Several years after an experiment that opened a gateway from central Florida into other dimensions, Doc Weaver, adapts an alien star drive to a nuclear submarine and creates humanity's first warp-capable star ship. The goal of Capt. Steven Blankemeier and Cmdr. Clay White of the Alliance Space Ship's is to scout out worlds contaminated by the alien Dreen.

In the fourth Looking Glass novel, the "Vorpal 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 "Vorpal Blade" finds is much more than its crew had bargained for.