During the war with the Palentine Empire, a culture that mimics Roman civilization, the U.S.'s sister starships, the U.S.S. Merrimack and the U.S.S. Monitor are endangered as both sides struggle for supremacy while an alien life-form, called the Hive, prepares for invasion. Reprint.
The U.S.S. Merrimack was the finest battleship class spaceship in Earth's fleet, able to stand up against the best the Palatine Empire could throw at them, even able to attack and kill swarms of the seemingly unstoppable Hive. But nothing could have prepared the captain and crew of the Merrimack to face the Myriad-three colonized worlds in the midst of a globular cluster that the Hive had somehow overlooked.