For Honor We Stand (68 page)
Jellicoe, Sir John: [full name: Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, GCB, OM, GCVO SGM] Born 5 December 1859; died, 20 November 1935. Commander of the British Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland fought on May 31 through June 1, 1916 during Earth’s First World War. During the war it was said of him that he was the one man in the Empire who could lose the war in an afternoon.
JIVDCS: Joint Intersystem Voice and Data Communication System. The civilian interstellar communications network providing interconnectivity among the planetary communications and data networks of all human worlds, both Union and independent (except for a handful of deliberately low-tech and no-tech worlds), as well as a limited number of alien species whose space is adjacent human-occupied systems. The primary infrastructure of the JIVDCS consists of a series of interstellar relay buoys placed approximately every 0.78 light years between nearby systems and, in each participating system, at least one Out-System Communications Relay and Exchange (OSCoRE) which receives the interstellar data stream from the nearest relay buoy, amplifies it, and ties it into the system’s internal communications network. With properly configured accounts, at some expense, and with considerable transmission delays, a person can transmit a message from one ordinary FlipCom to another more than 2,500 light years away. Alien species consider the JIVDCS to be mankind’s greatest achievement and humanity’s most meaningful contribution to the galaxy. That and Musical Theater.
jump drive: one of the two systems that allows a space vessel to cross interstellar distances in less time than it would take to travel at sublight speed (the other being compression drive, see). The jump drive transfers the vessel in a single Planck Interval from one point in space, known as a jump point, to another jump point, in a nearby star system, and never less than 3.4 nor more than 12.7 light years away. Jump points are generally located between 20 to 30 AU from a star, and almost always lie at least 45 degrees away from the star’s equator. For some unknown reason, systems either have no jump points, three, or a multiple of three, most commonly three, usually located several dozen AU from each other. Jumping is always more energy efficient and much faster than traversing the same distance with compression drive. However, it is almost impossible to jump into an enemy held system, because the enemy will almost always have weapons trained and ranged on the jump points and the process of jumping requires that the jumping ship power down all sublight drives, weapons, shielding, and point defense systems, making it virtually helpless when emerging from a jump. Accordingly, in order to take a system, it is usually necessary to send in ships from a system within ten light years or so under compression drive, and take the jump points, thereby allowing heavier ships, troop carriers, and supply vessels to jump in.
Jurassic space: the period, technology, or practices associated with human space exploration, particularly manned or crewed space exploration, before humanity acquired the technology to explore interstellar space by defeating the Ning-Braha at the Battle of Luna (circa 1960 to July 2034).
Khyber Class: a class of Destroyer, the first of which, the USS
Khyber
, was commissioned on 24 April 2311, making these vessels a “new” class in 2315. The Khybers are exceptionally fast and maneuverable, even for Destroyers. The thrust to mass ratio of these ships is in the same range as those of many fighter designs; accordingly, it is said that they handle more like large fighters than escort vessels. They are equipped with pulse cannon as powerful as those on many capital ships (although they have only three of these and a smaller rear-firing unit whereas a Capital ship might have a dozen or more). Ships in this class are extremely stealthy, possess a sophisticated ability to mimic the electronic and drive emissions of other ships, and have a highly effective sensor suite. They are also equipped with SWACS (see). The trade-offs made to optimize these characteristics include highly Spartan crew accommodations (Spartan even for a Destroyer), a radically reduced number of reloads for her missile tubes (20 Talons and 5 Ravens versus a typical Destroyer load out of 60 and 12), a small crew making for a heavy workload for all personnel, modest fuel capacity, and a reduced cargo hold. Unsupported endurance is rated at 75 days (as compared to 180 days for most Destroyers) but, in practice, is somewhat shorter. It is believed that the class was designed to make quick stealthy raids into enemy space and destroy his supply lines and means of communication, thereby disrupting his logistics and command/control/communications. Mass: 16,200 metric tons. Top sublight speed: .963 c. Compression drive: 1575 c cruise, 2120 c emergency. Weapons: 3 forward-firing Krupp-BAE Mark XXXIV pulse cannon, 150 gigawatt rating, 1 rear firing Krupp-BAE Mark XXII pulse cannon (colloquially known at the “Stinger”), 75 gigawatt rating. Two forward and one rear firing missile tubes. Standard missile loadout of 20 “Talon” (see) and 5 “Raven (see) anti-ship missiles. Ships in this class are named after historically significant mountain passes and ocean straits. Length: 97 meters; beam: 9.5 meters. Commissioned ships in this class as of 21 January 2315 are
Khyber, Gibraltar, Messina, Cumberland, Hormuz,
and
Khardung La.
The projected size of the class is eighty-five ships.
Known Space: that portion Milky Way Galaxy explored by humans or of which humans have reasonably reliable information from alien races, mostly consisting of a portion of the Orion-Cygnus galactic arm centered on the Sol system.
Kuiper belt: (rhymes with “piper”) a belt of bodies, made mainly of frozen volatiles such as water ice, methane, and ammonia, found in the outer regions of many star systems. In the Sol system, it begins about 30 AU from the sun (the orbit of Neptune) and extends out to approximately 50 AU. Kuiper belts typically contain several planet sized objects, known as
Plutinos
, a name taken from Pluto, a Kuiper belt object discovered in 1930 and classified as a planet for more than 70 years. Kuiper belts are tactically important mainly because the large number of massive icy objects provides a good place to hide a warship’s mass and heat signatures.
lagniappe
: (Cajun French) an additional consideration, such as a tip or a bonus, thrown into a business transaction. The 13
th
roll in a “baker’s dozen” is an example of
lagniappe
. The term is often used figuratively to include any additional, unanticipated benefit from an action or event.
lentement
: (Cajun French) slowly.
lubber: a person unfamiliar with space and not possessing the skills and knowledge associated with service on a space vessel. From the old Salt Water Navy term, “landlubber,” which is, itself, of obscure origin.
lubber line: a space vessel course consisting of a straight line through space from the point of origin to the destination. The term is generally disparaging because most warships steer zigzags, random course changes, or other variations in heading designed to make the vessel difficult to find by extrapolation from its course at any given point in time and to confuse any effort to compute a firing solution for the vessel.
LumaTite: a registered trade mark of APG-Owens-Corning Corporation for its transparent armored viewport material for spacecraft, aircraft, fighting vehicles, and other high strength applications, consisting of a Titanium-Silicon nano-crystalline matrix microlaminated with frequency-specific EM rejecting polymer films. The resulting material is as durable as warship hull material and is opaque to all forms of EM except visible light. It is, however, more expensive, kilogram for kilogram, than gold.
Mark One Eyeball: Naval slang for the human eye without any artificial aid of any kind. Called “Mark One” because it is the original unimproved model (often, naval systems are numbered Mark I, Mark II, Mark III, and so on as new versions are introduced).
M-22: (Model 2222) also known as the HASG (or Haz-Gee), the Naval-Military Systems, Inc., Heavy Automatic Shot Gun is an “Eight Gauge,” belt fed, swivel mounted, fully automatic shotgun designed specifically to repel enemy boarders at the close ranges and in the confined spaces found on board a warship. The weapon was originally designed to kill the insect-like Keelingu who would capture a ship by sending across millions of their quarter-meter long juveniles, whom the Keelingu regarded as cannon fodder, to swarm throughout the ship eating the crew. It is capable of firing a number of different kinds of ammunition, but the standard round is a shell loaded with twenty hard cast lead 00 buckshot which the weapon is capable of propelling at a muzzle velocity of 312 meters per second. As the weapon has a rate of fire of 500 rounds per minute, it is capable of filling the air in front of it with a staggering number of lethal projectiles.
M-62: Model 2162 Pistol. One of the two side arms approved for use by Union Space Navy Personnel (the other being the M-1911) the M-62 is a ten millimeter, semi-automatic, magazine fed handgun. It was introduced to naval use in 2062 during the First Interstellar War when the Glock polymer-framed weapons then issued were found to become brittle, to warp, and even to sometimes melt in the temperature extremes of space combat, requiring that the Navy issue an all metal handgun to supplement the M-1911. The resulting weapon, designed by the Beretta-Browning Arms Corporation, was based largely on the venerable Browning Hi-Power design modified to fire the larger cartridge (the older weapon was originally designed for the 9 mm cartridge but was also manufactured for the .40 S&W round). It has a 14 round magazine.
M-72: Model 2072 Close Order Battle Shotgun. The Winchester-Mossberg Arms Company Model 2072 is a semi-automatic 12 gauge shotgun designed for close order battle against boarding parties or for use by boarders. It has a “sawed off” thirteen inch barrel and is fed from a ten round box magazine rather than the traditional tube magazine so that it can have a short barrel for use in close quarters while retaining high magazine capacity. The most common load fired in this weapon is a high-velocity 00 Buckshot shell that propels ten .33 caliber (8.322 mm) hard-cast lead balls at a muzzle velocity of approximately 350 meters per second. The weapon is also capable of firing various slug, slug-sabot, dart-penetrator, and exploding rounds. It is of steel and composite construction (no polymer parts) and is equipped with fixed military aperture sights.
M-88: Model 2288 Pulse Rifle. The Colt-Ruger Naval Arms Corporation Model 2288 is a 7.62 x 51 millimeter, select fire, magazine fed battle rifle issued to Navy personnel for boarding actions, ship defense, and ground combat similar in form and function to the M-14 battle rifle issued by the United States of America in the mid twentieth century, but made significantly lighter through the use of aluminum and composite materials (5.56 mm rounds were found to lack sufficient penetrating power to reliably kill Krag wearing combat gear). It is also the standard issue personal weapon of the Union Space Marine Corps. The rifle is fed from a thirty-five round box magazine and is of all metal/composite construction (no polymer parts). The Naval version has standard military aperture sights adjustable for range only (not windage) while the Marine version is equipped with a detachable optical aiming device that operates either as a red-dot reflex sight or a low light capable zoom telescopic sight. Muzzle climb and recoil in full-auto mode are nearly eliminated by a miniature, power cell driven, inertial compensator unit in the stock. The weapon has four firing modes: semi-auto, 3 shot burst, 6 shot burst, and full auto. It is called a “pulse rifle” because, coaxially mounted below the rifle barrel, is a launcher from which can be fired the MMD (“Make My Day”) pulse grenade, a 35 millimeter self-propelled short range projectile containing a shaped-charge equipped pulse slug capable of penetrating the armor on a Krag fighting suit at a range of fifty meters and then exploding, killing the occupant. The MMD is also effective against lightly armored ground vehicles.
M-1911: Model 1911 pistol. One of the two side arms approved for use by Union Space Navy Personnel (the other being the M-62) the M-1911 is an 11.48 millimeter (sometimes referred to by the archaic designation “.45 caliber”) semi-automatic, magazine fed handgun invented by perhaps the most brilliant firearms designer in Known Space, John Moses Browning, who was active in the United States of America on Earth in the late 19
th
and early 20
th
Centuries. The M-1911 was the official sidearm of the armed forces of the United States during World War I, World War II, the Korean Conflict, and the Vietnam Conflict. It has remained in use by certain units in the United States Armed forces, later by at least some units and personnel in the armed forces of United Nations of North America, United Earth, the Terran and Colonial Treaty Organization, the Earth and Colonial Confederation, and the Terran Union. The current version is only slightly different from the Model 1911 A1 used by American Forces in World War II. The changes include an ambidextrous thumb safety, light weight alloy frame (the original frame was made of ordinance steel), extended beaver tail, three dot luminous/fiber optic sights and a laser sight, bushingless barrel, and twelve round magazine. This weapon continues to be used more than four hundred years after its introduction because it is powerful, accurate, well balanced, and easy to shoot. It is effective against humans and most aliens against whom humans have fought (it is especially effective against Krag) and offers an excellent combination of high stopping power with low muzzle flash and reasonable recoil.
mais
: (Cajun French) literally “but.” Often used to intensify or to give emphasis to the expression that follows. Accordingly,
mais
yeah, is an enthusiastic or emphatic “yeah.”
