For Honor We Stand (69 page)

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 in Volume I of this series 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.  Also known as Mother Goose.

Mikado:  an alternative term for the Emperor of Japan; the Emperor as a character in the 1885 Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera
The Mikado or Town of Titipu.
  The character is best known for the sadistic yet fitting punishments he had decreed for various crimes, all listed at great length in a song with the refrain “My object all sublime/I shall achieve in time/to let the punishment fit the crime/the punishment fit the crime.”

Misstück
:  (German) bastard. 

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 April 15, 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 an set of broad spectrum antibodies synthesized not only to match the current disease organism but the nine most probable mutations of its external protein coat, thereby creating a vaccine 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.  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).

N2:  Naval Intelligence Staff, the equivalent of G2 in the old Army General Staff system. 

Nash, Ogden:  [Full Name, Frederic Ogden Nash] Born August 19, 1902; died May 19, 1971.  American writer of short, comic verse known for its humorous whimsy and unconventional rhymes.  A good example of his writing is “The Bat.”

Myself, I rather like the bat.
It’s not a mouse, it’s not a rat.
It has no feathers, yet has wings
It’s quite inaudible when it sings,
It zig zags through the evening air
And never lands on ladies’ hair,
A fact of which men spend their lives
Attempting to convince their wives

NB:  Take careful note of the following, note well.  From the Latin
nota bene,
literally, note well.

nicht wahr
:  (German)  literally meaning “not true,” this expression in conversation is often put at the end of a statement where a Standard speaker might say “isn’t it” or “don’t you agree.” 

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

One MC:  (also written 1MC):  One Main Circuit, the primary voice channel on a naval vessel allowing a properly authorized speaker to be heard over every audio transducer in the ship.  The term dates back to the Salt Water Navy. 

oy gevalt
: (Yiddish) an expression for which there is no meaningful literal translation,
oy Gevalt
is an expression of shock and astonishment, and sometimes of dismay, used in circumstances in which a Standard speaker might say “oh, my God” or “my goodness” or even, “holy shit.”   

oy veh
(Yiddish):  woe is me.  An expression of sorrow and dismay. 

pas aujourd'hui 
:  (Cajun French) not today.

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, 72 meters.  Beam:  5 meters.  Crew:  2 Officers, 10 Enlisted.  Armament:  1 75 gigawatt pulse cannon, 6 Raytheon-Hughes “Talon” Ship to Ship Missiles (see).  Top speed .97c.

pennant:  in a multi-vessel group commanded by an officer below the rank of Commodore, the vessel from which the group is commanded and in which the overall commander of the group is stationed.

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.  The percom has the additional capability of 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 five hundred 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 used his percom to tie into the vessel’s fly by wire processor and pilot the ship back to Dehsyloo Station.  Spacer Montgomery was immediately promoted to Ensign and sent for advanced Engineering training.

pigeon:  in a formation of military vessels, the vessel being protected or escorted by the others, particularly if there is only one such vessel and it is of particular importance.

PITA:  Pain In The Ass.  

Posident:  POSitive IDENTification.  

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, the timer turns the emitter off at a set range, or the bolt strikes a target destroying the emitter, the bolt loses cohesion and expands explosively.  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 traveling 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.

Queeg, Phillip Francis, Lieutenant Commander:  fictional commander of the Destroyer-Mine Sweeper 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 which progressed 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 resulting in the Executive Officer relieving him of command, for which act the XO was charged with and tried for mutiny.  

qui inrita ordinem:
(Romanovan Latin) cancel that order, belay that order.

Raven:  A large anti-ship 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 multi-modal 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.

REFSTAMAT:  REFerence STAte MATrix—the “virtual ship” representing the precise condition of the warship in the ship’s computer.  The REFSTAMAT includes the exact—as tested—performance characteristics of every part or component installed in every system in the ship.  The extent to which the REFSTAMAT predicts or matches the actual characteristics of the vessel is referred to as “congruence” and should be, at a minimum, 99.999 percent, known as “five balls.  Most vessel engineers prefer their ships to operate at 99.9999 percent, known as a “sixpack.”  When a vessel’s congruence falls to 99.99 percent, it is said to be in dire difficulty, that state being known as “fournication” because “you’re really screwed.”  The term is believed to be an homage to the NASA acronym REFSMMAT or REFerence to Stable Member MATrix, which was a mathematically-defined fixed point in space relative to which the location of a spacecraft and its orientation in space were measured.  The REFSMMAT gave birth to the heroic Captain Refssmat, a mythical “ideal flight controller” who existed in the lore of flight controllers during the Apollo Program. 

regardez donc:
(Cajun French) An expression of awe and amazement, roughly equivalent to an extremely emphatic “wow.”  Literally translates as “look at that.”

Registry Numbers:  the unique identification number assigned to each warship, consisting of its three letter class code followed by a number.  The class code is a unique set of three letters assigned to each ship class for easy identification.  The first letter of the class code is always the same letter as the ship type.  Accordingly, the class code of all Destroyers begins with “D,” all Frigates with “F,” all Carriers with “C,” etc.  This system doesn’t help the uninitiated tell the difference between a Cruiser and a Carrier and a Corvette just from the Class Code—naval personnel simply have to memorize the forty or fifty class codes in use at any given time.  The number is the ordinal number designating where that particular ship falls in the production order of that class.  Accordingly, the fourth ship produced in the Khyber Class of Penetration and Attack Destroyers (the USS
Cumberland
) is DPA 0004.  Registry numbers are always written as three letters and four digits, even if the leading digits are zeros, a practice that evolved as a check against the digits being inadvertently dropped in transmission, decrypting, or printing.

Richthofens:  fancy maneuvers.  From Baron Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the “Red Baron” the famous World War I German fighter pilot.