Part 28 (1/2)

[The Official Anthem and March of the Union s.p.a.ce Navy, with new verses for the current war, sung to the tune of the ”Heart of Oak,” the official Anthem and March of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.]

To stations my lads, 'tis to glory we steer, Oh, sons of the Union, we fight without fear; 'Tis to Honor you call us, for Honor we stand; We brothers in valor await fame's command.

(Chorus).

Hearts of steel, that's our s.h.i.+ps; hearts of steel, that's our men.

We always are ready; steady, boys, steady!

We'll fight, not surrender, again and again.

We'll take payment in blood for the debt Krag must pay, And carve them with cutla.s.s when they come to play; Our courage defiant enn.o.bles the stars, Stalwart sons of Ares, strong offspring of Mars.

(Chorus).

We still make them bleed and we still make them die, And shout mighty cheers as they fall from the sky; So, to stations, me lads, and let's sing with one heart, We will win this war if we all do our part.

(Chorus).

GLOSSARY AND GUIDE TO ABBREVIATIONS.

Alphacen Alpha Centauri.

AU Astronomical unit. The mean distance between Earth and the sun, approximately 150 million kilometers, or 93 million statute miles.

AuxCon Auxiliary Control.

Bravo The second letter of the Union Forces Voicecom Alphabet; a colloquial name for Epsilon Indi III (see).

BuDes (p.r.o.nounced ”bew-dess”) Bureau of Design.

BuPers (p.r.o.nounced ”bew-perz”) Bureau of Personnel. The naval department responsible for managing naval personnel a.s.signments, recruiting, and similar matters.

c The speed of light in a vacuum, commonly stated as ”lightspeed,” 299,792,458 meters per second, or 186,282 miles per second.

ca c'est bon (Cajun French) That's good. Equivalent to c'est bon in Parisian French.

Cajun A person descended from the French-speaking Roman Catholic residents of Nova Scotia (which they called Acadia) who were exiled by the British at the end of the French and Indian War because of concerns regarding their loyalty to the British crown and who settled in what was then the French Territory of Louisiana. Most Cajuns spoke their own version of French well into the twentieth century and maintain a distinctive culture to this day.

C'est pas rien (Cajun French) It's nothing, think nothing of it. Equivalent to de rien in Parisian French.

CDR Comprehensive disciplinary record. A complete compendium of all disciplinary actions of any kind taken with respect to a particular naval personnel.

Cherenkov-Heaviside radiation The burst of radiation emitted as an object emerges from a jump (see jump drive).

Chief of the Boat The senior noncommissioned officer on board any naval vessel. He is considered a department head and is the liaison between the captain and the noncommissioned ranks Sometimes referred to as COB (p.r.o.nounced ”cobb”) and informally known as the ”Goat.”

CIC Combat Information Center.

CIG Change in grade. Promotion or demotion.

cla.s.s A production series of wars.h.i.+ps of highly similar or identical design, designated by the name of the first s.h.i.+p of the series.

cla.s.s (Krag vessels) The Krag apparently have a cla.s.s system similar to the Union's, producing wars.h.i.+ps of similar design in series. Because Krag vessel names are, however, unknown, difficult to p.r.o.nounce, or impossible to remember, the Navy uses a system of ”reporting names” for Krag vessel cla.s.ses. Essentially, when a new cla.s.s of Krag vessel is identified, a name is a.s.signed to that cla.s.s by Naval Intelligence. Cla.s.s names generally start with the same letter or group of letters as the name of the vessel type, with the exception of battlecruisers, the cla.s.s names of which begin with ”Bar” to distinguish them from battles.h.i.+ps. In this way, a s.h.i.+p's type can immediately be determined from its cla.s.s name, even if the name is not familiar. Examples of cla.s.s names for each major wars.h.i.+p type follow: Battles.h.i.+ps: Batwing, Battalion, Battleax, Baton.

Battlecruisers: Barnacle, Barnyard, Barrister, Barsoom, Barmaid Carriers: Carousel, Carnivore, Carpetbagger, Cardigan Cruisers: Crusader, Crucible, Crustacean, Crumpet Frigates: Freelancer, Frogleg, Frycook, Frigid Destroyers: Deckhand, Delver, Dervish, Debris Corvettes: 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 s.h.i.+p to move away from a point in s.p.a.ce where it (1) has been observed or (2) it did something that might have allowed it to be observed.

Comet Colloquial term for the Wars.h.i.+p Qualification Badge, a medal-shaped like a comet with a curved tail-indicating that the wearer has pa.s.sed either a Wars.h.i.+p Crew Qualification Examination or a Wars.h.i.+p Officer Qualification Examination, showing that he can competently operate every crew or officer station on the s.h.i.+p, perform basic damage control, engage in close order battle with sidearm and boarding cutla.s.s, use a pulse rifle, and fight hand to hand.

compression drive One of the two known technologies that allow s.h.i.+ps 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 s.p.a.ce-time continuum. The drive creates around the vessel a bubble of distorted s.p.a.ce-time with a diameter approximately thirty-four times the length of the s.h.i.+p. This bubble, in turn, contains a smaller bubble of undistorted s.p.a.ce-time just large enough to enclose the s.h.i.+p itself. The density of s.p.a.ce-time is compressed along the s.h.i.+p's planned line of travel and expanded behind it (hence the term ”compression drive,” which was thought to sound better than ”expansion drive” or ”warp drive”), creating a propulsive force that moves the s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p is stationary relative to the fabric of s.p.a.ce-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 s.p.a.ce rises as a geometric function as s.h.i.+p size goes up under the familiar V = r2 formula multiplied by thirty-four (pi times half the length of the s.h.i.+p squared times thirty-four), even a small increase in the s.h.i.+p's dimensions results in substantial increases in the energy required to propel it through compressed s.p.a.ce. Accordingly, only smaller s.h.i.+p 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, battles.h.i.+ps, 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 s.p.a.cetime distortion caused by a poorly regulated drive exert variable and rapidly fluctuating force against the ”bubble” of normal s.p.a.ce-time surrounding the s.h.i.+p. As the small undistorted bubble around the s.h.i.+p must exist in precise equilibrium with the larger zone of differentially compressed and expanded s.p.a.ce that surrounds the smaller one, sharp variations, or ”shear,” along the boundary rupture the bubble and destroy the s.h.i.+p.

Core Systems The fifty star systems located near the astrographic center of the Union, which, although const.i.tuting only about 10 percent by number of the Union's inhabited worlds, are home to 42 percent of its population and 67 percent of its heavy industrial capacity.

DC Damage control.

Egg Scrambler A device fired from a missile tube that, when exploded, scrambles the interface between normal s.p.a.ce and metas.p.a.ce such that for nearly an hour it is impossible for a s.h.i.+p in the vicinity to operate its compression drive (see) or to cause a comm signal to cross the interface to allow faster than light communications.

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.

EMCON Emissions Control. A security and deception measure in which a wars.h.i.+p not only operates under what twenty-first century readers would call ”radio silence” but also without navigation beacons, active sensor beams, or any other emissions that could be used to track the s.h.i.+p.

Epsilon Indi III The second planet colonized by humans outside of the Sol system, also known as Bravo. A major industrial and cultural center.

FabriFax The brand name of an industrial-grade, computerized machine fabricator that uses advanced numeric, microrobotic manufacturing techniques to construct machine parts rapidly from a set of digital specifications-the distant descendant of the three-dimensional printers of the twenty-first century.

fils de putain (Cajun French) Son, or sons, of a wh.o.r.e. Used as an insult when an English speaker would say ”son of a b.i.t.c.h” or ”b.a.s.t.a.r.d.” It is not, however, appropriate to use this expression in those places where an English speaker uses ”son of a b.i.t.c.h” as an impersonal expletive as in, ”Son of a b.i.t.c.h, I left my wallet at home.”

finum nuntiante (Terranovan Latin) End of message, terminate communications.

flamer A particularly scathing Report of Disciplinary Action that becomes a part of a man's Comprehensive Disciplinary Record.

frame A vertical cross section of a wars.h.i.+p, numbered from bow to stern for the purpose of describing the location of damage the s.h.i.+p's structure or to large areas. A destroyer might have as few as eight frames, whereas a carrier has hundreds.

FTL Faster than light. Superluminal.

FUBAR f.u.c.ked up beyond all recognition.

genau (German) Exactly, precisely. Often used to express agreement.

greenie Colloquial term for a recruit s.p.a.cer. So called because the Working Uniform for that grade is light green in color.

goat Informal name for the Chief of the Boat (see).

Gynophage An extremely virulent viral disease launched by the Krag against the Union in 2295. The disease organism is highly infectious to all humans, but a gene sequence unique to the human ”Y” chromosome prevents disease symptoms from manifesting in all but a tiny fraction of males, thereby keeping infected males contagious but asymptomatic. It is believed that left to itself, the disease would have proved fatal to virtually all human females in the galaxy. It was disseminated by thousands of stealthed compression drive drone vessels launched by the Krag in the early days of the war, each of which launched thousands of submunitions that exploded in the atmosphere of human-inhabited planets. The disease kills in a manner similar to Ebola, by breaking down the tissues of the internal organs, but operates at a much higher rate. Once the disease begins to manifest, the subject is dead within minutes. The disease is currently treated or prevented by the Moro Treatment, a combination vaccine and antibody devised by a team led by the brilliant Dr. Emeka Moro (see).