The novel “Persepolis Rising” by James S.A. Corey was published for the first time in 2017. It’s the seventh book in the Expanse series and follows “Babylon’s Ashes”.

The crew of the Rocinante has a contract with the Transport Union and must carry a message to a colony that has not complied with its rules. James Holden decides to go his own way and ends up bringing the colony’s governor to the solar system as a scapegoat. For the Transport Union’s president Camina Drummer, there’s no time to deal with Holden because a spaceship comes out of the portal and attacks Medina Station.

Despite its defenses, Medina Station is taken by the invaders, who arrive from the colony of Laconia, formed by the people who, thirty years earlier, left Mars taking with them a part of the Martian fleet and above all some protomolecule technologies. The Laconian spaceship demonstrates overwhelming superiority thanks to the technologies developed in the colony and takes control of the portal demanding to unite all humanity under Laconia’s rule.