After languishing in a brutal enemy prison for twenty years, Captain Faulkner is finally freed but he immediately finds himself the target of assassination attempts and political conspiracies. Instead of a quiet retirement where his broken mind and body might have a chance to recover, he finds himself back where he was during the war twenty years ago, commanding the Confederate battleship Mantis. Like its Captain, the Mantis is being rebuilt and forcibly brought into the modern era with unpredictable results, which wouldn't matter much if a series of puzzling events wasn't reigniting the flames of war again. After a generation of peace, and officers who rose through political connections rather than merit, the last hope of the Confederation might be a broken man, an antiquated patched up warship, and its crew of random misfits.