Humans have come a long ways since the looking glass gates first appeared and an alien menace turned a motley crew of scientists, sailors and force recon Marines into battle-hardened space adventurers. Now with other species running scared, it's up to humans to take the lead and mold a weapon capable of checking the Dreen - a galactic cancer that has so far proved unstoppable. Their arsenal? A hodge-podge of powerful technologies begged, borrowed and/or looted from across the galaxy and cobbled together on what has to be the strangest ship ever to ply the starways: the good ship Vorpal Blade II.<BR>After an "interesting" couple of shakedown cruises, the Blade is dispatched to investigate rumors of an ancient and powerful civilization that may have been the creators of the "black box" that drives humanity's only space ship. Any remnant technology would be nice but what the Blade finds is much more than they bargained for.<BR>Worse, the ship is infested by an alien species of scorpion-like arachnoids that has the potential to wipe out a world. Worst of all, instead of being Astrogator, Captain William Weaver is now XO and he is not getting along with the new commander. And the new commander does not get along with Weaver, the ship's female savant-linguist or most of the rest of the original crew. And what is that weird noise the ship makes every time it's in hard maneuvers?