Man Of War: To Honor You Call Us Part 29

Standard The official language of the Union; also, the official language or a widely used second language on virtually every non-Union human world. Standard is derived mostly from the English that was the most widely spoken second language on Earth and was the language of international science, commerce, s.h.i.+pping, and aviation when human beings first traveled to the stars in the late twenty-first and early twenty-second centuries.

SWACS s.p.a.ce warning and control system. An integrated sensor, computer, and command/communications/control suite placed on various s.p.a.cecraft to provide an exceptionally high level of sensor coverage and detail and to coordinate the defense against attacking vessels.

Talon The primary antis.h.i.+p missile carried by Union wars.h.i.+ps. Manufactured by Raytheon-Hughes s.p.a.ce Combat Systems, the Talon is an extremely fast, stealthy, and agile missile with both pa.s.sive and active multimodal sensor homing and a 5150 kiloton variable-yield fusion warhead. The Talon is designed to elude and penetrate enemy countermeasures and point defense systems; use its on board artificial intelligence and high-resolution active sensors to find a "soft spot" on the enemy s.h.i.+p; and then detonate its warhead in a location designed to inflict the most damage. One Talon is capable of obliterating s.h.i.+ps up to frigate size and of putting s.h.i.+ps up to heavy cruiser size out of commission. Against most targets with functioning point defense systems, the Talon is a better choice than the heavier Raven (see).

TDY Temporary duty.

TEMPCOM Temporary command.

Terran Union The common name for the Union of Earth and Terran Settled Worlds, a Federal Const.i.tutional Republic consisting of Earth and (as of January 2315) 518 of the total 611 worlds known to be settled by human beings. Often simply referred to as the "Union." Formed in 2155 upon the collapse of the Earth and Colonial Confederation (commonly referred to as the "Earth Confederation" or simply the "Confederation") resulting from the Revolt of the Estates, which began in 2154. The territorial s.p.a.ce controlled by the Union has an ellipsoidal shape (roughly like that of a watermelon) 2500 light-years long and 800 light-years wide, aligned lengthwise through the Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. Population: approximately 205 billion. With the possible exception of the Krag Hegemony, the Union is the most populous and largest political ent.i.ty in Known s.p.a.ce.

TF Task force. A group of wars.h.i.+ps a.s.sembled for a particular mission or "task."

type When applied to wars.h.i.+ps, this term refers to the general category and function of the vessel, as opposed to its cla.s.s, which refers to a specific design or production run of vessels within a type. The most common types of wars.h.i.+p, in decreasing order of size, are carrier, battles.h.i.+p, battlecruiser, cruiser, frigate, destroyer, corvette, and patrol vessel. There are, of course, other types of naval vessel that are not categorized as wars.h.i.+ps, including tanker, tender, tug, hospital s.h.i.+p, troop carrier, landing s.h.i.+p, cargo vessel, and so on.

UESF United Earth s.p.a.ce Forces. The international military arm formed in 2034 by United States and Canada, the European Union, and the Chinaj.a.pan Alliance to retake the Earth's moon from the Ning-Braha who had occupied it, presumably as a prelude to a planned invasion of Earth. The UESF is the inst.i.tutional successor of the armies, navies, and air forces of the founding powers, but drew its personnel primarily from their navies and air forces and drew its command structure, regulations, traditions, and other inst.i.tutional foundations mainly from their "salt.w.a.ter navies." The Ning-Braha technology captured by the UESF in this campaign was the catalyst for mankind's colonization of the stars.

Union See Terran Union.

UNREP UNderway REPlenishment.

USNGS (Uniform Sierra Nebula Galaxy Sierra) Union s.p.a.ce Navy Galactic Survey. The most important star catalog in Known s.p.a.ce-used universally by the Union s.p.a.ce Navy as well as by the Union Merchant Naval Service, most human navigators even outside of the Union, and many alien species.

watch The period of time that a member of the crew who is designated as a "watch stander" mans his a.s.signed "watch station." Also, the designation of the section of the crew to which the watch stander belongs. On Union wars.h.i.+ps, there are three watches, usually known as Blue, Gold, and White. They stand watch on the following schedule: First Watch: 20000000 (1 Blue) (2 Gold) (3 White).

Middle Watch: 00000400 (1 Gold) (2 White) (3 Blue).

Morning Watch: 04000800 (1 White) (2 Blue (3 Gold) Forenoon Watch: 08001200 (1 Blue) (2 Gold) (3 White).

Afternoon Watch: 12001600 (1 Gold) (2 White) (3 Blue) First Dog Watch: 16001800 (1 White) (2 Blue) (3 Gold) Second Dog Watch: 18002000 (1Blue) (2 Gold) (3 White).

The captain and the XO do not stand a watch. Rather, all officers other than the CO, XO, and the CMO serve as Officer of the Deck, serving as the officer in charge of minute-to-minute operations in CIC when neither the CO nor the XO is in CIC. Officers of the Deck stand watch for eight hour s.h.i.+fts on a rotating basis.

XO Executive officer. The second in command of any wars.h.i.+p.

Z (when appended to a time notation) Zulu Time. Standard Union Coordinated Time. So that all USN vessels can conduct coordinated operations, they all operate on Zulu Time, which is, for all intents and purposes, the same as Greenwich Mean Time-mean solar time as measured from the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England, on Earth in the Sol system.

Zhou Matrix A standard fleet static defensive formation in which s.h.i.+ps are arrayed in a plane perpendicular to the threat axis with more powerful s.h.i.+ps interspersed with less powerful ones to provide mutual fire support and to avoid giving the enemy a "weak zone" to exploit. Named for Rear Admiral Zhou Chou Dong, who first proposed it in a lecture on hypothetical future s.p.a.ce combat tactics in the former People's Republic of China in 2022. The Zhou Matrix can also be used offensively as the "anvil" portion of the "hammer and anvil" formation invented by Admiral Kathleen "Killer Kate" Phillips at the Battle of Sirius B on 22 August 2164.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

To some degree, every book is a distillation of everything an author has learned and experienced in his lifetime. Naturally, that legacy cannot be articulated in a few paragraphs. There are, however, a few individuals whose contribution to my learning and experiences is so related to the contents of this volume that they deserve particular recognition.

The author is indebted to Charles Murray and Catherine Bly c.o.x for their outstanding nonfiction book, Apollo: The Race to the Moon, which I believe to be the best single book ever written about the American s.p.a.ce program, bar none. Readers familiar with that work's clear and evocative description of the inner workings of the Mission Operations Control Room and the Staff Support Rooms during the Gemini and Apollo Programs will be able to discern the shape of those rooms in these pages. Any resemblance between the brilliant Mission Control teams of those years and the CIC of the USS c.u.mberland is entirely by design.

Readers who know well the history of those endeavors may recognize several names in this book, scattered throughout as respectful nods to some brilliant individuals who made largely unsung contributions to what has been, thus far, mankind's greatest adventure. With one exception, mentioned below, the similarity of any other names to those of any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

I also acknowledge a profound debt to Gene Roddenberry and to the many writers, producers, and other creative people involved in the Star Trek franchise over the decades. Despite a few remarks directed in these pages at some aspects of those programs and many, many deliberate choices to make the s.h.i.+ps, weapons, tactics, and procedures of the Union Navy radically different from those of Roddenberry's Starfleet, any modern author of military fiction set on a stars.h.i.+p must deal in some way, overtly or covertly, with Mr. Roddenberry's creation. I hope my approach was original, respectful, and humorous. The original Star Trek series, watched so avidly during its first run on NBC, triggered my first crude efforts to imagine and write about brave men fighting on powerful stars.h.i.+ps to preserve mankind against deadly enemies. This book is a direct product of those imaginings, begun in that bygone era that we now know as "the Sixties."

Also, I offer a tip of the hat to early pioneers and modern masters of the genre that we call science fiction, whose imaginings helped shape and encourage my own: Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Robert Silverberg, Poul Anderson, Keith Laumer, Norman Spinrad, Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. LeGuin, Frederick Pohl, Larry Niven, Doris Lessing, Jerry Pournelle, Greg Bear, David Weber, Joe Haldeman, Timothy Zahn, Robert L. Forward, and many, many others whose works have so entertained and inspired me over the years. I ask that they and their many fans forgive my temerity in aspiring to follow in their footsteps.

More thanks to Ronald D. Moore and David Eick and all of those involved in the production of the excellent television series Battlestar Galactica, which, in addition to captivating me for many hours, taught me that one can tell inspiring and uplifting, yet gritty and realistic, stories about warriors among the stars-and that there might be a market for more such stories.

My thanks also to the originators and the many contributors to Wikipedia.org. Were it not for the ready availability of this site to tell me the diameter of our solar system as measured in astronomical units; the density of gold in tons per cubic meter; whether the element mercury has multiple isotopes and is used in ion propulsion; the names of the twenty star systems closest to Earth and their distances in light years and pa.r.s.ecs; the status of the evolutionary development of rats on Earth eleven million years ago; and hundreds of other facts that a conscientious author of "hard science fiction" must verify, this book would have been incalculably more difficult to write.

For many lessons taught and the outstanding example provided by the late Dr. George Middleton, educator, psychologist, mentor, and leader, I extend my heartfelt thanks. The Commodore/Admiral Middleton mentioned in these pages is a poor and grossly inadequate tribute to Dr. Middleton, though the fict.i.tious admiral is not a depiction or even a parody of the real doctor, who was so gentle a spirit that he could never have made warfare his life's work. The respect and esteem that my characters have for the fict.i.tious "Uncle Middy" in this book are, however, designed to be a reflection of the respect that the real, and ever so profoundly missed, "Uncle Middy" enjoyed in life. Ab illo cui multum datur multum requiritur.

On Cajun French: I grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana; my mother's family is from the heart of Acadiana and Cajun to the marrow, and my maternal grandmother's first language was Cajun French. Unfortunately, although I grew up hearing a fair amount of Cajun French from time to time, from relatives and neighbors, I did not grow up speaking it, much less writing it. Every Cajun expression in these pages is one that I remember hearing from my youth; nevertheless, I would have been clueless, left to myself, about how to put those expressions into writing. Therefore, it is with sincere thanks that I gratefully acknowledge the essential role served by the Dictionary of Louisiana French: As Spoken in Cajun, Creole, and American Indian Communities, University of Mississippi Press (2010), in the writing of this book, as a source for spelling, and to verify the accuracy of my recollection. This dictionary is an astonis.h.i.+ngly thorough and authoritative work of scholars.h.i.+p, eminently usable and beautifully printed. I could not recommend it more highly.

And finally, I humbly offer my eternal grat.i.tude 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 I hope will follow. In September 2012, when I sat down to begin writing, my ultimate goal was to pen a series of tales that realized in s.p.a.ce some of the adventure, wonder, excitement, and vivid realism that O'Brian's novels realized at sea. If this book has transported the reader to far reaches of s.p.a.ce one-tenth as compellingly as...o...b..ian carried his readers to the Far Side of the World, I will have succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.

"All hands to make sail."

H. Paul Honsinger.

Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

17 May 2013.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Kathleen Honsinger 2013.

H. Paul Honsinger is a retired attorney with lifelong interests in s.p.a.ce exploration, astronomy, the history of science, military history, firearms, and international relations. He was born and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and is a graduate of Lake Charles High School, The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and Louisiana State University Law School in Baton Rouge. Honsinger has practiced law with major firms on the Gulf Coast and in Phoenix, Arizona, and most recently had his own law office in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. He currently lives in Lake Havasu City with his beloved wife, Kathleen, and his daughter and stepson, as well as a 185-pound English Mastiff and two highly eccentric cats.

By H. Paul Honsinger.

The Man of War Trilogy.

To Honor You Call Us.

For Honor We Stand.

Brothers in Valor (forthcoming).