On the SRN Echo of Ares above Luna, Virginia addresses the Republic as cameras crowd before her and warships drift in the viewport. She recounts intelligence of a massive Society operation at Mercury and admits she feared announcing catastrophe. Instead, she reports a narrow victory: the Free Legions survived bombardment, encircled and shattered the enemy vanguard at Heliopolis, but remain imperiled and undersupplied.

Virginia refuses self-congratulation and blames the crisis on Senate weakness and Vox demagoguery. Deceived by Atalantia au Grimmus’s overtures, the Republic turned on Darrow and recalled Home Guard ships, leaving Imperator Aquarii with half a fleet; the Ash Armada then destroyed the White Fleet. She gestures to Blue captains and Seventh Legion centurions behind her, furious at being paraded for a Triumph while their brothers bleed.

She announces the Echo of Ares battle group and the Seventh will sail for Mercury in four days, likely alone, because the Senate refuses to release Earth, Luna, or Mars defense fleets. Virginia calls citizens to pressure their senators, condemns tribalism and corruption, and declares the Syndicate and its queen enemies for fueling Society war machines with helium-3.

Virginia then grounds her appeal in love and memory, recalling a quiet day on Earth with Darrow and Pax that taught her to hear the people’s heartbeat. She lists the places where free hearts still beat and where they fade—in camps, prisons, ruins—and urges steadfast unity: “If not now, when? If not us, who?” She ends with “Hail libertas.”

Reactions split: many remain stony, but an old Red janitor’s “Hail Reaper” cry swells into a chant from half the room. Simultaneously, far above Earth, the Twins of South Pacifica railguns fire stealth-skinned projectiles laden with medicine and materiel toward a point ahead of Mercury’s path—Virginia’s clandestine lifeline and message to Darrow: endure; help is coming.