Tanya sat at the long metal table inside the half-lit briefing room, data slates spread before her like scattered shell casings. Names, ages, specialties, affiliations—civilian, military, technician, medic, engineer. Every entry represented a life that might escape the collapse Zeon was racing toward.
"This is already past eight hundred," Mila said, scrolling with a frown. "And that's just confirmed personnel."
"Which means we're still undercounting," Tanya replied flatly. "Families. Dependents. People who don't exist on clean rosters."
Ritcher leaned back against the bulkhead, arms crossed. "Honestly? Good. Let's take as many as we can. I'm done bleeding for the Zabi family's idiotic theater."
Zhou Wei nodded once. "Agreed. Ideology doesn't keep oxygen flowing. Logistics does."
Nyaan flicked his tail-shaped antenna absently. "Mars sounds quiet. No speeches. No Zabi."
Machu, standing apart near the wall, didn't speak. His name was already on the list—but with an asterisk. Tanya had noticed. She didn't comment.
Across the table, Liam flipped his slate around, showing a refined subset. "These are the non-negotiables. Ship crews, reactor specialists, life-support engineers, agricultural planners. If Mars is more than a temporary hideout, we need people who can build a society, not just survive."
Cima Garahau stood beside him, arms folded, eyes sharp. She had added names of her own—hard people, veterans, mechanics who knew how to keep ancient machines alive with nothing but scrap and spite.
"Trust matters more than rank," Cima said. "I'm not bringing anyone who still salutes Gihren in their sleep."
Tanya nodded. "Same rule applies to civilians. Anyone who thinks this is 'retreat' instead of 'escape' is a liability."
She was about to speak again when the door slid open.
Aina Sahalin stepped inside, helmet tucked under her arm, expression calm but resolute.
"Tanya," she said. "I need you to add more people to the list."
The room stilled.
Tanya looked up, genuinely surprised. "You're already approved. Medical staff, dependents, and—" She paused. "Wait. More?"
Aina nodded. "One thousand, give or take."
That got everyone's attention.
"A thousand?" Ritcher repeated. "That's not 'more.' That's a small city."
Tanya leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "Where did you get that number?"
Aina didn't hesitate. "Lelouch told me."
That answer landed heavier than any explanation.
"He approached me days ago," Aina continued. "Asked me to quietly identify people who would leave without hesitation. Orphans. Wounded veterans. Civilian technicians stuck maintaining bases that will be abandoned. Medical teams who know this war is already lost."
Tanya stared at her. "And you trusted him."
"Yes," Aina said simply. "Because he wasn't asking for soldiers. He was asking for people."
Liam clicked his tongue softly. "That's his style. Effective."
Aina stepped closer to the table and placed her own slate down. It unlocked, projecting a dense list of names, complete with skill tags and family groupings.
"These people are ready," Aina said. "They won't resist evacuation orders. They won't panic when they learn Mars isn't prepared yet. And they understand this isn't about Zeon or the Federation."
Tanya scanned the list rapidly, her mind already recalculating capacity, life-support margins, ship rotations.
"…Manpower," she murmured.
"Yes," Aina agreed. "Not fighters. Builders. Caretakers. People who can make staying worth it."
For a moment, Tanya said nothing.
Then she exhaled slowly.
"Damn him," she muttered. "Planning three moves ahead again."
Mila allowed herself a small smile. "At least this time, it's for something that isn't insane."
Tanya straightened, her expression hardening into resolve.
"All right," she said. "We expand the list. Civilians and soldiers both—but only those we trust. No Zabi loyalists. No fanatics. No 'glorious last stand' types."
She looked at Liam and Cima. "Rework capacity projections. I want worst-case margins."
Then at Aina. "You stay involved. Medical triage, psychological screening. Anyone who can't handle displacement doesn't come."
Aina nodded. "Understood."
Tanya glanced once more at the growing list, at the sheer scale of it.
Mars wasn't an escape anymore.
It was becoming an ark.
"And for the record," Tanya added quietly, "if anyone asks why we're doing this—"
She closed the slate with a sharp tap.
"Tell them we're done paying for the Zabi family's mistakes."
Jason had not slept.
The concept itself felt almost theoretical now—something people used to do in a world that wasn't collapsing under overlapping countdowns. The hangar beneath Granada vibrated constantly, half from construction stress and half from the distant hum of Zeon's war machine screaming toward its last stand.
The ship dominated the cavern.
It wasn't elegant. It wasn't pretty. It was brutally functional—an ugly, modular mass of armored sections, pressurized habitat rings, cargo spines, and a partially deployed magnetic sail framework folded tight against the hull like a sleeping wing. Every meter of it existed for one purpose: to get people far enough away that the war couldn't follow.
Jason floated along the hull in a maintenance rig, sparks flaring as automated welders sealed another section into place.
"Faster," he muttered, half to the machines, half to himself.
The system didn't answer this time. It didn't need to. The numbers were already burned into his mind.
Three days for full integration if nothing went wrong.
Two if he cut redundancy.
One and a half if he gambled.
And the universe hated gamblers.
A sharp chime cut through the noise.
Radar feed.
Jason pulled the display up instinctively—and froze.
A Baoa Qu.
The tactical overlay bloomed across his visor: Federation fleet signatures clustering, tightening, converging. Too organized. Too confident. The kind of formation that only appeared when someone believed the enemy was already beaten.
"They're here already…?" he whispered.
His fingers twitched, dragging timelines across the display. Federation approach vectors. Estimated engagement windows. Probability curves.
If the Federation launched their assault now, Zeon's outer perimeter would fold within hours.
Hours.
Jason exhaled slowly, forcing his breathing to steady.
"How long can Zeon hold?" he asked no one.
The answer came anyway.
Not long.
Even with A Baoa Qu's defenses. Even with every old Zaku dragged out of storage. Even with cadets thrown into cockpits that smelled like fear and lubricant.
Gihren would burn everything before retreating.
And Jason's ship—his lifeboat for thousands—was still incomplete.
He kicked off the hull, drifting toward the central construction frame. "All fabrication units," he said sharply. "Shift to emergency priority. Non-essential systems paused. Structural integrity stays above minimum threshold only."
Warning indicators flared across his display.
"Yeah, yeah, I see it," he muttered. "We'll live."
A distant tremor ran through the hangar as another module locked into place.
Jason swallowed.
He had planned for pressure. He had planned for chaos.
He had not planned for the Federation being this fast.
"If Zeon collapses before launch…" His jaw tightened. "…we don't get a second chance."
For the first time since this insane project began, genuine fear crept in—not for himself, but for everyone whose names were already on Tanya's list. Families. Children. People who trusted that someone, somewhere, had an exit.
He opened a secure channel.
"Lelouch," Jason said, keeping his voice controlled with effort. "Federation forces are massing at A Baoa Qu. Earlier than expected."
A pause. Then Lelouch's calm reply.
"How much time?"
Jason looked back at the ship—unfinished, imperfect, but almost alive in the way it promised a future.
"…Best case?" Jason answered. "Zeon holds long enough for me to cheat physics a little more."
"And worst case?"
Jason didn't hesitate.
"We launch incomplete," he said. "Or we don't launch at all."
Silence lingered on the channel.
Then Lelouch spoke, measured but firm. "Finish it. I will buy you time."
Jason let out a shaky breath that almost became a laugh. "You always say things like that."
"And you always make the impossible merely difficult," Lelouch replied.
The channel closed.
Jason turned back to the ship, eyes hardening.
"All right," he muttered. "Hold together, Zeon. Just a little longer."
Outside, far beyond the hangar walls, fleets were already aligning for the final battle.
And every second mattered.
Lelouch walked through A Baoa Qu as if the fortress already belonged to him.
Alarms echoed through the corridors, not panicked yet, but constant—status reports, launch confirmations, casualty projections ticking upward like a metronome for extinction. Officers and technicians moved aside instinctively when he passed, unsure why they did so, only aware that they should.
At an intersection near the main hangar access, he saw Char Aznable.
Char stood beside a rack of spare helmets, crimson suit half-lit by warning strobes, visor tucked under his arm. He looked composed, as always, but there was a stillness to him that betrayed thought running far deeper than the battle ahead.
Their eyes met.
No words were exchanged.
Lelouch gave a single nod—acknowledgment, not command, not farewell. Char returned it a heartbeat later, expression unreadable. Then Char turned toward the hangar, toward the Great Zeong waiting for him, and Lelouch continued forward.
Two men walking toward different kinds of inevitability.
The command room doors parted with a hydraulic hiss.
Gihren Zabi stood at the center of the chamber, hands clasped behind his back, cape hanging like a banner of defiance. The tactical displays before him were alive with movement—Federation fleets tightening their encirclement, Zeon units scrambling into defensive layers, casualty estimates climbing without mercy.
Kycilia stood off to the side, arms crossed, eyes sharp and exhausted.
Gihren did not turn when Lelouch entered.
"So," Gihren said, voice calm, almost pleased, "the strategist finally arrives."
Lelouch stopped a few steps behind him. "The Federation is preparing a decisive thrust, not a siege. They believe Zeon will break within hours."
Gihren smiled thinly. "And they are wrong?"
"They are correct," Lelouch replied flatly. "If we respond conventionally."
That earned Gihren's attention.
He turned slowly, red eyes gleaming with interest rather than offense. "Go on."
Lelouch stepped forward, activating a projection. The battlefield shifted—Federation formations highlighted, their Gundam units marked as spearheads, logistics ships clustered farther back under heavy escort.
"They are overconfident," Lelouch continued. "They believe numerical superiority and Gundam aces will decide this battle. That assumption is our opening."
Kycilia frowned. "You're proposing a counteroffensive? With what forces?"
"With time," Lelouch said. "And misdirection."
He flicked his fingers. The projection changed again—A Baoa Qu's internal structure, secondary firing arcs, abandoned maintenance corridors, old Zeon defensive grids long written off as obsolete.
"The Federation expects a linear defense," Lelouch said. "Outer perimeter collapse, Gundam breakthrough, command decapitation. Instead, we let them in."
A murmur spread through the room.
Gihren's smile widened.
"Let them in," he repeated, amused. "You suggest sacrificing the fortress?"
"I suggest weaponizing it," Lelouch replied. "A Baoa Qu is not a wall. It is a maze. Force their Gundams to commit deep, isolate their command-and-control elements, fracture their ace coordination."
Kycilia's eyes narrowed. "That would require precise timing. And pilots willing to die holding corridors."
"Yes," Lelouch said calmly. "You already ordered cadets and students to deploy. They will hold—not because they are expendable, but because they will be positioned where Gundams cannot maneuver freely."
Silence fell.
Gihren studied Lelouch carefully now—not as an advisor, but as an equal.
"And what is your endgame?" Gihren asked. "Even if we bleed them… we cannot outlast them."
Lelouch met his gaze without flinching.
"This is not about winning," he said. "It is about deciding how the war ends."
A faint, dangerous laugh escaped Gihren.
"Excellent," he said. "At last, someone who understands."
He gestured to the displays. "Speak freely, Lelouch Von Zehrtfeld. Tell me how you would make the Federation regret stepping into my fortress."
Lelouch's eyes hardened.
"Then listen carefully," he said. "Because once this begins, there will be no retreat—for any of us."