Loralynn Kennakris 2: The Morning Which Breaks
Page 57
“No driver?” Nick asked, sliding his xel back into a pocket.
“Not these days.” She replaced her xel and popped the doors open. They walked down the gentle slope together, and as Trin strapped into the driver’s side, Nick took the shotgun seat and remarked, “Y’know what else I look forward to about being retired?”
Trin sealed the doors, checked the display and shook her head as she engaged thrusters.
“Fraternizing. Sixty years in the service leaves a fellow with a powerful deal of fraternizing to catch up on.”
Trin favored him with a sideways look and cocked an eyebrow. “You’re not retired yet, Nick.”
“True. But a fella can hope. Can’t he?”
“Oh certainly.” She took them up to a hundred meters with a private smile.
“So where’s this place we’re going?”
She displayed the map reference on the HUD. Nick chuckled as he recognized her address.
“I wanted someplace we could talk.”
“Absolutely. Fine idea. Good plan.” He settled deeper into his seat. She saw his lips move in the canopy’s dim reflection. Did Nick know she could read lips? Hard to say.
She connected to the grid, entered an entirely bogus destination, submitted her override codes, and then banked left as the car disappeared from the traffic-control nets and its ghost continued merrily on. She stole another sideways glance at Nick. Did he know?
He caught her looking and winked. Yep, he knew.
Retirement, here I come. Those were the words his lips had formed.
The private smile deepened. Who knew? God knows, she’d gotten worse offers. Maybe someday. She returned her attention to the HUD, the smile beginning to make itself public.
Keep hoping, Nick. These days they could all use a little hope.
Authors’ Notes
The following are a few notes on some terms and references that appear in this book. Please see our glossary for additional background, and definitions of the terminology and acronyms we employ. A downloadable map of Charted Space is available at our website: www.loralynnkennakris.com
The Blue Peter is the nickname given to the maritime signal flag flown by ships in harbor to indicate they are about to sail. We have appropriated the nickname to apply it in Kris’s universe to the ensign (flag) worn by CEF combatants, on the grounds that these warships pride themselves on being ready to sail at a moment’s notice.
Sutlers were originally civilian merchants who followed armies to supply them with food and other necessities. The preferred naval term is victualer (also spelled victualler), which was also the term used for a supply ship (combat stores ship) into the 19th Century and unofficially until much later. In the Royal Navy, provisioning was administered by the Victualling Board (made up of the Victualling Commissioners, also called the Commissioners for the victualling of the Navy) until 1832, when these functions were assumed by the Admiralty Board.
In applying to the term victualer to naval stores ships and using sutler as a cant term for those who provide provisions to slavers, we intend no negative reflection on those honorable, worthy and necessary persons who have in the past engaged in sutlery (along with those who might be said to still do so today).
The fighter pilot’s anthem referred to in Part I, Chapter Thirteen, is the poem “High Flight” by Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr. of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Although he served in the RCAF, Magee was an American who, like a number of Americans, joined the RCAF before the United States officially entered WWII. He was killed in a midair collision on December 11, 1941, over Lincolnshire, in the East Midlands of England, at the age of nineteen.
The ‘Gods of the Copybook Headings’ mentioned by Huron in Part I, Chapter Twenty-Three, is the title of a poem authored by Rudyard Kipling in 1919. It is likely that Kipling was inspired by the massive international trauma of what was then known as the Great War (later WWI), which had just ended. The message of the poem is that when people neglect or dismiss eternal verities in favor of wishful thinking, terrible things inevitably result.
Here, Huron, while acknowledging Kipling’s point, is using the title rather more satirically. The copybook headings referred to in the poem were homilies (generally of a moral character) printed at the tops of the pages in Victorian students’ copybooks. They were supposed to copy these headings down the page to practice penmanship (hence the name). As such, these homilies often came to be viewed as platitudinous and thus the phrase might be applied to any set of rules that, however useful, are enforced in a mindless or bureaucratic way, especially when they stifle creativity and risk-taking.
This is the sense in which Huron uses the phrase here: to refer to military bureaucrats who have developed their own ‘copybook headings’ that must be acknowledged for their worth but not slavishly adhered to. It is Huron’s rather ‘nuanced’ relationship with these principles that accounts for much of his reputation as a brilliant but difficult officer.
The quote attributed to Fleet Admiral Kasena, CEF, CNO, in Part II, Chapter Fourteen, is a paraphrase of a comment made by Admiral Ernest J. King, CNO, USN, during WWII. When asked how to handle the press, Admiral King replied, “Tell 'em nothing, and when it's over, tell 'em who won.”
The ceremony in Part II, Chapter Thirty-Six was inspired by the reminiscences of the late George MacDonald Frasier, and largely modeled on a similar ceremony he described in his excellent WWII memoir, Quartered Safe Out Here. We freely acknowledge our debt to Mr. Frasier, and pay our deepest respects to him for leaving us this invaluable work.
The four lines of poetry sent to Kris in the Epilogue are a fragment of a poem by Sappho (the Greek lyric poet, circa 600 BC). Various translations of this work exist. We have relied on no particular translation, but considered several in composing the version that appears in this book.
Index of Terms
[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]
A
Action, (military) || Admiralty, the || After Action Report, (AAR) || AGI/AGE || AI || Aide-de-camp || Alecto Initiative, the || Amalekites || ANCAP || Andaman & Nicobar || Anson’s Deep, Battle of || Anson’s Deep, Nexus || Antigua || AP || APS || Archon || Area Defense || ARGONET || Asylum || AU
B
Ballast, in || Bannermans || Battalion || Bearing || Bells || Belt, the || Billet || Black Army || BMC || BOQ || Bosun || Bot || Brevet Rank || Brigade || Brigadier
C
C-12 || C4ISR || Caelius Protogenos || Call-Sign Alphabet || Canteen || CAP || Capperbar || Captain of the Fleet || CAT || CEF || CEO || Cepheus Region || CGHQ || Chain gun || Charted Space || Chief || CIC || CID || CinC || Clouds || Clubs, || CNO || CO || Colonization Periods || COMINT || Commodore || Company || Conning Officer || Contact Binary || Core Systems || Cornet || Corps || Council of Ministers || CPA || Crucis Sector || Crysteel || CWO || Cygnus Sector
D
Dark Clouds || DCID || Deneb Sector || DIO || Division || Dog Watches || Double-Hatted || Dragonfly || DSI || DSRO || DSZ || Dueling Cultures
E
E-boost || ECA || ECM || ELINT || Eltanin Sector || EMP || Epona || ESM || EVA || EW || EWO || Ex gratia || Exec
F
Fighter Boss || Fireteam || FITREP || Flag Lieutenant || Flag Officer || Fleet Captain || Flight Officer || Flotilla || Forbes-Dyson || Formation Wars, the || FORPRO || Free Space || FTL
G
Galatea || GAT || General Quarters, (GQ) || General Staff (CEF) || General Staff (Royal Navy, New UK) || Geriatrics, postpausal || Grand Senate || Gravitational Exclusion Zone || Grav-Plant || ‘Guest Labor’ || Gunroom
H
H&K Sats || Halith || Harkness || Head Money || Helmsmen || Hesperia || Hestia || Hive || Home Fleet(s) || Homeworlds || HQ || HUD || HUMINT || Huygens’ Gap || Hydra Region
I
I&W || IADS || IFF || IHS || Ilmatar Neoforming || Immunocytes || Interstellar Space || IO || Iona || IPS || IRIS || ISS || IT || IW
&
nbsp; J
Janin Station || JCS || Jig
K
Karelia || Kepler Junction || Kiloklicks || Kips || KKHR Control Group || Klicks
L
League-Halith Wars || Letter of Marque || Lictors || Line officers || Linked Command System || Lixae || LMAC || LSS || Lunar 1
M
|| Manifolds || Maniple || Marines || Mars || Mars Air Line || Maser || Match Code || Maxor || Megs || Meridies Cluster || Merope Junction || Mess || Messier || MI-6 Assault Rifle || Micro-manufacturing Revolution || Mips || Miranda || Modern terraforming || Monitors || MOU || Mules & Mule Trains || Mule Killers || Music
N
Nanocyte Revolutions || Nanotech || Navy, CEF || Navy, Halith || NCA || NCO || NDIA || Nedaema || Nereidian League || Neutronium || New California || New Madras || New Meridies || New UK, the || Nexus || Novaya Zemlya || Novaya Zemlya, Battle of || Number 1
O
Omnisynth || ONI || OOD || Op || OPREP || Ordinary || OTC [1] || OTC [2] || Outbound Station || Outworlds || Outworlds Border Zone
P
PACRIM, the || Parsec || Parson’s Acre || Passing the Word || Pathfinder || PCA || PFC || Phaedra || Phase-conjugate Mirror || Pilot || Pilot Officer || Platoon || Pleiades, the || Plenary Council || Point Defense || Porte, The || Premier || Primary || Privateer || Prize Money || Proconsul || Proxenoi Council || Purser
Q
Quark diamond || Quartermaster
R
Racks || Railguns || Rates || RCS || Readiness Conditions || Regiment || Regulus || Rejuvenants || Rephidim || RF || Rho Ceti Principate || Rigel Kent || Rip || ROEs || Rouge Nanocytes || RST
S
SAARs || SAW || Scholiast, the || SCO || SECNAV || Seconded || Section || SIG || SIGINT || Signal Lieutenant (CEF) || SITREP || Skeer || Skye || Slave Federations || SOC || SOCOM || SOFOR || Sol Local Group || SOLCOM || SOP || Speaker, the || SPEC-Ops || Squad || Squadron || SRF || SSO || Staff, (military) || Star Civilization || Star Nation || Starclipper || Starling || Starship || STO || Strange matter || Strength deck || Strike Force, CEF Navy || Strike Rangers, CEF Marine Corps || Substantive Rank || Sultanate, the || Supreme Staff (Halith) ||Sutlers || Synalogue, the
T
TAO || Task Force, Naval || Task Group, Naval || Tau Verde || TBD || TDY || TEARs || Terebellum Empire || Terra, Terran || Tesseract || Theme || Think-Linking || Tier-1 Colony || Tier-2 Colony || Traditions, Naval || Trifid Frontier Force || Trifid Region || Troubles, The || T-Synth || Tycho Prime || Tyrsenians
U
Uncle || UWB
V
Vaccines, Proactive || Vectura Networks || Venus || Victualler || VRSN
W
War Week || Wardroom || Watch Standers || Watches || WCO || WCS || WO || Wogan’s Reef
X
XO
Y
Z
ZANG || Zeta
Glossary of Terms
A
{back to index}
Action, (military):
In the military context, an action is a military engagement. Seeing action means being directly involved in an engagement (e.g. shooting and/or being shot at). (Compare operation.)
Admiralty, the:
The informal name for the League Office of the Secretary of the Navy. Always the Admiralty.
After Action Report, (AAR):
In the military, an AAR is a report produced to describe an action, its results and consequences. Generally speaking it is composed by the person in operational command. Delegating the writing of an AAR is considered bad form.
This another military term that has entered mainstream culture and many businesses and organizations now describe any form of retrospective analysis of some activity they undertook as an after action report.
AGI/AGE:
Specialized vessels for conducting IW/IO and/or gathering intelligence. These vessels typically operate fleets of probes and drones, and are not intended to venture into forward combat areas during wartime. In peacetime, their operations are supposed to be limited to interstellar space, though disputes over the exact boundaries of interstellar space can lead to incidents.
By interstellar convention, naval AGI/AGEs are not stealthed and do not operate from deceptive cover. This preserves their character as naval noncombatants should they be taken prisoner. Of course, the various intelligence services operate unattributed AGI/AGEs that are stealthed and/or deceptive (as a rule), and their crews are considered spies if apprehended.
The exact interpretation of AGI or AGE varies with the service. The Halith Navy considers AGIs to be intelligence-gathering and IW vessels, and AGEs to be EW vessels, which typically deploy with fleets.
The New UK’s Royal Navy adopts the opposite convention, considering IW/IO auxiliaries (to include EW platforms) as AGIs, and AGEs to be intelligence gatherers (the E denoting electronic intelligence or, more broadly, SIGINT).
The CEF does not use the term AGE, but combines these functions under the rubric IO, and thus considers all such auxiliaries to be AGIs.
AI:
Artificial Intelligence. Something of a misnomer since it was proved that true intelligence cannot be created artificially, although it need not reside within a carbon-based life form. (This finding was immortalized in a seminal paper with the poetic subtitle: Turing machines don’t dream.) AI refers instead to various types of ‘expert systems’, some of which became quite sophisticated, but do not exhibit intelligence. Most AI technology per se was banned at the end of the Formation Wars, due to the disastrous consequences of reliance on it during that conflict. However, it still can be found some black-market applications, especially VRSN.
Note: It is generally accepted among scholars that an over-reliance on AI technology had a corrosive effect on human decision making and this, exacerbated by the widespread use of neural implants and neural induction devices (think-linking), was a major cause of the Formation Wars; both of the conditions that set the stage for it, and the final spiral into it.
Aide-de-camp:
In general, a personal assistant or secretary (or chief of staff) to a high ranking person. In the military, a staff officer of a flag officer (navy) or a general (ground forces and marines) who acts in this capacity. In the ground forces or marines, this billet and the officer filling it, is called an aide or an aide-de-camp, with the latter title being insisted upon for grades above major general.
In the CEF Navy, only the CNO has an aide-de-camp, who is a captain and acts the CNO’s chief of staff. The Commandant of the CEF Marine Corps and Marshall of the SRF also have aides-de-camp (serving as chiefs of staff), who are typically a colonel in the marines and a captain in the SRF. (At the beginning of LH-1, the Chief of Staff to the Marine Commandant was a brigadier, but this was not subsequently repeated.) Compare flag lieutenant.
Halith applies the term aide-de-camp to aides of any full admiral, who are always captains or commanders. (Halith does not practice staff rotation to the same degree as the CEF.) Other navies adopt similar practices.
Alecto Initiative, the:
A plot by Nestor Mankho to kill a large number of grand senators and heads of state at a series of Grand Senate hearings on Nedaema in mid-year ‘39. The plot was supported by both the Bannermans and Halith, who supplied Mankho with FORPRO to carry it out.
Amalekites:
A rigidly puritanical heterodox neo-Christianist sect. Amalekites are violently opposed to all forms of ‘worldly temptation’ which they see as inherently evil. However, they reject any distinction between God and the Devil. Instead, they believe that God is wholly good, because he promises salvation (their vision of the good god is explicitly male, women representing ‘temptation’ and hence being evil), while simultaneously being wholly evil because he (or she in this case) created temptation. They think that they alone understand this true nature of God, and are thus the only people who will be saved. Accordingly, they venerate the ‘Holy Contradiction’ and the ‘Nine Torturing Angels’ who are unnamed. (They refer to them a
s The Nine, usually with finger signs, rather than aloud.) There are rumors that their obsession with the ‘Holy Contradiction’ leads to bizarre private practices.
Amalekite enclaves are found in many remote colonies, especially the Outworlds, and are generally unpopular. The largest known group is on Harkness, a primitive pastoral world where they have allegedly evolved a less strict version of their faith.
ANCAP:
Anti-Capture Protocol, an explosive device built into the combat helmets of SOFOR units to prevent capture of an intact brain.
Andaman & Nicobar:
The Sultanate of Andaman & Nicobar, often just the Sultanate. A militarily weak but strategically crucial star civilization located in the Antares region. Officially no longer a slave state, but known to still deal. Derives its importance from controlling the richest antimatter fuel fields known.
The Sultanate’s government is called the Porte; formally, the Sublime Porte.
Anson’s Deep, Battle of:
The largest space battle known to have been fought, and a signal League victory that was the tipping point of LH-1. Despite being vastly outnumbered, Vice Admiral Ashlynn Kiamura smashed a huge Halith combined fleet that was set to invade the key League sector of Eltanin. The victory effectively destroyed Halith’s capacity for offensive action and led them to sue for peace. The opportunity was nearly squandered at Novaya Zemlya ten months later.
Anson’s Deep, Nexus:
The most important League nexus, located in Eltanin Sector. The Battle of Anson’s Deep, the critical battle of LH-1, was fought there. Protecting Anson’s Deep is the responsibility of the CEF First Fleet.