Kingdom's Swords

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Kingdom's Swords
Image:Cover Starfist 07 KingdomsSwords.jpg
Author Dan Cragg & David Sherman
Country United States
Language English
Series StarFist
Genre(s) Science fiction novel
Publisher Del Rey Books
Publication date 2002
Media type Print Paperback
Pages 368 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-345-44371-3
Preceded by Hangfire
Followed by Kingdom's Fury

This is the seventh novel of the military science fiction StarFist Saga, written by David Sherman and Dan Cragg.

In the previous book, Hangfire, it was related that the Skinks (an alien race thus far mostly unknown to the Human Confederation) have invaded the planet Kingdom. The planetary government reluctantly requests Confederation assistance, but thanks to miscommunications and pure bureaucratic bungling, the Marines of 34th FIST are deployed thinking that they are on their way to put down a peasant rebellion. So the Skinks catch them by surprise. Only one platoon of the unit has encountered the Skinks before, in Blood Contact, and had been forbidden to talk about their experiences, or even reveal the existence of these aliens. Even worse than this surprise is a new devastating weapon in use by the Skinks. The Rail Gun, a weapon that makes it impractical for the Marines to use aircraft or armored vehicles in close combat. And to make matters worse for Company L, their commander is unexpectedly summoned back to Earth.

In this book, the casaulty rate is very high for the 34th, even worse than they had experienced in Steel Gauntlet. Sherman and Cragg have been very careful so far in the series not to kill off important characters, but break this rule in Kingdom's Swords.