Starfist: Kingdom's Fury by David Sherman & Dan Cragg

his top priorities. "More important, the engineers from the Grandar Bay tell me they expect to complete the blaster power pack replenishment facility tomorrow. We won't have to worry about running out of power for our weapons."
    That was another point in favor of the Marines and Kingdomites—the Army of the Lord had its own arsenals. As soon as the replenishment facility was in operation, ammunition for the Marines wouldn't be a problem either. The Skinks had a finite supply of munitions with no replenishment. Unless more of them were on their way.
    No matter how pyrrhic Sturgeon felt the counterattack victory was, he knew the best course of action was to aggressively follow up on it, to pursue the Skinks while they were trying to lick their wounds.
    He didn't ask for a report from the operations chiefs; he knew they wouldn't have anything to say. Instead he said, "Threes, your commanders will brief you on what I want. Everybody but the FIST commanders, dismissed." The officers quickly gathered their materials and exited the briefing room.
    Brigadier Sparen and Colonel Ramadan leaned close to their commander as soon as the door closed behind the last staff officer.
    Brigadier Sturgeon wasn't the only commander who felt the Marine victory was pyrrhic.
    The Great Master showed his teeth in a grin as he looked out over the Senior Masters and more senior of the Masters assembled before him. Graceful females had already served the steaming beverage to them and departed, save for the one who knelt by his knee.
    "The Earthmen Marines believe they have achieved a victory over us by defeating our attack against the northeast portion of their defensive ring." As his voice rumbled, his breath rasped through his atrophied gill slits; the sound of an ice dam on a mountain rivulet breaking on a spring morning. "They think they won, but they are wrong. We killed an entire division of the local pond scum soldiers, as well as many Earthmen Marines. The lives of eight thousand Fighters were a small price to pay for so great a victory.
    "I have observed this Earthman Marine commander. He is a brave commander, but also a cautious one. A bold commander—" He lifted a hand in a gesture that suggested he humbly counted himself as a bold commander. "—would follow that
    ‘victory’ by pursuing the ‘defeated’ foe into his lair. This Earthman Marine will not.
    Instead, he will attempt to pin us in the territory he and the pond scum have already conceded to us."
    His grin broadened, the smile of a large shark about to devour an injured dolphin.
    "He does not know the extent of the land under our control, or the number of paths we have to move out of his way undetected by his surface surveillance devices, or the Earthman navy's ‘string-of-pearls.’
    "This Earthman commander will send his Marines out in small units, units which we will individually entrap and destroy!"
    The assembled Over Masters and more senior of the Senior Masters rapped the tiny cups on the lacquered tables and roared their approval of the Great Master's plan.
    "You're shitting me, right?" Corporal Claypoole demanded.
    Sergeant Linsman jumped on the straight line he'd just been handed. "I'd never shit you, Claypoole. You're my favorite turd. Besides," he shrugged, "that really is our orders."
    Claypoole looked at Corporals Kerr and Chan for help, but they looked at their squad leader like it was just another day at the war.
    "Me and Wolfman," Claypoole continued. Hey, he was a Marine. If no reinforcements were coming, he'd fight the battle by himself. "Me and Wolfman, just the two of us. You want us to take a platoon of Kingdomites who haven't worked with Marines out there and get them killed."
    Linsman slowly shook his head. "It's not what I want, Rock. It's what the brigadier wants." He stepped close to Claypoole and jabbed a finger against his chest. "The brigadier doesn't want you to get the local boys killed!" He emphasized his words with more chest jabs. "He wants