// Abridged Glossary – Operational Terminology and Emergent Threat Identifiers // // Refer to Full After-Action Debrief File: AAD-0117-X (Appendix Pending Review) //

  NOTE: This glossary was compiled following the Aurora’s Promise incident. Julie suggested adding emojis. I refused. She did it anyway in her copy.

  Aurora’s Promise – The ship. Supposed to be a merchant liner. Luxurious on the surface, rotting underneath. I hate it. The women aboard think sneaking up on me is funny. The men think personal space is optional. Either it’s haunted or I’m trapped in a purgatory designed to punish my many, many sins.

  Coilgun – Older electromagnetic weapon system. Fires traditional slugs via charged coils. Packs a punch. Needs battery swaps and manual ammo feeds. No internal reload cycle. Commercial models haven’t sold in forty years. Saito’s is older than that—a replica of the Colt Single Action Navy that’s seen better days but still drops bodies.

  Eel – Breaching tube. Serrated, pressurized, standard pirate entry tool during Gamma-layer transitions. If you hear one attaching, you're already behind.

  Graveback – Pirate nickname for stolen or hijacked Federation Ironclads, typically lacking proper paint or registry. Recognized by primer gray plating and jury-rigged loadouts. Neither exported nor available for sale—obtaining one is a status symbol. Half-finished, but fielded anyway.

  Graveback Nailgunner – What we saw aboard Aurora’s Promise. Federation suit, corpo cannon. That combination should not exist.

  Gentleman’s Rifle – Corpo-designed crowd suppression weapon. Fires a cloud of smart munitions that strobe disorientingly and emit high-frequency noise at low volume near the target, then detonate with concussive force. Useless against anyone in even light armor, but terrifying to unarmored crowds. The name is ironic—originally coined to mock the weapon’s use by corpo security thugs suppressing protestors. Meant for light suit mountings, but I carry mine by hand—it buys me the space to get in close. Military variants swap the payloads for drone-guided fragmentation or anti-armor charges.

  Hellhound – Autonomous or semi-autonomous defense turret, usually AI-controlled. Hidden in a pinch, devastating when triggered. The ones on Aurora took out an Ironclad before being slagged.

  Ironclad – General classification for mech suits ranging from 2.5 to 4 meters. All major factions field them. Designed to go where infantry goes, provide cover, and outlast the rest of the squad. Heavy, dangerous, surprisingly fast.

  Ion Smoke Grenade – Standard battlefield disruptor. Releases a dense aerosol that fouls targeting systems, scrambles thermals, and soaks laser fire before it can land. Every faction uses them. They’re common. But in the hands of someone like Julie—if you’re not in a fully sealed suit—you can choke to death before you realize you’ve lost. Mean trick. Effective one.

  Kingsgrave – Pirate name for the command variant of a Fed Ironclad (FED-IC-03/C). Comes with a secondary gravitic shield and backup reactor. Meant for officers. In pirate hands, it means one thing: the officer didn’t walk away. Like the Graveback, this isn’t a suit you steal casually. Killing the pilot and tearing him out of the saddle is the only way it ends up in pirate colors.

  Kinetic Shield – Gravitic-based shielding designed to mimic the repelling effects of an Espiritus in layered space. Most common on corpo suits. At best, they deflect incoming fire toward reinforced armor plates. At worst, they flicker and fail under sustained pressure. The pirate models we encountered were substandard. Even the best feel like a cheap knockoff of something only a human soul should be able to do.

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  Mono-monocular – Misnomer. Theoretically refers to a single-atom-edge blade—too sharp, too brittle to actually survive contact. In practice, it's slang for blades with nanobot-assisted edges. The swarm gives the first bite and keeps the cut smooth. Strangely, it's the only thing nanobots seem good at. Everything else? They break if you look at them sideways.

  Nailgunner – Any suit outfitted with a corpo light railgun cannon. Kineticum standard issue. High recoil, high damage. Ill-suited for close-quarters inside pressurized ships—which is why pirates love them.

  Oni Warriors / Dancers / Knight – Our personal manifestations. They’re not us—they’re constructs tethered to us. Symbolic. Unnatural. And dangerous. Sensei says they say something deeply personal about us. I think mine says “Fuck around and find out.”

  Onryo – Technically refers to any special-ops-trained Espiritus, particularly those harmonized for group combat and infiltration. No one uses the term anymore—because no one fields teams like that anymore. But it stuck to us. I don’t like it. But it fits.

  PeoplePod – The pod. Officially: a PeoplePod is the premier leader in life support and post-op care. Capable of mending any wounds (claims not evaluated by medical board). The PeoplePod is the best medical tech money can buy (also unverified). Remember: “If you put in bits, they come out people—that’s the PeoplePod promise!” (promise is non-binding). In reality? It works. Mostly. And it's messy.

  Plasteal – Ubiquitous structural material found in bulkheads, ship walls, and station interiors. Combines a metallic honeycomb substructure with engineered plastic veneers, tailored for specific environmental or aesthetic requirements. Usually applied over smartmetal. Flexible under strain, flame-retardant, and chemically stable under radiation. Easy to manufacture, nearly impossible to fully destroy. Most of the time, it burns pretty before it breaks.

  Railgun – Newer tech. Uses an internal power supply to fire hypersonic slugs shaved from a solid ammo block. Extremely high ammo capacity per magazine, but impossible to reload without disassembly and proprietary blocks. Raiders carried railguns roughly a decade old—new by pirate standards. Heavy recoil, but silent and fast.

  Reaver – Pirate assault troopers. Usually fielded as boarding parties, kitted in vacuum-rated armor. Most wear salvaged or decades-old corpsec suits, patched and sealed with whatever holds air. The ones we faced wore recent gear—not top-shelf, but expensive for thieves. Someone's supplying them with better-than-scavenged hardware. Tend to work in squads and hit hard when backed by suits.

  Smart Munitions – Microbot drones fired from my rifle. They acquire their target mid-flight, strobe a disorienting light, and emit a sound sharp enough to rattle nerves. When they land, they detonate. Excellent for clearing soft targets or spooking anyone not in armor. Rarely cracks a serious plate, but that’s what the blade and iron fist are for.

  Smartmetal – The bones of modern space. No one sane understands how it works—least of all me—but someone convinced a metal to grow like a plant. Durable, semi-aware, and self-repairing with sufficient raw feedstock. You don’t build a ship without it. If you can’t see the smartmetal, it’s under whatever you’re looking at. Good luck burning through it.

  Spectral Manifestation – Projected construct tethered to an Espiritus. Often symbolic. Always dangerous. Lila’s is... concerning.

  Stabilizer – A category of Espiritus whose presence reduces layered space anomalies. Essential for safe transit. Lila qualifies—nominally.

  Sygnate Nailgunner – Corpo-pattern suit from Sygnate. Common. Cheap. Often overclocked until it leaks coolant.

  Tin Fist – (Note by Julie): A massive dictator with a tiny metal hand who forces me to go through tedious after-action reports. You know who you are.

  These terms remain in operational use until disproven by enemy action or internal stupidity. // END ENTRY //