Loralynn Kennakris 2: The Morning Which Breaks

by Owen R. O'Neill

  The CEF Marine Corps, in particular, puts great emphasis on the fireteam concept. A CEF marine fireteam consists of four soldiers, equipped according to their mission and the type of platoon they are part of. The team leader is a sergeant, corporal, or lance corporal. There is no rigid directive as to the breakdown leadership positions (as it depends on a range of factors), but in general, heavy-weapons platoons and tech platoons will have a higher proportion of sergeants as team leaders than assault platoons and light platoons.

  In a typical assault platoon equipped for ground combat, there would four sections, each with two fireteams, and the breakdown of the team leaders would nominally be something like this: 2 sergeants, 4 corporals, and 2 lance corporals. The other 3 members of each fireteam would be: a Gunner (a PFC) armed with a SAW; an Assistant Gunner who carries extra ammunition and is armed with assault rifle with under-slung grenade launcher; and a soldier who is ordinarily the Section Anti-armor Specialist or a Chain Gunner.

  A light platoon equipped for ground combat has a similar breakdown, the difference being that one section consists of sniper/scout teams, and the last soldier in the other section’s fireteams is typically the Section Sniper instead of an Anti-armor Specialist or Chain Gunner.

  Other platoon types will have mortar teams, missile teams, demolition teams, hatch-breakers and tech teams, as required.

  FITREP:

  Fitness Report. Generally, an administrative report the CO of a military unit produces on a periodic basis evaluating the performance of his or her immediate subordinates. In the CEF and League Homeworld militaries, a FITREP applies only to persons who exercise command responsibility (the term referring to fitness to command). This is sergeants and above in the marines and ground forces, and chiefs in the navy. Other personnel undergo evaluations, called EVALs (Evils) that assess their jobs performance and other factors affecting their career.

  Flag Lieutenant:

  A billet, not a rank. A flag lieutenant serves as an aide and principle secretary to an admiral, and may in fact not be a lieutenant, although this is usual. One main purpose of the billet is to give a promising junior officer exposure to the higher reaches of command early in his or her career, and have them gain invaluable experience. They are not encouraged to remain in the billet, and very few hold it more than a year.

  In the CEF Navy, lieutenant commanders may serve as flag lieutenants to sector CinCs, where their role is slightly different. Although they still act as aides and principle secretaries, CEF sector CinCs are double-hatted full admirals. In addition to their sector command, they are COs of a strike force. Thus, they have two staffs: a strike force staff, headed by a Fleet Captain, and a sector command staff, headed by their chief of staff. (In other navies, this latter position would be termed an aide-de-camp, but in the CEF Navy, this title is reserved for the CNO’s chief of staff.)

  Under this situation, the flag lieutenant’s duties are greater. In addition to the generally more involved workload of a CinC, they act as a liaison between the two staffs, assist the CinC in coordinating activities, and like duties. For this reason, a more senior officer usually fills this billet. However, full commanders are not assigned to by a CinC’s flag lieutenant, though this is by tradition only.

  Flag Officer:

  A naval officer holding flag rank. The only officers who hold this permanently in the CEF are admirals. Commodores and senior captains may hold flag rank temporarily. (Some navies, such as the New UK and some League home fleets, have commodores as a substantive rank, where they are the lowest-ranked flag officers.) Flag officers are equivalent to general officers in the marines and ground forces.

  Note: In the CEF Navy, Captains of the Fleet are considered flag officers but this is a courtesy observed while they hold the billet, not a substantive rank.

  Fleet Captain:

  Properly Captain of the Fleet.

  Flight Officer:

  The general term for any member of the SRF who has active flight status, usually officers below the rank of captain. Often confused with Pilot Officer.

  Flotilla:

  In naval usage, a flotilla is usually a group of small vessels. However, this is not always the case, and the term’s usage varies widely. For example, in the Andaman Navy, a flotilla is the major subdivision of a fleet, based around a major capital ship (such as a battleship) and commanded by a vice admiral. It is both an administrative unit and a tactical unit. In the New UK’s Royal Navy, a flotilla is an administrative unit composed of 2 or 3 squadrons of small combatants (such as destroyers or frigates), light craft (such as LMACs or patrol vessels), or auxiliaries. It is no longer a tactical formation.

  In the Halith Navy, flotilla is the term for in-system naval units, usually led by a frigate supported by LMACs and patrol vessels. It is both tactical and administrative unit.

  The CEF Navy does not use the term flotilla for warships, but applies it to auxiliaries (e.g. mine layers/mine sweepers, tankers and munitions ships, stores ships, repair vessels, AGIs, etc).

  Forbes-Dyson:

  A major developer and manufacturer of gravitic technology and systems. Forbes-Dyson supplies the grav-plants for about half the League’s starships. The corporation is based in Melbourne in the Republic of Victoria, on Terra. (Marcus Huron is employed as a senor staff physicist there.)

  Formation Wars, the:

  An epochal series of interstellar conflicts that ended the Second Colonization Period. Lasting almost 200 years, the Formation Wars marked a definitive break between the prior and current period of interstellar civilization as a whole. Many human settlements were destroyed or lost during this period, the history of which is poorly known due to the widespread destruction and the loss of many records. GAT is based in the armistice that ended the conflict between the surviving major powers, but smaller conflicts continued for decades, although some historians choose to give those different (and various) names.

  FORPRO:

  Metabonded Forward Propagating Focused Blast Explosive. An extremely powerful experimental explosive with a directional blast. Normally inert; detonated only by EMP.

  Free Space:

  Any region of space where no traffic control is exerted. It usually refers a region within a star system. Beyond the political boundaries of a star system is interstellar space.

  FTL:

  Faster-than-light. Synonymous with the term hyperlight, which is more commonly heard.

  G

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  Galatea:

  A League Homeworld located in the Pleiades Cluster, along with Hestia and Nedaema. Frequently at odds with Nedaema, it has close ties to the worlds of the Meridies Cluster.

  GAT:

  Galactic Arbitrary Time. The common calendar used by most star civilizations. The Epoch date is the armistice that officially end the Formation Wars. Dates prior to the Formation Wars are reckoned according Terran AD dating.

  General Quarters,

  (GQ):

  General Quarters. A readiness condition for imminent combat: all hands at battle (or action) stations and the ship is fully secured (in lockdown).

  General Quarters (the CEF term) goes by different names in other navies. In the Halith navy, the term is Combat Stations. In the Royal Navy, Action Stations is used, and the Ionian Navy uses the archaic term Beat to Quarters. Battle Stations is used in some navies (e.g. the Bannerman Navy), while the Andaman Navy uses the peculiar phrase Deus vult, which supposedly means “God wills it” (the origin of this term is obscure). In all cases, the meaning is the same and correlates to Condition 1 of the four generally recognized readiness conditions. See also WCS.

  General Staff

  (CEF Navy):

  The CEF Navy’s General Staff retains its name from the time that the Marines and SRF were subordinate to the Navy. Currently, it serves as the Navy’s staff organization under the CNO. The staff structure for the Marshal of the SRF and the Marine Corps Commandant is similar. All three staffs are collocated at CGHQ. (Compare the
Halith Supreme Staff and the General Staff of the Royal Navy.) The General Staff is organized as follows.

  1. Administration

  1.1. Personnel (postings, promotions & awards. Compensation is under SECNAV.)

  1.2. Chaplains

  1.3. Legal

  1.4. Military Police

  2. Intelligence

  2.1. Intelligence

  2.2. Counterintelligence

  2.3. Security

  3. Operations

  3.1. Operations (includes EW and IW as well as combat operations)

  3.2. Planning (Strategic planning, as opposed to Ops planning under G3.1)

  3.3. Training (includes the Advanced Warfare College)

  4. Logistics

  4.1. Ordnance (all weapon systems and ammunition)

  4.2. Fuel (including distilling facilities, harvester and tanker fleets)

  4.3. Supplies (rations, uniforms, morale support, other such items and services)

  5. IT

  5.1. Communications

  5.2. Signals

  5.3. Data Processing

  5.4. R&D (Separate from SECNAV R&D, and more commonly known as a ‘dirty tricks’ department, tasked with the development of military bots etc.)

  6. Astrographics (in-system navigation and interstellar astrogation, charts, hazards etc.)

  7. Engineering (Propulsion systems, both sublight and gravitic.)

  8. Civil Affairs (Coordination & cooperation with civilian authorities.)

  9. Medical (The CEF elevates this function out of the Administration Department to highlight its importance.)

  Note: the CEF (in common with Terra and many of the staffs the Homeworld’s militaries) use the letters G and S as the staff section prefix within its navy. This is based on an ancient Terran tradition, thought to have originated in the Prussian military of the 19th Century (AD Reckoning). The Marines and the SRF are assigned their own prefixes. The nomenclature is:

  Navy: G for Fleets; GS for the General Staff; S for staff sections within units commanded by a Captain, Commodore or Rear Admiral.

  Marines: C for regiments or brigades; CS: for the Commandant’s Staff; S for staff sections within units commanded by officers ranked major through colonel.

  SRF: SR for SRF groups; SRM for the Marshal’s Staff.

  General Staff (Royal Navy, New UK):

  The New UK staff system differs from both the CEF General Staff and the Halith Supreme Staff. It includes three branches:

  A Branch: Administration Branch, responsible for all administrative functions and for personnel management, including legal and medical.

  G Branch: General Branch, responsible for operations, intelligence, and training.

  Q Branch: Quartermaster branch, responsible for logistics.

  Geriatrics, postpausal:

  Postpausal geriatrics are treatments to ameliorate the effects of aging. Postpausal refers to the fact they are applied after the onset of menopause or andropause. These treatments do not extend human life beyond its upper biological limit (about 140 to 150 years), but they allow people to live much more active lives for a larger portion of that period. An average adult can expect to have an active life into their 100’s. Exceptional persons have continued to perform, mentally and physically, at an extremely high level until about 110. Severe senescence begins to set in for most between 115 and 130, and very few people live past 140.

  Some persons, due to their genetic makeup, are resistant to the treatments and suffer severe senescence while still in their 90s. (Compare Rejuvenants.)

  Grand Senate:

  The governing legislative body of the Nereidian League. Grand senators are selected from the Homeworlds and eligible colonies. Homeworlds have two grand senators each, while colonies are allowed only one.

  The method of selection is up to the planet being represented and can be general election, selection or election by members a governing body, direct appointment or royal warrant. One colony even selects its grand senator by lot.

  Gravitational exclusion zone:

  Zones where hyperlight travel is denied due to massive bodies such as black holes, neutron stars (especially in partnered systems), and highly active super- or hypergiant stars. These bodies create extreme rip, and at times severe gravitational lensing effects, which are deadly to ships encountering them. They also create skeer, a lesser problem.

  Grav-Plant:

  The gravitic plant that gives a starship hyperlight or FTL capability. The grav-plant is contained with a starship’s keel, to isolate the hull from its effects.

  Guest Labor:

  The Halith term for slave labor.

  Gunroom:

  The dining and social accommodation for NCOs on a navy ship. In some senses, a ‘club’ for NCOs, and often considered to be ‘most hallowed ground’ in the CEF, due the central role NCOs play in running the ship. An additional reason is that NCOs, uniquely, are allowed to order their own food at government expense, in almost unlimited variety and quantity. The gunroom is thus the most well-provisioned mess on a CEF ship, and an opportunity to dine there is a coveted.

  Other enlisted personnel are not admitted to the gunroom, although they are allowed to stand in the entryway (called the carpet) when sent there on official business. Officers are only admitted on invitation. (This does not apply to the captain, who by tradition never sets foot in the gunroom in the CEF, or in most other navies.) On a happy ship, the gunroom will invite selected officers to dine on a regular basis. (NCOs are generally not invited to dine in the wardroom, nor would they wish to be, because of the often inferior food and drink available there.)

  In some navies, only chief petty officers (chiefs) mess in the gunroom, and petty officers mess with the rates. This is not the case in the CEF.

  Gunrooms have a mess president, who is the senior NCO present, and a mess steward, who is elected. The mess steward is primarily responsible for ordering food and liquor and is a most sought after position, as it affords great opportunity for a ‘capperbar’ or ‘friendly’ corruption. (Compare wardroom.)

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  H&K Sats:

  Hunter-killer satellites. Semiautonomous armed satellites used to patrol and defend a star system. Often shortened to H&Ks.

  Halith, Dominion of:

  An authoritarian, expansionist star civilization in the Orion Spur, consisting of six core systems and numerous colonies and clients. It is militarily powerful and a slave state. The Halith core systems are: Halith Evandor (the Prime World and capital), Haslar, Vehren, Syrdar, Pindarus, and Zhian. It is ruled by two proconsuls who head the Council of Ministers.

  The Orion Spur is a densely populated stellar region, but transit in and out of it is constrained by the surrounding gravitational exclusion zones. The key nexus is Hissarlik, located at Haslar, which serves all core systems, but critically Vehren and Halith Evandor, which are otherwise isolated. Other nodes are located at Zhian and Illyria; the latter controls the Huygens’ Gap. Tau Verde is the final important nexus: it controls the Novaya Zemlya transit. (Note: the main route out of the Orion Spur via Hissarlik is controlled by the Maxor, which has important strategic implications.)

  These constraints allow Halith to exert firm control over their local colonies, but also makes them vulnerable to isolation, leading Halith to covet major nodes outside the Orion spur, such as the Kepler Junction. They also have a longstanding desire to occupy Karelia, based on the latter’s position, a degree of cultural affinity, and the fact that Karelia has inflicted a number of military embarrassments on them in the past.

  One idiosyncrasy of Halith society is that they insist on considering themselves an empire without an emperor, and this is reflected in both the names of the some of their governmental organs, such as the Imperial Research & Intelligence Service (IRIS), and their military branches: the Imperial Navy, the Imperial Marines, and the Imperial Ground Forces. (The last branch of the Halith military, the security forces, which includes the military police, penal
colonies and POW facilities, is not graced with the term imperial.) However, the top Halith military command (under the Ministry Of War) is the Supreme Staff, not the Imperial General Staff, as one might expect.

  Harkness:

  A remote, primitive and pastoral settlement chosen as a refuge by a large group of Amalekite settlers after they were forced off Rephidim. The plan was not entirely successful, however, as Harkness has been a target for slaver raids.

  Head Money:

  A payment made for prisoners captured as the result of taking an enemy ship as a prize. In the League, this is most often done in lieu of a payment of prize money, in the event a lawful prize must be abandoned or cannot otherwise be sold. A related payment, gun money, has long since been discontinued.

  Helmsmen:

  There are two helmsmen on a hypercapable ship. The helmsman directs the ship when it is in RST. The G-helmsman operates the gravitics. In the CEF, both are typically WO billets.