The Eternal Emperor had returned at last from the dead, to pick up the pieces of his crumbling Empire. But even that great leader could not halt the Empire's decline alone. And so Sten, master spy, military strategist, and assassin, found himself appointed Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Altaic Cluster, where a brewing civil war threatened the stability of the Empire itself. Quelling a civil war was nothing new for Sten. But as one thing after another...