer parts). The Naval version has standard military aperture sights adjustable for range only (not windage) while the Marine version is equipped with a detachable optical aiming
device that operates either as a red-dot reflex sight or a low light capable zoom telescopic sight. Muzzle climb and recoil in full-auto mode are nearly eliminated by a miniature, power cell driven, inertial compensator unit in the stock. The weapon has four firing modes: semi-auto, 3 shot burst, 6 shot burst, and full auto. It is called a “pulse rifle” because, coaxially mounted below the rifle barrel, is a launcher from which can be fired the MMD (“Make My Day”) pulse grenade, a 35 millimeter self-propelled short range projectile containing a shaped-charge equipped pulse slug capable of penetrating the armor on a Krag fighting suit at a range of fifty meters and then exploding, killing the occupant. The MMD is also effective against lightly armored ground vehicles.

  M-1911: Model 1911 pistol. One of the two side arms approved for use by Union Space Navy Personnel (the other being the M-62) the M-1911 is an 11.48 millimeter (sometimes referred to by the archaic designation “.45 caliber”) semi-automatic, magazine fed handgun invented by perhaps the most brilliant firearms designer in the Known Galaxy, John Moses Browning, who was active in the United States of America on Earth in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The M-1911 was the official sidearm of the armed forces of the United States during World War I, World War II, the Korean Conflict, and the Vietnam Conflict. It has remained in use by certain units in the United States Armed forces, later by at least some units and personnel in the armed forces of United Nations of North America, United Earth, the Terran and Colonial Treaty Organization, the Earth and Colonial Confederation, and the Terran Union. The current version is only slightly different from the Model 1911 A1 used by American Forces in World War II. The changes include an ambidextrous thumb safety, light weight alloy frame (the original frame was made of ordinance steel), extended beaver tail, three dot luminous/fiber optic sights and a laser sight, bushingless barrel, and twelve round magazine. This weapon continues to be used more than four hundred years after its introduction because it is powerful, accurate, well balanced, and easy to shoot. It is effective against humans and most aliens against whom humans have fought (it is especially effective against Krag) and offers an excellent combination of high stopping power with low muzzle flash and reasonable recoil.

  mais: (Cajun French) literally “but.” Often used to intensify or to give emphasis to the expression that follows. Accordingly, mais yeah, is an enthusiastic or emphatic “yeah.”

  Midshipman: a boy between the ages of 8 and 17 taken on board ship both to perform certain limited duties and to be trained to serve in the Enlisted or Officer Ranks. Commonly referred to as Mids. See article on Ranks and Recruiting.

  Midshipman Trainer: a senior non-Commissioned officer, typically the second most senior Chief Petty Officer on the ship, in charge of the training, housing, discipline, and welfare of all Midshipmen on board. A well-liked Midshipman Trainer is generally known by the nickname Mother Goose.

  MMD: see M=88.

  moi aussi: (Cajun French) Me, too.

  Moro, Emeka: (for the ship, see Emeka Moro) physician and medical researcher born Mombassa, Kenya, Earth on March 28, 2241. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2295. Perhaps the foremost expert in human infectious diseases in the galaxy, Dr. Moro headed the effort to devise a treatment or preventative for the Gynophage (see), an effort which involved more than a million physicians and researchers on more than four hundred planets, at its peak consuming 43% of the interstellar communications bandwidth and 15% of the computing capacity available to the human race, and costing more than 300 trillion credits. When the research’s early work began to indicate that neither a vaccine nor an antibody based treatment would be more than 25% effective, it was Dr. Moro who personally had the insight of combining a vaccine with a set of broad spectrum antibodies synthesized not only to match the current disease organism but the nine most probable mutation induced alternate phenotypes of its external protein coat, thereby creating a combination innoculation that prevents infection in those who are not infected and prevents manifestation of the disease in those who are infected but asymptomatic. It is believed that the vaccine also provides some protection to asymptomatic individuals above and beyond that provided by the antibodies alone. Dr. Moro is literally the most honored human of the last thousand years, being the namesake for one inhabited planet, two colonies on inhabited moons, five medical schools, dozens of hospitals, and hundreds of schools. For decades “Emeka” was the most popular male given name in Human Space. Dr. Moro currently lives with his spouse, famous molecular biologist Dr. James Warington, in London.

  Mother Goose: the semi-official title for the Midshipman Trainer (see).

  Officer Rank Abbreviations: GADM—Grand Admiral (Five Stars)

  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

  para incendere: (Romanovan Latin) prepare to fire (weapons).

  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 intra system escort duties. Length, 27 meters. Beam: 3.5 meters. Crew: 1 Officer, 8 Enlisted. Armament: 1 75 gigawatt pulse cannon, 5 Raytheon-Hughes “Talon” Ship to Ship Missiles (see). Top speed .97c.

  percom: a wrist-carried communication, computing, and control device worn by all naval personnel when on duty. The percom has two screens, a small twenty-character alphanumeric display that can be viewed without touching the device, and a larger color-graphical display that can be viewed by flipping the cover open. The first screen is used to display short text messages while the second is essentially a miniature computer display that can be tied to a ship’s computer or other larger device to download and view more complex information and can also be used to access the percom’s more limited on board computing and data storage capabilities. The percom is also a voice communication device, allowing communication between individuals and a warship, station, or base over distances of up to 5000 kilometers, as well as direct communication over shorter distances between two people wearing percoms tuned to the same frequency. Percoms and starships have an “intelligent relay” capability, such that ships equipped to support percoms and percoms themselves will “attempt” to relay a signal from one to the other in order to reach the intended recipient of the communication. It is not unusual for percom signals to be relayed halfway across solar systems. The percom has the additional capability serving as a remote activator for EM controlled devices such as detonators for explosive charges. In addition, the percom emits a homing signal that allows the wearer to be tracked by anyone with the proper equipment and who knows the encryption code for the transponder. It is powered by a rechargeable power cell with a maximum endurance of fifty hours. While small, the percom’s power and versatility should not be underestimated. In 2304, when the maneuvering station and the auxiliary maneuvering controls of his Corvette were destroyed by gunfire from enemy boarders (Corvettes have no AuxCon), Able Spacer First Class Scott Montgomery wrote a ship control interface program for his percom, tied it into the vessel’s fly by wire processor, and piloted the ship back to Dehsyloo Station. Spacer Montgomery was immediately promoted to Ensign and sent for advanced Engineering training.

  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, multi-layer point defense systems which must be penetrated by any incoming missile in order to reach the ship.

  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 th
e 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. Pulse cannon are rated based on the power output of their coil assemblies which determines how much plasma can be fired in a given pulse; the explosive power of a pulse cannon bolt, measured in kilotons, is roughly 1/300 of the power rating in gigawatts. Accordingly, a maximum power bolt from a pulse cannon with a 150 gigawatt rating will be approximately 0.5 kilotons. If the firing ship is travelling at a high fraction of lightspeed, the speed of the plasma pulse can exceed .99 c.

  quaere navis: (Romanovan Latin)—search the ship.

  Quartermaster: a non-Commissioned Officer with a rank equivalent to Chief Petty Officer, who—subject to the supervision of the Supply Officer—is responsible for all ships stores that are not weapons, ammunition, galley food, medical supplies, replacement parts, used in the operation of ship’s systems, or intoxicating beverages. For example, the stores maintained, inventoried, and issued by the Quartermaster would include uniforms, cleaning supplies, bedding, linens, boots, toiletries, badges, patches, rank insignia, shoelaces, replacement buttons, surface survival gear, and office supplies. Even on a small ship such as a Destroyer, the Quartermaster’s domain includes roughly one half of the ship’s non-fuel storage capacity and consists of tens of thousands of separate inventory items.