This 108,000-word novel will appeal to fans of military SF, Galactic Empire and Space Opera genres. The collapse of the breakaway System States Alliance leaves the corrupt and rickety 800-year-old Federation victorious but nearly bankrupt. Among the military equipment it is forced to abandon on the planet Poictesme is the ultra-secret super-computer codenamed Merlin, that managed the strategic, tactical, logistical and administrative aspects of the interstellar war so well. The terrible secret it contains, that the Federation is now doomed to slowly slid into anarchy and chaos that will last for centuries, has to be kept secret to prevent an even faster and more violent collapse. But it also contains another secret. To avoid a new Dark Age, a new SSA must rise from the ashes of the old one. Can a few surviving SSA veterans find a way to make the Phoenix rise again?