In 2027, a powerful Chinese destroyer, Anshan, was sent on a "Freedom of Navigation" cruise through the famous Tsushima Strait?and it vanished. The Chinese blame the Japanese, but no one can solve the mystery except Director Pavel Kamenski, who visits Anton Fedorov again in Moscow.

Another mission is proposed for Kirov, and both Fedorov and Karpov are eager to get underway. For Kamenski knows what happened to Anshan, and where it is. Now he sends Karpov, Fedorov, and the mighty Kirov to go and kill the wayward ship before it can unhinge the history of the Boxer Rebellion. Yet the disappearance of Anshan has already started another conflict in 2027, as both China and Japan refuse to back down in the East China Sea. Kirov must return to help restore order when it looks like another war is imminent when two empires, one old and one new, begin a fateful clash at sea.

In the meantime, the British Admiral Sir Edward Seymour launches an expedition to relieve the diplomatic legations in Peking, and the roots of the long enmity between China and Japan are chronicled in the First Sino- Japanese war at sea. It is a vendetta that persists even to our time and Kirov's point of origin in 2027.