Glossary for Aggy Books

'Sniffy': "In fah mous" said with a head cold.

AI: artificial intelligence; an intelligent 'puter (an oxymoron).

Bugout: rapidly depart the immediate area as either bad things are happening or are about to happen to the departee.

Buships: department responsible for development and design of warships; usually do not actually build them; considering total numbers of ships built warships make up only a fraction and therefore building expertise is held by the commercial yards. Navy officers ain't that stupid, they might be unlucky enough to have to go to sea / space in one of their own designs.

CI: abv for counter intelligence; efforts by us to prevent them from gathering intelligence about us.

CICO: command information centre officer in charge AKA 'sicko' (thanks to a reader for this one - it has to be a purely USN term, the Britz would never ... HHHHAAAAA)

Clean: as applied to electronic repairs' shop. Double hatch entry to restrict idle visitors. Highly filtered air, always with controlled environment, attractive to idle visitors hence double hatches.

Com: shorthand for communication; Com Officer — knock knock boy aka please speak to me; often seen with two flags tucked under arm clutching an Aldis Lamp.

Drum: received the information and got it drummed into thick skull.

EVA: extra vehicular activity; peculiar to space; never used for getting out of a ground shuttle to answer call of nature.

EW: abv for electronic warfare; using electronic means to find them; CEW counter EW — blocking their attempts to find or destroy me; CCEW — you get the idea; on large vessels crew available to handle each modality, in small vessel a one armed paper hanger working in a gale.

FTL: faster than light; Einstein got it wrong, if it is measurable then can be exceeded.

HAC: heavily armed cutter.

HMG: abv for Her / His Majesty's Government.

HMSS: His / her Majesty's Space Station.

'Jimmy': as in Jimmy the one - the First Lieutenant.

i/c: abv for inertial compensator; just that — compensates for inertia when moving; only boffins know how they work. Painful when fails — for a nanosecond.

Intel: abv for intelligence; information however gathered, usually about them (Carlton regards Intelligence Officer as an oxymoron.

Lloyds: as in Lloyds of London; started as coffee shop in 17th century in London with special interest in marine insurance. Became very influential and was able to lay down structural requirements for ships at building and for reinspection and thus allocate insurance rate. Kept Lloyds register of shipping. Highest standard was A1 at Lloyds — safe ship likely to complete voyage. In 20th century diversified and spread. In 21st century had to be financially rescued. Moral of the story — stick to what you know.

LOB: living off base; depending upon where base is located can save or lose heaps.

Loc: location (hopefully known, if not refer to nav).

Nav: Navigator aka "pilot" as in marine variety. Motto of Navigation School is "Weartafukarwe". When asked usually can't be exact. It is that margin of error which is of greatest interest to enquirers. Invariably seen with compass, sextant and map (not of the space we are occupying at this time).