Free Straits of Hell by Taylor Anderson

enemy considered a relatively safe direction, the “frigid” wasteland to the south. The Allied forces had initially conceived the attack as a mere demonstration to distract the Grik from an eventual attempt to seize Madagascar, but now the Allied forces needed the attack to prevent the Grik from focusing all their power against the island. The Republic had maintained wireless silence for a very long time to avoid unwanted attention, but when they struck, there’d be no reason to continue that policy. The lingering silence meant not only had they not yet attacked, but they might not have even received the news that they needed to.
    â€œA month for
Arracca
and her battle group, as has been observed. Perhaps another for the rest,” Adar replied. “I’m afraid that, for now, we will have to make do with what we have.”
    â€œWe
will
make do, Mr. Chairman,” Matt said, then added, “Somehow,” with a wry smile. “And on paper, it doesn’t look so bad. With Second Corps back to strength and everything else ashore, we have close to thirty thousand troops. That’s as many as we defended Baalkpan with. And these are mostly veterans with way better weapons. We’ve got more ships, artillery, mortars, and air power than we had then—and the supply ships brought up some of the stuff we’d wanted to take this place: more Blitzerbugs, shotguns—and the first
good
copies of a Browning thirty cal.” He grinned. “You all know what a chore it’s been to perfect those!”
    There’d been those who wanted to make Gatling guns all along, in the same.50-80 caliber as the “Allin-Silva” conversion muskets, but though they’d had the ability to do that for some time, Silva himself had suggested to Bernie that they concentrate all such efforts on making the far less complicated Brownings. The only thing holding them back had been good barrel steel to cope with jacketed bullets, and they’d accomplished that at last. They’d even provided a water jacket for good measure. Silva, Bernie, and eventually Matt had resisted Gatlings because, as Silva put it in a nutshell, “They’re five times as heavy, six times more complicated, and with black powder loads at the ranges we beenfighting, the smoke they make means you’re done aiming as soon as you turn the crank. They’d still need gun carriages and at least one paalka each for the heavy damn things, so I say stick with twelve-pounders and canister—that you can aim between shots!”
    Matt’s announcement was greeted with pleasure, but he continued. “In reality, as you all know, things aren’t so rosy. The Grik have better weapons too, and they don’t always just run right into the meat grinder anymore. Worse, this time it’s us that’s overextended, and we have to expect them to try to make the most of it. That means a fairly rapid counterattack in my opinion as well. The ideal thing would be to stop them in the channel, the ‘Go Away Strait’ as they call it—for whatever reason—before they land. But with just
Walker
, the sail/steam DDs of Des-Ron Six, and
Big Sal
’s planes, we can’t stop ’em if they mob us with transports, escorted by a really big mob of heavies we
know
they still have. If that happens before we get help, they
will
get ashore, so we have to prepare for it. General Queen Protector, if you would?”
    Safir Maraan stood, shrugging off the revelation that they were on their own. She’d been on her own before. She stepped to a large painted-fabric map displayed on the wall opposite Adar that depicted northern Madagascar. It had been rendered as carefully as possible from captured Grik charts and aerial observations. Hopefully, the Maroons would help fill in what lay beyond the wall of trees. Safir drew her sword and pointed at the bay. “Assuming the enemy gets past the navy, we may also make