Loralynn Kennakris 2: The Morning Which Breaks (60 page)

In other navies, such as the
New UK
and some
League
home fleets
, commodores are a substantive rank.

A basic military unit in the ground forces and marines, that usually consists of three to six
platoons
, and is commanded by a captain or a major. The specific makeup of a company depends on the branch of service and its mission. A standard organization for ground-forces company would be: a HQ platoon, a heavy-weapons platoon, an assault platoon, and light platoon (for scouting).

A
CEF Marine
company will have an organization that depends on whether it is deployed aboard ship or terrestrially. In the latter, it will be organized per the foregoing. If embarked on a warship, the organization would be: a command platoon, a heavy-weapons platoon, an assault platoon, and a ‘tech’ platoon, for dealing with the various systems of enemy ships.

The Conning Officer generates the conning orders for the helmsmen, according to the captain’s directions. This officer also maintains tactical awareness of all contacts and coordinates with the
CIC
sensor section. On light combatants, s/he also handles ship comms (on major combatants, this is the responsibility of a
signal lieutenant
).

The conning officer is a bridge watch-stander, and seconds the
OOD
when the captain is not on the bridge.

In astronomy, a binary star system in which the two stars are close enough that their photospheres (the bright outer layer of a star’s atmosphere) connect or the stars’ gaseous envelopes have actually merged.

The star systems that dominate an interstellar polity or star civilization. The
Dominion of Halith
uses the term as a proper noun. Compare
Homeworlds
.

A rare ground-forces rank. A cornet is a commissioned officer ranked below 2nd lieutenant. Cornets were once common outside the
League
, where they performed duties similar to those handled by senior
NCOs
in the League’s militaries. They came to be disparaged as it was recognized that the rank interferes with the formation of a solid, professional NCO corps, which is the backbone of all effective militaries.

Halith, the last major military to have the rank, abandoned it after
LH-1
. Currently, only the
Sultanate
and the
Terebellum Empire
have cornets in their militaries.

In ground forces, usually the largest operational formation. A corps is composed of two or more
divisions
, and customarily commanded by a lieutenant general. In previous eras, multiple corps were sometimes combined into
armies
, and the armies themselves into
army groups
. The
Halith
Imperial Ground Forces was the last military to employ operational units of this size, although they did not use the term
army group
, but Operational Maneuver Group (OMG). Halith still maintains several so-called OMGs, but they are much smaller than the OMGs of the past, the largest mustering only nine divisions.

Corps may also refer to an entire branch of the service, such as a
CEF Marine Corps
.

The supreme governing body of the
Dominion of Halith
. The Council acts as a central committee having essentially unlimited authority. The other organs within Halith government are advisory or supporting, or ‘popular’ assemblies that exist mainly to endorse the Council’s decisions and mandates.

The Council is a somewhat elastic body, having no fixed size in law and not being made up strictly of ministers. It is led by two
Proconsuls
, and by tradition, reserves five or seven places for hereditary lords who (like the proconsuls) are elected from eligible families of the
Civitas
(the upper house of Halith’s mostly, but not entirely, rubberstamp parliament). Although there are hundreds of eligible families, the same few families tend to have their members elected over and over. (Compare the
Plenary Council
.)

The Ministries and organs normally represented on the Council are:

• Ministry of War (Compare
  SECNAV
  )
  
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs (includes the diplomatic corps, the Office of Foreign Economic Relations, and the Office of Interstellar Security, an intelligence service)
  
• Imperial Research & Intelligence Service (
  IRIS
  . Compare
  CID
  )
  
• Ministry of Public Security (A civilian organization tasked with maintaining internal security, especially in the colonies. Employs militarized police forces)
  
• Ministry of Information (includes the state media and propaganda organs)
  
• Ministry of Heavy Industry (manufactures starships and space stations. The Ministry of Medium Industry builds small craft and fighters; the Ministry of Light Industry builds weapons and consumer goods. Neither is represented.)
  
• Ministry of the Internal Affairs (responsible for social welfare, colonial affairs, economic forecasting, transportation and shipping, and healthcare)
  
• Ministry of Commerce & Industry (responsible for the civilian economy)
  
• Ministry of Finance (includes collecting taxes and other government revenue)
  
• Ministry of Justice
  

Closest Point of Approach.

An outlying
League
sector that lies roughly between the
Hydra
and the
Sultanate of Andaman and Nicobar
. It is a prosperous sector, mainly populated with
Nedaeman
colonies. The
CEF
outstation at
New Madras
marks the boundary with the Hydra. The former League colony of
Iona
was once in Crucis sector and now marks its boundary on the Andaman side.

Crucis Sector is the home of the
CEF Third Fleet
, which is linked to the
Pleiades
Sector Command through the CEF’s
linked command system
.

An alloy used as armor and in the strength decks of starships and space stations. Not a crystalline form of steel as the name might suggest (for one thing, it contains no iron), but an iridium alloy. The unique property of crysteel is the way it reacts to high-energy impacts: stress reorganizes the molecular structure through a resonance phenomenon whereby energy is transferred to the lattice bonds, vastly increasing tensile strength in the area of the impact while maintaining a degree of modulated ductility, so that shear forces do not cause fractures in the neighboring material.

Chief of the Watch. The enlisted assistant of the
OOD
, who is administratively in charge of the deck watch section, whether underway or in port. It is the CWO’s responsibility to ensure that all deck watch stations are manned and that all personnel in the previous watch are relieved. The CWO reports to the OOD when the deck watch has been relieved, and also contacts the appropriate department head if anyone fails to report at his or her watch station.

A crucial sector that contains the
Kepler Junction
. It also contains three tightly linked systems,
Miranda
, the League colony of
Epona
, and
Asylum
. These three systems control important transit lanes between the
League
,
Karelia
, and the Kepler Junction. The
CEF Seventh Fleet
is based in Cygnus, and is not
linked
to a
Homeworld
sector command, but reports directly to
CNO
..

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The parts of the overall information infrastructure that support
illicit and illegal activity
. The dark clouds are heavily secured and cloaked and can be accessed only through applications that are generally illegal. They support (and are supported by) a thriving
Omertà
(“code of silence”) culture, despite constant efforts at suppression.

Director, Central Intelligence Directorate,
Nereidian League
. The DCID is a member of the
Plenary Council
, along with the
Secretary of the Navy
and the other senior secretaries, and the
Speaker
of the
Grand Senate
.

An outlying region populated by a number of small independent
star nations
. The most prominent are the Larate of Alesia, the Aventine Grand Duchy, and Outré Bangkok. Lack of central authority makes the region chaotic.

Deneb contains significant antimatter fuel fields, though not as rich as those of the
Sultanate
.

Defense Intelligence Office. A
League
organization responsible for organizing and disseminating finished intelligence products on a need-to-know basis, primarily via
ARGONET
. It performs no collection or analysis of its own.

In the ground forces, a large military formation, composed of several
brigades
or
regiments
, commanded (most often) by a major general. Several divisions combine to make a
corps
.

Some militaries, like the
Terran
Terrestrial Forces and the
Halith
Imperial Ground Forces, consider a division to be a basic operational and administrative unit. Others (e.g. the ground forces of the
New UK
), consider a division to be a temporary formation, created when and as needed. (
Hesperia
does not form divisions at all, but creates super-sized regiments in its ground forces.) The
CEF Marine Corps
forms divisions for ground combat, but not for naval operations.

In a naval context,
division
has two meanings. First, a division is a subunit of a fleet, although different navies apply the term differently. In the
CEF Navy
, a division consists of two or four warships of the same type, which combine to form a
squadron
(which then combine to form a fleet).

In the Halith Navy, a division is a large permanent tactical formation based on one type of major capital ship with squadrons of supporting units. Thus, there are cruiser divisions, carrier divisions, and battleship divisions, known in Halith nomenclature as CRUDIV, CARDIV, or BATDIV, followed by a Roman numeral. For example, CRUDIV IV for Cruiser Division Four.

A naval division is a permanent organizational unit, and not to be confused with a
Task Force
or a
Task Group
. (See also
Squadron
.)

Next, a division can refer to the organizational units of a ship’s crew. Many navies use this term, but the CEF Navy refers to these units as
departments
.

The dog
watches
, or
slide
watches in some navies, are special split watches lasting from 1600 to 2000 hours (24-hr day). The dogs are split into 2-hour watches so that
watch standers
alternate standing middle watch, which was once considered unlucky (hence the names ‘graveyard watch’ and ‘dead watch’ for it). It also affords all watch standers an opportunity to eat an evening meal.

As the dogs watches fall in the evening and thus at the end of the ‘normal’ business day, they are the origin of the term ‘before the dogs bark’, signifying something to be done by the end of the day or ‘close of business’.

A term that describes a
CO
having two commands simultaneously. Common in the navy, where a fleet commander (or
task force
commander) may retain a
squadron
(or a
task group
) under their personal command.

In contrast, it would be very rare for a lieutenant general in command of ground-forces
division
to also command a
brigade
as a second hat.

A small autonomous flying platform:
EW
, optical sensor, and attack variants (delivers fast-acting poisons or paralytics); bug to mote sized. The non-flying variant is called a
weevil
or an
evil weevil
(attack version). Some reportedly use
rouge nanocytes
.

Director, Sector Intelligence. Head of the
CEF
intelligence organization in each
League
sector, the Sector Intel Group (
SIG
). The DSI reports directly to the sector
CinC
, not to
ONI
. Usually a naval captain’s or senior commander’s billet.

Director of Strike & Reconnaissance Operations on a
CEF
carrier. A former pilot and
SRF
officer. Usually a senior commander. Informally, the
Fighter Boss
.

Deep-Space Zone. Around Earth, the volume of space from the “Weekend Line” out to the limit of Earth’s gravitational attraction, arbitrarily set at the range where the escape velocity equals 1
kip
. This is at ~800,000 km, almost exactly twice the mean radius of Lunar orbit. Traffic in the DSZ is governed by
Tycho Control
, a shared civil/military facility located on the Moon. Beyond the DSZ is
Free Space
.

Societies where dueling to settle personal disputes and ‘points of honor’ is an accepted practice.
Halith
and the
Meridies
are the most prominent dueling cultures, although dueling is not legal in either. (This is a recent development in Halith, and the Dueling Master remains a respected and important personage in Halith society.)

Dueling is not unknown among
Belters
, though it has become increasing rare, and the Bannermans and slavers routinely settle their affairs through violence, although their encounters lack the formalities the distinguish true dueling cultures.

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