Persepolis Rising
Chapters - James S. A. Corey
Prologue: Cortazár
Cortazar, head of Laconia's exobiological research, maintains a "milking herd" of protomolecule-infected humans to harvest active samples for Laconia's projects. He administers an experimental protomolecule-based treatment to High Consul Duarte, who reveals he has not slept in eleven days and is developing new organs as part of a radical life-extension protocol. Duarte explains his philosophy that only one person can ever be made immortal to avoid creating a permanent oligarchy, refusing Cortazar's request to receive the treatment himself.
POV: Paolo Cortazar·On page: Winston Duarte
Chapter 1: Drummer
President Drummer of the Transport Union attends the opening of the TSL-5 transfer station near Earth, marking the planet's recovery from decades of environmental crisis. She receives word that an unauthorized ship from Freehold transited through the ring gates to Auberon, endangering other traffic and violating union rules. Drummer dispatches Captain Holden and the Rocinante to deliver a punitive three-year trade ban to Freehold.
POV: Camina Drummer·Mentioned: James Holden
Chapter 2: Bobbie
Bobbie conducts pre-landing checks on the aging Rocinante as they approach Freehold, while Clarissa's health continues to decline from her failing aftermarket combat implants that leak toxins into her blood. Bobbie briefs Holden and Naomi on the tactical threat: Freehold's three hundred armed colonists are not yet self-sustaining and depend on trade for food, meaning the three-year ban is effectively a death sentence that gives them nothing to lose.
POV: Bobbie Draper·On page: Alex Kamal, Amos Burton, Clarissa Mao, James Holden, Naomi Nagata
Chapter 3: Singh
Captain Singh, a young and earnest Laconian officer, is summoned to breakfast with High Consul Duarte at the State Building, where Duarte questions him about his decision to report his former commanding officer for dereliction of duty. Singh defends his choice as a matter of absolute loyalty to the military code, impressing Duarte with his rigid sense of duty. Duarte gives Singh command of the destroyer Gathering Storm with sealed orders, telling him that Laconia is entering its second phase.
POV: Santiago Singh·On page: Winston Duarte
Chapter 4: Holden
Holden delivers Drummer's ultimatum to Governor Payne Houston of Freehold, offering two options: a three-year trade quarantine or Houston surrendering himself for trial. He improvises the second option against Drummer's instructions, unwilling to impose what amounts to collective punishment on the colony. After a tense twelve-hour wait, the Freeholders deliver Houston hog-tied in a wheelbarrow, and the Rocinante departs with the prisoner.
POV: James Holden·On page: Bobbie Draper, Alex Kamal, Amos Burton, Naomi Nagata, Clarissa Mao·Mentioned: Camina Drummer
Chapter 5: Drummer
Drummer deals with the daily burdens of running the Transport Union from the void city People's Home, including the growing political pressure from Carrie Fisk's Association of Worlds. She receives Holden's message about his unauthorised deal on Freehold and is furious that he overstepped his authority by offering to arrest Houston instead of simply enforcing the quarantine. She records a sharp rebuke instructing Holden to proceed to Medina with Houston.
POV: Camina Drummer·On page: Fayez Sarkis·Mentioned: James Holden, Winston Duarte
Chapter 6: Holden
Holden watches Drummer's angry message rebuking him for overstepping on Freehold, and in the aftermath confides to Naomi that he can no longer serve a bureaucratic system willing to kill people as policy. Naomi suggests they sell their shares in the Rocinante and retire, and Holden agrees. Their conversation is interrupted when Governor Houston escapes his cell, breaks into engineering, and threatens to collapse the reactor.
POV: James Holden·On page: Alex Kamal, Naomi Nagata·Mentioned: Bobbie Draper, Amos Burton, Clarissa Mao, Camina Drummer
Chapter 7: Bobbie
Bobbie suits up and enters the Rocinante through an exterior maintenance hatch to outflank Houston while Amos prepares a breaching charge at the main engineering door. Houston ambushes her but she takes him down with a single elbow strike. Afterward, Holden offers to sell the Rocinante to Bobbie, explaining that he and Naomi are retiring, and Bobbie accepts the responsibility of becoming the ship's new captain.
POV: Bobbie Draper·On page: James Holden, Amos Burton, Alex Kamal, Naomi Nagata, Clarissa Mao
Chapter 8: Singh
Singh docks the Gathering Storm with Admiral Trejo's Heart of the Tempest, a massive new Magnetar-class battle cruiser grown in Laconia's alien orbital construction platforms that dwarfs anything in the human fleet. Trejo gives Singh a tour of the ship and briefs him on the plan to seize Medina Station, with Singh commanding the boarding force while the Tempest destroys the rail-gun emplacements. Singh expresses concern about the Earth-Mars Coalition's rebuilt fleet, but Trejo assures him the Tempest was built to render every other military power irrelevant.
POV: Santiago Singh·Mentioned: Aliana Tanaka, Winston Duarte
Chapter 9: Bobbie
Holden formally announces his and Naomi's retirement to the crew over dinner, offering Bobbie the captaincy with a financing plan for the ship. Alex, Amos, and Clarissa all agree to stay aboard under Bobbie's command. Bobbie privately checks in with each crew member, discovering that Clarissa has an end-of-life arrangement with Amos rather than Holden.
POV: Bobbie Draper·On page: Alex Kamal, Amos Burton, Clarissa Mao, James Holden, Naomi Nagata
Chapter 10: Drummer
Drummer manages routine union business then learns that Laconia has broadcast a message announcing Admiral Trejo will transit through their gate in 120 hours. Intelligence analysis suggests the approaching ships have unregistered or heavily modified drives, and Drummer and Santos-Baca assess that Laconia is most likely a failing breakaway colony coming to negotiate reintegration, with the outdated rail-gun emplacements more than sufficient to handle any military threat.
POV: Camina Drummer·Mentioned: Winston Duarte
Chapter 11: Bobbie
The Rocinante arrives at Medina where Holden hands over Houston and Bobbie officially takes command, but a security briefing from the incompetent station security chief Langstiver ignores her tactical recommendations. When the Laconian ship transits, it is an alien-looking vessel unlike anything human, and it instantly destroys the Tori Byron with an unknown weapon and then rips the rail-gun emplacements off the hub station with a focused magnetic beam.
POV: Bobbie Draper·On page: Alex Kamal, Clarissa Mao, Amos Burton·Mentioned: James Holden, Naomi Nagata
Chapter 12: Holden
Holden rushes to Medina's ops centre as the Laconian attack unfolds, finding Naomi analysing the Tempest's weapon as an impossibly powerful focused magnetic beam that spaghettifies matter. The smaller Laconian destroyer deploys Marine boarding teams who are professional and disciplined. Admiral Trejo addresses the assembled representatives, declaring Laconia's control over all thirteen hundred worlds under High Consul Duarte's leadership.
POV: James Holden·On page: Naomi Nagata, Alex Kamal, Bobbie Draper, Santiago Singh, Aliana Tanaka·Mentioned: Clarissa Mao, Amos Burton, Winston Duarte
Chapter 13: Drummer
Drummer scrambles to respond to the fall of Medina, meeting with her security council while grappling with the intelligence failure that let Laconia build advanced alien-derived warships undetected for decades. Retired former UN leader Avasarala arrives uninvited and forces a private meeting, warning Drummer not to waste resources trying to reclaim the slow zone. Avasarala argues they must play defence, protect Sol system, and work covert channels.
POV: Camina Drummer·On page: Chrisjen Avasarala·Mentioned: Winston Duarte
Chapter 14: Singh
Singh begins administering the occupation of Medina Station, co-opting Carrie Fisk's Association of Worlds as a Laconian-controlled legislature and dismissing former security chief Langstiver. Langstiver provides a critical intelligence windfall: the Tempest's magnetic weapon caused the alien ring system to release lethal gamma-ray bursts through all thirteen hundred gates, meaning Laconia can weaponise the gates themselves.
POV: Santiago Singh·On page: Aliana Tanaka·Mentioned: Winston Duarte
Chapter 15: Bobbie
Bobbie and the crew are stranded on Medina after the Laconians impound the Rocinante, and Clarissa offers insight into Duarte's psychology by comparing him to her father Jules-Pierre Mao. The crew pieces together Duarte's long game of using Marco Inaros as a distraction while he spent decades building alien-derived weapons on Laconia. They witness Langstiver and a group of Belters pulling weapons and heading toward the Laconian administrative offices.
POV: Bobbie Draper·On page: Alex Kamal, Amos Burton, Clarissa Mao·Mentioned: James Holden, Naomi Nagata, Winston Duarte, Jules-Pierre Mao
Chapter 16: Singh
Langstiver's assassination attempt on Singh fails as his Marine escort shields him, but his aide Lieutenant Kasik is shot and later dies. Singh overrules Colonel Tanaka's experienced advice to underreact, instead ordering mandatory curfews, roaming checkpoints, and restrictions on the former security forces. He relieves Tanaka of command and proposes that the Tempest move against Sol system weeks ahead of schedule.
POV: Santiago Singh·Mentioned: Aliana Tanaka, Winston Duarte
Chapter 17: Holden
Holden and Naomi navigate the new reality of occupied Medina under Singh's crackdown, enduring identity checkpoints, rolling curfews, and locked-down communications. Using the cover of running shower water to speak freely, they decide they cannot stay out of the resistance despite having been days away from retirement. Cut off from all communications, they realise they have no way to contact Bobbie, Alex, Amos, or Clarissa.
POV: James Holden·On page: Naomi Nagata·Mentioned: Bobbie Draper, Alex Kamal, Amos Burton, Clarissa Mao, Chrisjen Avasarala, Santiago Singh
Chapter 18: Bobbie
The Roci crew waits in a long queue to access their impounded ship for a brief one-hour visit, during which Clarissa gets emergency medical treatment. Afterward, Amos uses his underworld social skills to make contact with the Medina underground over several days, leading them to Saba, the resistance leader. Holden and Naomi arrive and Holden's reputation instantly grants them all acceptance into the insurgency.
POV: Bobbie Draper·On page: Clarissa Mao, Amos Burton, Alex Kamal·Mentioned: Winston Duarte
Chapter 19: Drummer
Drummer receives a covert message from Saba detailing the resistance effort on Medina, including sixty-eight operatives organised into cells focused on intelligence gathering. Carrie Fisk and the Association of Worlds publicly align with Laconia, accepting Duarte's offer of protection in exchange for self-rule. Drummer's science advisor Cameron Tur reports that space near the ring gate has begun exhibiting wildly elevated quantum activity since the Tempest's transit.
POV: Camina Drummer·Mentioned: Winston Duarte