Declassified Dossier & Glossary | Project S.H.I.L.O.

[file: nef-01 / object: k-1313 "ivasi" / nato reporting name: surstromming]

The Submarine K-1313

Project x71, hull number K-1313, known to NATO as Surstromming. Built from Severodvinsk titanium and Kazakh stern sections hauled under tarpaulins stenciled Fertilizer, she was coated in ten thousand tons of melted-down Thai orthopedic pillows. Towed down the Amur River beneath a concave timber barge, she absorbs sonar pings like a black hole.

[file: nef-02 / object: "zeus" planetary transmitter / frequency: 82 hz]

The "Zeus" 82 Hz Transmitter

Two sixty-kilometer electrodes driven straight into the granite isthmus of the Kola Peninsula. When Zeus powers up at 82 Hertz, lights flicker at the nuclear plant and earthworms crawl toward the Norwegian border for political asylum. The signal passes through the planet's core, emerging in the ocean as a blurry whisper no digital computer can read.

[file: nef-03 / substance: "shilo" / specification: 95% abv technical spirit]

"Shilo" and the Lantern Globe

In a standard Russian dictionary, a shilo is a cobbler's awl. Aboard a Northern Fleet submarine, it is 95-percent technical rectified ethyl alcohol issued for cleaning contacts and optics, served in a half-liter emergency lantern globe. Note: industrial solvents and fuel are poisonous; the drinking scenes in this novel are satire, not advice.

[file: nef-04 / linguistic briefing: dictionary vs. deckplates]

Field Glossary Introduction

A foreign operative can memorize eight hundred thousand Russian words from the Academy Dictionary and still freeze for forty-five seconds in Compartment Three. On a Soviet submarine, every noun has an official designation in the manual and a completely different career on the deckplates. Below are twelve survival terms from the watch bill.

Twelve-Entry Soviet Submarine Slang Glossary

karas: In a civilian dictionary, a sluggish freshwater crucian carp; aboard a submarine, a raw first-year conscript who has not yet drunk seawater from a lantern globe at depth.

Mashka: Not a village girl named Maria waiting by a birch tree, but a heavy deck swab or two-handed wooden floor polisher used during compartment cleanup.

obrez: In military intelligence glossaries, a bandit's sawed-off rifle; in a submarine compartment, a squat galvanized washbasin for soapy water.

priborka: Shipboard cleanup (field day), an administrative ritual that begins in five minutes and can last for an entire geological period.

michman: A Soviet Navy warrant officer who has lived on the base for twenty-five years and owns everything aboard that can be weighed, bolted, painted, or drunk.

zampolit: The Deputy Commander for Political Affairs, the shipboard bishop of Marxism-Leninism whose public shouting is treated by the crew as ordinary weather.

osobist: The KGB Special Department counterintelligence officer who walks silently like a well-fed cat, smiles gently, and reports directly toward Lubyanka.

DUK vs UDK: DUK is the bottom pressurized garbage-ejection chute while UDK is the air-induction snorkel mast; confusing the two letters underwater is a formal request to flood the boat.

ZIP: Officially a crate of spare parts, tools, and accessories; in practice, a submarine chair, dining table, and occasional bunk.

razukha: Cream-colored disposable cotton underclothes worn beneath blue radiation-safety overalls and eventually fired out through the garbage chute.

kanadka: The heavy, fleece-lined Soviet Navy Arctic deck watch coat worn on the bridge in northern waters.

dembel: A demobilized third-year conscript preparing to go home with modified bell-bottom trousers and a handmade discharge album.