To Honor You Call Us (55 page)

And, finally, our 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 we hope will follow.  In September 2012, when we sat down to begin writing, our ultimate goal was to pen a series of tales that realized in space some of the adventure, wonder, excitement, and vivid realism that the 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, we will have succeeded beyond our wildest expectations. 

Northwest Arizona

October 2012

Note on Star and Planet Names as Used in This Book

The names used by humans in the 24
^th
Century to designate the various stars and planets reached by human exploration of the Galaxy reflect, in microcosm, man’s growing knowledge and understanding of the Universe.  The planets of Earth’s solar system known to the Ancients were given the names of their gods, with modern Astronomy adopting the names given by the Romans.  As more were discovered through the use of telescopes, these worlds, too, received names from the Roman pantheon.  The Ancients also named the brightest stars in Earth’s night sky, with many of those names being adopted by astronomers and remaining associated with those stars to this day as their “Proper Names.”  Many are familiar:  Polaris, Altair, Vega, and Rigel.  Some are obscure:  Mintaka, Zubin Elgenubi.  A planet orbiting such a star is generally known by the proper name of the star, followed by a Roman numeral designating where it falls in the order of the planets in that system, counting outwards from the star.  Hence, the fourth planet from the well known star Altair is Altair IV. 

Many other stars, though lacking Proper Names, were visible from Earth and cataloged by Earth-bound astronomers.  The most important of these catalogs was compiled by the German Johan Beyer in 1603.  Beyer drew boundary lines around the Constellations, both the familiar ones named by the Ancients and new ones recently named when Europeans first started navigating the waters of the Southern Hemisphere, so that every part of the sky was a part of a constellation.  Then he ranked the stars in each constellation, generally in order of their apparent brightness viewed from Earth, and assigned to each a letter of the Greek Alphabet in that order (when the Greek letters run out, then letters of the Latin alphabet are used, followed by numbers).  In Beyer’s catalog, a star was designated by its Greek letter or other letter or number, followed by the genitive case of the Latin name of the constellation in which it is found, rendering names such as Tau Ceti, Epsilon Indi, Sigma Draconis, and 40 Eridani.  In at least one case, the Beyer Name of a star became more widely known than the Proper Name it had borne since ancient times—by the late 20
^th
Century the star that had been known for many centuries as Rigel Kentaurus and to mariners as Rigel Kent was better known as Alpha Centauri. 

Planets orbiting these stars are, like planets orbiting stars with Proper Names, designated by the star name and a Roman numeral designating their order in that star system, giving us planet names such as Epsilon Indi III.

Beyer’s Catalog (which he named
Uranometria
) reached only the stars visible with the naked eye from Earth.  In the centuries of telescopic astronomy between the
Uranometria
and the first Naval Survey in 2123, as many more stars were observed, they were named and cataloged in other systems, usually named for the cataloging astronomer, yielding names such as Wolf 359 and Gliese 581.  Some of these stars, as well as some of the stars with Beyer Names, were found to have planets as a result of observations from earth beginning in the late 20
^th
and early 21
^st
Century.  These planets were originally designated by lower case letters, such as Gliese 581c.  As these designations were for planetary bodies that were inferred by indirect observation techniques such as stellar “wobble” or occultations, they were abandoned for the current system of roman numerals as they came to be directly observed by interferometry, interstellar probes, or direct human exploration beginning in the late twenty-first century.

Further complications ensued as human beings began to venture to the stars.  Explorers began to discover stars that were not visible from Earth and often insisted upon naming these stars after themselves or after the person or organization who financed the expedition, which is how we came to have stars named Schwartzwalderstein and Trump.  Sometimes, particularly when the numbers for planets are appended to these names, the results can be comical, as in Tate VIII, Bhee IV, and Yoo II.  As extrasolar planets came to be colonized, they, too, often came to have names given to them by the inhabitants, often inspired by the nationality or home region of the settlers.  New Istanbul and Nouvelle Acadiana are names of this sort.  This situation can be made more confusing when a star with a “Local Proper Name” is orbited by a planet named by its colonists.  Who would suspect that Morgenstern IV and New Tehran were the same planet?  In such a case, the planet is generally known by the name given by its inhabitants.  If the host star is otherwise well known, often a Bayer, Proper Name, or Local Proper Name designation is given in parenthesis.  E.g., Avalon (Epsilon Eridani II). 

A moon of a planet is designated by a giving the name of the planet it orbits (in whatever form) followed by capital Roman letter, starting with “A” for the innermost moon and going outward.  Accordingly, the third moon orbiting Avalon would be either Avalon C or Epsilon Eridani II C.  This practice has been known to cause confusion, given that the practice of sometimes giving all of the stars in a multiple star system the same name and then assigning them letters:  e.g., Alpha Centauri A, B, and C. That is why the third moon orbiting the second planet in the brightest star in the Alpha Centauri system is Alpha Centauri A II C.  It is no accident that this body is more commonly referred to by its proper name, “Diana.” 

Home worlds of alien civilizations are generally known by the name given to them by the natives, if it is reasonably easy for humans to pronounce.  E.g., Pfelung.  If there is more than one such name, typically the world comes to be known by either the name used by the largest number of the natives or the one that is the easiest for humans to pronounce and remember.  Given a choice between Brrkptakuk and Kuktarp, the latter will win out every time.  If there is no pronounceable name, humans will either render the alien name in the form of a human one, often simplifying it  (Rssmpkuruknya becomes Ressumkirk), make up a name that has no relationship to the alien one (a planet whose inhabitants speak a language that consisting entirely of a series of low-pitched musical tones was named “Tuba”), or name it after the human leader of the expedition to make first contact (a world known by the natives as “Borborgesormanikiknowerathanific” is usually referred to as “Slayden’s Planet”).

Note on Ranks and Recruiting in the Union Space Navy

Because of the extreme manpower demands imposed on the Navy by decades of war, the difficulties of transporting trainees and cadets to central training locations, and the observation by naval planners that men seem to learn the rigors of starship service best while serving on starships, the former system of training Spacers at “Boot Camps” and of training officers at “Academies” was abandoned in 2290.  Currently, all spacers receive the bulk of their training on board warships in actual service.

Most crew and officers begin their naval careers as Midshipmen, going to space between the ages of 8 and 10 standard years.  Accordingly, a warship will typically carry a compliment of Midshipmen equal to roughly 15% of the total compliment of officers and enlisted.  Becoming a Midshipman requires the permission of the child’s parents or guardians, that he score in at least the 85
^th
percentile on a test of general intelligence, and that he be in generally good physical and mental health.  Midshipmen perform various duties on board ship but spend most of their waking hours in school or being trained in how to operate, maintain, and fight their ship.  After six years as a Midshipman or on his 17
^th
Birthday, whichever comes first, he is eligible to be examined for promotion to Recruit Spacer (“Greenie”).

A young man is also eligible to be examined to become a Greenie if he has served on board a Freighter or in the Merchant Marine as a Ship’s Boy  or other, similar, capacity for at least eight years and is at least sixteen or has served for four years and is at least nineteen (but no older than twenty-one).  Young men who have neither served as a Midshipman or as a Ship’s Boy may still enlist in the Navy at up to twenty-five years of age, provided that they can meet the same intelligence and physical criteria required for Midshipmen.  They are placed on board ship as a “Boot” with the status and duties similar to Midshipman, save that their classroom studies are limited to subjects in which they did not receive instruction as civilians.  Boots are housed separately from Midshipman and are assigned to larger vessels that have separate facilities for them.  A man is eligible to take the Greenie Examination after two years as a Boot.  Once accepted as a Greenie, there is no distinction between a recruits who started as Boots, and those who started as Midshipmen or Ship’s Boys. 

A score of 80% is required to pass the Greenie Examination.  Midshipmen who score at least 65% are eligible to remain as Midshipmen (or Boots) and retake the test in six months.  Young men who qualified to take the exam from Freighter or Merchant Marine service and who score between 65 and 80% on the exam may transfer to a warship to serve as a Midshipman and retake the test in six months.  Midshipmen who score below 65% are returned to their families.  Most join freighter crews.  Others who score below 65% go back to their former ships.  Any young man who fails the Greenie test four times is not allowed to take it again—he is either returned to his family or to his former ship, as appropriate.  Because the Midshipmen’s training is well suited to preparing young men for service in space, and because unsuitable young men generally learn of their unsuitability as Mids and leave the service at that time, the overwhelming majority of candidates eventually pass the Greenie test, most on the first try.

Once he has passed the Greenie Examination, the Recruit Spacer makes his way up through the three Recruit Spacer ranks (Recruit Spacer 3rd Class, Recruit Spacer 2
^nd
Class, Recruit Spacer 1
^st
Class, a process that generally takes about five years but that can be completed by a particularly able spacer in as little as 22 months (it took Max Robichaux 24 months and 17 days—not a record but certainly a brisk passage).  Under this process, every member of a warship’s compliment, including all the officers, has served as an enlisted man.  “Future officers” are not identified and separated at this stage, so every leader acquires experience being a follower and learns what it is like to be “just one of the men” in the lowest ranks of the Navy. 

Once a man has served in the Rank of Recruit Spacer First Class for one full year (after serving as RS 3
^rd
and RS 2
^nd
), he is eligible for promotion.  At that time, he and his service record are examined by a panel of three Commissioned Officers of the rank of Lieutenant Commander or higher and three Chief Petty Officers 1
^st
Class (this panel is officially known as the Recruit Screening Board and unofficially as the “Greenie Screeners”) to determine whether he will be promoted to Ensign, Promoted to Ordinary Spacer 3
^rd
Class, or be deemed “Unsuitable for Permanent Service” and “put on the beach” at the earliest opportunity.  This is where Officers are separated from Enlisted Men, not before. 

The suitability of a man to serve as officer is not merely a function of intelligence or even leadership.  Rather, the “job descriptions” of officer and enlisted man are simply different, and require a different set of skills, personality traits, attributes, and abilities.  Some men are better suited to be officers, others better suited to be in the enlisted ranks.  Intelligence, leadership ability, courage, ingenuity, creativity, and other admirable traits are found at all levels of the naval service.  Perhaps what distinguishes officers from enlisted is the ability to make larger decisions, to see the bigger picture at the strategic level, to think for the ship as a whole or even a higher level.  When the Greenie Screeners look at a recruit, they ask themselves whether, in a dozen years or so, this individual is more likely to be suitable to serve as a ship’s CO or as a Chief Petty Officer. 

Once a man is promoted to Ensign or to Able Spacer, he is more or less irrevocably set on a course as an Officer or Enlisted man for the rest of his career.  There are examples of Officers being “busted” to the enlisted ranks for misconduct or incompetence, or of enlisted being “boosted” to officer rank because of some act of conspicuous courage, brilliance, or leadership, but such instances are extraordinarily rare, with the former being far, far more common than the latter.

Ensigns, while serving as commissioned officers, also continue their education.  It is as an Ensign that the young men learn those things traditionally associated with a “college education” as well as completing the courses that were formerly completed at the old Naval Academies on Earth, Bravo, and Penzance.  So, in many ways, an Ensign is a probationary officer or an officer in training, still, notwithstanding his possession of a Commission.  Only about 75% of Ensigns become Lieutenant JGs, the rest being reduced to Enlisted Men, remaining Ensigns for their entire careers, or leaving the Navy at the end of their first term as an Officer.