This is the last chapter to directly include plot points from the book. I may include some reference to Iron Gold and Morning Star later but from here on out we're officially off the rails of the RR plot.
Chapter 20: Hail:
Hyperion
Luna
March 17th, 2841
A tense silence filled the air as the stealth shuttle sailed passed the Scepter Armada, waiting to see if their cloaking would hold. Even with the bulk of the ships gone on a weeks-long voyage to Mars, the remaining dreadnaughts were still powerful enough to destroy their cloaked vessel in a single shot. Once the ship was clear of the fleet's long-range guns, Mustang turned and nodded for Eckert to begin the broadcast. The Green nodded back. A few seconds later, security footage of Octavia and Aja's last stand was broadcast across every holoscreen in the Society. By day's end, everyone from Mercury to Pluto would know what the Rising had done. Even now, as the ship streaked through the moon's atmosphere, the Society shuddered beneath their feet.
Back on Mars, the fleet had been routed. Wealthy Praetors were taking their personal ships and fracturing away, heading home to Mercury or Venus. Some were burning hard for the Rim, hoping to find sanctuary among the Moon Lords. A small few were on their way to Earth and Luna seeking refuge. But they'd be too late. They did not stand together, because they did not know where to stand. For sixty years, Octavia had ruled. For most living, she was the only Sovereign they had ever known. Their civilization teetered on the brink. Electrical grids were down across the moon. Riots and panic had been spreading across the surface since Darrow's broadcast in Agea, despite the Praetorians' efforts to quell the violence.
The leadership of the Rising knew that they'd never be able to win Luna in a protracted siege. Nor was it their desire to fight until all Golds perished. Mustang held a holo of the moon in the plam of her hand, hearing the silent screams of her civilization as keenly as she knew Darrow did. He stepped close to her.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"This moon will be pandemonium," she whispered as she gazed at the virtual map of Earth's natural satellite. With the Ash Lord on his way to Mars to reinforce the dwindling loyalist fleet, Luna's defenses were at their weakest. Even if Shiro and Keith succeeded in stealing the Classis Plutus, it would be a long time before peace truly came to the Core. And who knew how long it would take to conquer the Rim. But despite her uncertainty, she wasn't truly worried. Together, she and Darrow could do anything.
"And we can rebuild it, together," he told her as he placed his hand on her shoulder. "For our child's future." His words flooded her with hope, reminder her where they were. What they'd done. That they were together, alive. She blinked quickly and smiled at him. Behind them, she heard a few of the soldiers going "aww" as she put her right hand in Darrow's. She chuckled when she heard Holiday tell Trigg to cut it out. Over the com, Lieutenant Vesta, the pilot provided by Quicksilver, announced that Cassius' Olympic landing codes had been accepted and that the ship was taxiing for a landing at the Citadel now.
"I love you all," Darrow said as the ship began its descent. "No matter what happens."
"Even Cassius?" Sevro asked.
"Especially me, today," Cassius replied.
"Stay close," Mustang said as she clutched the scepter tight. She squeezed Darrow's hand as the ship touched down with a reverberating thud. Sevro vibrated with fear as the boarding ramp lowered to reveal a landing filled with Praetorians, their weapons drawn and pointed into the open hatch of the shuttle. Mustang stepped forward, bearing a symbol of power in each hand.
"Praetorians," she began. "You sever the Sovereign. The Sovereign is dead. A new star rises." She continued walking forward, refusing to break her stride when she neared their line of bristling metal. Darrow worried for a moment that a young Gold with furious eyes might pull the trigger. But the young man's old captain put a hand on his weapon, lowering it. And they parted for her, lowering their weapons one by one. They backed away and let her pass, their helmets slithering back into their armor. The Sons of Ares filed out of the ship behind her, weapons sheathed but scythe symbols visible. Darrow had never seen a woman as glorious and powerful as his fiancé was now. She was the calm eye of the storm and everyone followed in her wake.
They marched across the grounds in silence, accompanied by more than four dozen of the Praetorians. Everywhere, they saw the Citadel in chaos. Servants were ransacking rooms, while guards left their posts in twos and threes, worried for their families and friends. With Octavia's death being broadcast across the solar system, everyone in the complex had been thrown into a panic. As they made their way to the Citadel, Cassius ordered one of the Praetorian squads to bring Lysander to the senate chamber alive and unharmed.
There was only one leader amidst the chaos, and soldiers gathered behind them as they moved through the Citadel's black marbled halls, past towering Gold statues and departments of state. The soldiers' boots stampeded over the marble halls to flock to Mustang, the one symbol of purpose and power left in the building. She lifted both of her symbols of power high in the air, and those who rose their weapons against the quartet saw them and Darrow and Cassius and the swelling mass of soldiers behind them and realized that they were fighting the tide. They either joined Mustang, or they ran.
Some took shots at them or rushed forward in small bands to halt their progress. But those Golds were cut down before they could get within ten meters of Mustang. By the time she, Darrow, Cassius, and Sevro came before the great ivory-white doors to the Senate Chambers, behind which Senators were sequestered inside by Praetorians, an army of hundreds was at their back, and only a thin line of twenty Praetorians barred their way to the Senate Chamber. An elegant Gold Knight stepped forward, leader of the men guarding the chamber. He eyed the hundred behind them, seeing the purple adherents Mustang had gathered. The Obsidians, the Grays, Darrow… A moment later, he made his decision, and saluted Mustang sharply.
The remaining Praetorians arrived with the late Sovereign's grandson in tow. Cassius knelt and spoke with the boy in hushed tones after making it clear to everyone that the child was under his protection. Once their conversation was finished, Cassius stood. Lysander clearly grieved for his grandmother, but he stood with the Rising as a sign of their legitimacy. The two Obsidians guarding the doors pushed them open for the rest of the group and Mustang strode forward into the Senate Chamber. The room was a vast, tiered funnel of white marble. The podium from which the Sovereign traditionally addressed the Senate was at the lowest of the chamber's ten levels. Mustang and her entourage caused a disruption as they entered from the north side. Hundreds of beady politico eyes turned their entitled focus towards the interlopers. All eyes were immediately drawn to the two objects in Mustang's hands.
Somewhere in the room, she knew that Roque's mother would be standing up from her seat on her marble bench and crane her neck to watch the bloody band stomp down the white marble stairs to the bottom center of the great chamber. Mustang and Darrow passed Senators on both sides, bringing silence with them instead of shouts or protests while Lysander trailed behind Cassius. Mustang could hear the rasping, panicked breath of the Senate Majority Speaker as his Pink attendats helped his withered form down from the podium where he'd been presiding over something of "great" importance.
Mustang bit back the urge to laugh at the senate's presumptuousness. Here and now, in the middle of chaos, the entitled Politicos were trying to hold an election. Now, they looked like children caught with their hands in the biscuit jar. Of course, they would never suspect that the Praetorians guarding them would support the rebels, Mustang thought to herself. Or that we would walk from the Sovereign's bunker unimpeded. But she also knew that these people had created a society of fear. Where men and women needed to attach themselves to rising stars to survive. That's all this is, she reminded herself. It was the simple human directive that allowed for this coup to work. The old power was dead, and now the political parasites flocked to the new.
She took the podium with her friends and the Praetorians flanking her. She looked over at Darrow as he dumped her brother to the ground, so the Senate could see what was left of her brother's most trusted lieutenant. Mustang had never wanted this burden, but she accepted it just as Darrow had accepted his role as Reaper. He could see how this troubled her, and they both knew that she would need him as much as he needed her. But they also knew that Darrow could never stand where she stood or hold what she held, not without destroying everyone in this room. They would never accept his authority, but they would respect hers. If Darrow was the bridge to the lowColors, then she was the bridge to the high. The only way to bring peace to the worlds and unite humanity was together. With one last look at the father of her child, Mustang took a deep breath, and cleared her throat to speak.
"Senators of the Society," she proclaimed. "I stand before you, Viriginia au Augustus. Daughter of Nero au Augustus of the Lion House of Mars. You may know me. Sixty years ago, Octavia au Lune stood before you with the head of a tyrant, her father, and laid her claim on the post of Sovereign to this Society." She paused as her keen eyes scoured the room.
"I stand before you now with the head of a tyrant," she continued as she lifted her left hand to show the severed head of Octavia, one of the two objects which had granted her, and her friends passage to this room. Gold only respected one thing. And, in order for their culture to change, they needed to be tamed by that one thing.
"The Old Age has brought chaos, corruption, and death to the heart of the Society," she continued. "Millions have burned for Octavia's greed. Millions burn even now for my brother's treachery. We must save ourselves from ourselves before the inheritance of humanity is ash. Today, I declare the beginning of a new age. With new allies. New ways. I have the Rising at my back. A navy made of great Golden Houses which even now burns for Luna with a horde of Obsidian liberated from Mars' south pole."
"You have a choice before you," she finished as she tossed the Sovereign's head to the stone podium and raised her other hand. In it was the Dawn Scepter, bestowing upon its bearer the right to rule Society. "Bend, or break." Silence filled the chamber, and Mustang knew Darrow as concerned that this vast quiet would swallow them all into itself and begin the war anew. As she glanced at Darrow in her peripheral vision, she communicated what they were both thinking. No Gold would be the first to bend their knee to the Rising. Darrow could make them, but it would be better if he bent for them. The Reaper of Mars fell to one knee before the heir of House Augustus. He looked up into her eyes and put his stump over his heart, smiling with impossible joy and pride for her.
"Hail, Sovereign," he said. Then Cassius fell to his knee beside Darrow, followed by Sevro, who temporarily set Thistle down on the floor of the chamber. Next were Lysander au Lune and the Praetorians. Then, one by one, the Senators fell to their knees until all but fifty kneeled and broke the silence together, shouting with a single riotous voice.
"Hail, Sovereign! Hail, Sovereign!"
Most of the dialogue and descriptions quoted directly from Morning Star Chapter 64. The rest was entirely new or reworked to account for the changes to the plot and having this happen 2+ years earlier than in canon.