Our first Mustang chapter, everyone. Sorry it's shorter than the other two, but not a lot really happens for her until her second chapter.
2/19/18: Edited the chapter to account for changes to Hic Sunt Leones and add some more details.
Chapter 3: Battle of Deimos:
Deja Thoris Bridge
Mars
March 16th, 2841
Gunfire and shouts echoed through the halls as Mustang stood on the bridge of one of her father's warships, the dreadnought Deja Thoris. Klaxons blared as she shouted orders for the gunBlues to concentrate their fire on the Pandora. With her mother's death in the massacre, the Julii warships now legally belonged to Victra. Unfortunately, Antonia had already staffed several of the large black ships with her own paid stooges instead. Half of the corporate fleet remained loyal to Victra, and complied when she placed Mustang in command of the battle group, and the other half went over to Antonia. Less than a month after the Iron Rain, war raged over the surface of Mars once again.
As soon as she'd received Shiro's warning, she had sprung into action without hesitation. After broadcasting a message to the fleet that a coup was underway, Mustang quickly took command of the situation and prepared for the inevitable. True to form, her brother had sent assassins to eliminate the ship commanders who would not side with him. There were firefights on bridges and in staterooms, but the saboteurs and assassins were ultimately beaten back on almost all the ships aligned with Darrow. Orion had been badly shot in the arm, but most of their ship commanders had survived unscathed. When it became clear that the assassination attempts had failed, her brother played his hand. The Augustus armada fractured and the battle of Mars began anew.
Within minutes of the battle breaking out, battle lines had been drawn. Roque and Victra's ships, along with those Houses Codovan, Norvo, Arcos, Telemanuses, and other Gold families murdered in her brother's ambush had sided with her, and by extension, with Darrow. Combined with her father's ships, a little over half of the armada stood with her against Adrius. The remainder – consisting of Martian vassal Houses such as Corvos, Falthe, Sarna, Rath, and Voloxes – fell under her brother's control. From there, it was an all-out free for all as both sides fired railguns, leechCraft, and nuclear missiles back and forth across the inky darkness of space. For four hours they battled it out, and then it all ground to a halt when Antonia went on the net with Thistle by her side and made a public broadcast exposing the truth about Darrow for everyone in the solar system to see.
When the video of Darrow's carving was first broadcast, the battle quickly ground to a halt, and her brother's ships withdrew towards Deimos. No doubt, she'd surmised, to see who will defect to his side now that they know the truth. Once Thistle and Antonia had finished their pitch for the rebel houses to change sides, the first thing she'd done was call up everyone who'd served in Darrow's army at the Institute. A surprising number of them had declared their allegiance to the Reaper, and Mustang had provided them with directions for where to find the antidote to the poison her brother had given him. When that was done, Roque and Victra's ships had contacted her pledging their support, and Tactus had taken command of the two battle groups in their friends' absence.
Then, she made her response to the broadcast clear when she fired a missile at her brother's new flagship Lion of Mars – formerly the Invictus – broadcasting to the worlds that whatever his Color, she stood with the Reaper. The Telemanus clan quickly followed suit, along with the Arcos, Roque's ships, and the half of the Julii fleet that remained loyal to Victra. To her surprise, the family Norvo of Triton remained by their side as well, along with many of the other families as well. Only a handful of Aureate families defected from the rebellion, chief among them the Codovans of Ganymede, who broke away from the battle entirely and fled outward towards the Rim.
The defections notwithstanding, she found it touching that so many of her Color were willing to stand with Darrow even when they knew he was not one of them. With their brief respite over, the battle resumed. Mustang flinched as she looked out the viewport to see the Telemanus flagship Reynard exchanging broadsides with one of Antonia's destroyers as missiles streaked back and forth across the darkness of space. Veils of flak and energy shields prevented most the enemy warheads from hitting their mark, but a few ships took damage. She winced when an Arcos corvette suffered a critical hit to the bridge, the ship listing to the side as it vented oxygen and crewmembers into space. The sorrow of lives lost was tempered by satisfaction that the crew would be avenged as railgun rounds from the Pax hammered into the ship that had fired the missile.
Her ship rocked as railgun fire penetrated her shields and struck the Deja Thoris along the starboard side. Kavax and Daxo had gone down to the surface to organize and evacuate their legions before her brother could take power. With any luck, they'd be able to contact Darrow, Shiro, and the others and get them off the surface as well. Behind her, Theodora relayed orders to the ships of the Golds murdered in the garden through the comBlues while the war raged around them. Mustang was relieved that there was one less person to look out for, but as she looked at the tactical display and realized just how many ships remained by her side even knowing the truth about Darrow, a thought occurred to her.
We can win the day, she realized with a shiver of excitement running down her spine. My brother's ships are evenly matched with mine. If Darrow can keep loyalist forces occupied on the ground, we may be able to push back and maintain control of Mars. It was a risky gamble, particularly given that fleet warfare had never been her forte. Politics had always been her specialty. But if Kavax could at least get Roque and Victra back into orbit to take command of their ships personally, then they might stand a fighting chance. Almost immediately, she initiated a conference call between herself, Tactus, Orion, and the Telemanuses to tell them what she was planning. The Telemanus patriarch promised to bring them into orbit as quickly as possible, and Tactus transferred command of Roque and Victra's ships to Orion so he could head planetside with Kavax and help lead troops on the ground.
As a nuclear missile streaked away from her ship towards the enemy formation, her datapad buzzed with an incoming message. She pushed a button to answer the call and breathed a sigh of partial relief when a hologram of Sevro's head appeared a few centimeters above the arm-mounted pad.
"What the fuck is going on!?" he said bluntly. "We got your message about the ambush but now Darrow's carving's been leaked onto the net. I can't get ahold of the others, and we're missing a few Howlers."
"Sevro, slow down," Mustang replied. "I'm trying to coordinate everything under fire here. Darrow and the others got away. Lorn didn't make it, but they got most of his grandchildren out, along with a few of our supporters. I don't know any better way to put this Sevro, but my brother put your father's head in the mask box." Sevro paused, his face awash with a combination of anger, grief, and sad resignation.
"Makes sense," he said, trying to be nonchalant, even if Mustang knew that receiving confirmation of his father's demise hurt him more than he was willing to admit. "Harmony sold us out to the Jackal out of spite for Darrow not blowing himself up at the Gala like she wanted him to. She led a Lurcher squad right to the warehouse. Only Dancer, Mickey, Evey, and a few dozen high-ranked Sons escaped with their lives. Last anyone saw of Pop, he was throwing down with Cassius and a squad of Praetorians all by himself." The hologram glittered as tears welled up in his eyes.
"We fell back to the main HQ in Tinos," he went on. "Dad set up this underground refugee city there for people that were evacuated from condemned mines," he continued. "We evacuated most of Lykos on the way in, so Darrow's family is safe. No word from Quicksilver yet, but he's probably waiting to see how everything shakes out today before he makes his next move." As they talked, Mustang noticed that he didn't ask whether Thistle had made it out of the massacre. Which means he's already seen the broadcast and knows where she stands, she thought to herself with a twinge of sympathy and regret as they discussed what their next move was. It's always sad when our beliefs drive friendships apart.
After getting confirmation that the remaining Howlers were still willing to stay with them even knowing what Darrow really was, Mustang filled Sevro in on what was transpiring on the ground and gave him Milia's contact information so he could rendezvous with Darrow and the rest of their friends in Agea. She stumbled as a nuclear warhead slammed into the side of her ship. Thankfully the legal limit for ship-to-ship combat was only five megatons, otherwise the shields wouldn't have held up at all. As it was, they merely took a beating. Time to see if we can leverage this setback into a victory today, she thought to herself as she gave orders for the gunBlues to return fire.
Yes, the name of Mustang's flagship is a John Carter reference. Morning Star is one of the most pop-culture reference-filled book in the whole trilogy, so I'm going to find a way to work in some of the best ones. Next chapter, we're heading back to the Voltron era to check in with Keith and the rest of Team Voltron. I'm just going to answer this question now so I don't have people relentlessly asking later, but no, there will not be any Voltron villains showing up in this story. It's purely going to be focused on the Red Rising world. So no Zarkon, Haggar, Lotor, etc.