Hive fleets search the galaxy for planets to eat, indulging their Hive Cycle: feed, reproduce, increase. Interstellar distance was not a concern. Time was not important. The Hive had always been and would always be. When they enter the sphere of the Earth Empire, Emperor Maximel dispatches a crusty old space navy admiral to take care of the problem. Using what he has and what he can scrape up, he takes on the alien bugs in a battle, unknowingly launching the first in a series of battles that will stretch across generations of humanity.