Gary Lin's hands tightened on the Strike Gundam's controls.
The system's words echoed in his head—escape the Lelouch strategy… main fleet condition unknown. For once, it had not been sarcastic. That alone made him uneasy.
All units held position in the dead quiet before A Baoa Qu. Too quiet.
Then Bright Noa's voice cut in, firm and decisive.
"All units—advance. Maintain formation."
The fleet surged forward.
Gary hesitated for half a second, thrusters flaring late. His instincts screamed at him to wait, to look again, to not commit.
"Strike, move," Lockon Stratos said over a private channel. Calm. Grounded. "Whatever's ahead, we handle it together. Don't fall out of formation."
"…Roger," Gary replied, forcing himself forward.
Then space tore open with light.
A colossal beam lanced across the void, white-hot and absolute. It punched straight through a Salamis-class flagship on the left flank—the carrier loaded with GM units—cutting it in half as if it were paper.
The ship didn't explode immediately. It failed, structure collapsing inward, then vanished in a bloom of fire and debris.
GMs launching nearby were caught in the wash. Three disappeared instantly. Two more spun away, systems dead, then shattered against drifting wreckage.
"Carrier Three is gone!" someone screamed.
Gary's sensors snapped toward the beam's origin.
A satellite.
No—that satellite.
Massive. Angular. Armed with a primary cannon that dwarfed anything mounted on a battleship.
His breath caught.
"…I've seen that," he muttered. "Somewhere. Damn it—where—"
Bright didn't hesitate.
"All units, full speed! Target that satellite! If we don't take it out now, it'll slaughter the fleet!"
Thrusters roared as White Base and the vanguard accelerated.
And that was when Zeon struck.
From the shadows around A Baoa Qu, Zeon ships surged forward—cruisers, Musai variants, assault carriers—blocking approach vectors with brutal precision. Mobile suits poured out with them: Zakus, Gelgoogs, and mobile armors of unfamiliar configurations, bristling with weapons.
"Contact front!"
"Multiple MA signatures!"
"They're boxing us in!"
Gary's blood ran cold.
Then his rear sensors screamed.
He twisted the Strike Gundam around.
"Behind us—!"
Fifty Zeon ships.
They hadn't warped in. They hadn't charged openly.
They were simply… there.
"Minovsky jamming explains detection failure," Shirogane Miyuki said tightly from his flagship, "but this—this is too clean. We didn't see anything move."
Bright clenched his jaw. "All units, don't break—"
Oreki Houtarou's voice cut through, calm and unnervingly precise.
"Minovsky jamming is only part of it," he said. "The other reason is simpler."
Silence followed.
"They were already there."
Hikigaya Hachiman frowned. "What do you mean, already there?"
Oreki continued, unfazed. "The moment Zeon activated the jamming, they launched. Not toward us—around us. Wide arcs. Long vectors. We assumed nothing moved because we were stationary."
Miyuki snapped back, "That's impossible. That would take too long—"
"Did we move?" Oreki asked quietly.
The question hung in the air.
Bright exhaled sharply. He knew the answer. They had stopped—because Amuro had asked them to. Because something felt wrong.
"And while we waited," Oreki added, "they finished surrounding us."
Gary swallowed.
"So this is the trap," he muttered. "They didn't ambush us. They closed the door."
Amuro's voice came in, strained. "Bright… something's wrong. It's not just the ships."
Oreki nodded, though no one could see him. "There may be a secondary system in play. A device—possibly tied to Newtype suppression. Interference not with sensors, but with people."
Amuro went quiet.
Gary felt it then—a pressure behind his eyes, like static crawling along his thoughts. Not pain. Discomfort. Disorientation.
"…Great," he muttered. "A brain jammer. Because why not."
Zeon fire intensified. The satellite's cannon began recharging, its glow building again.
Bright straightened, voice hardening into command steel.
"All units, we're breaking through. No retreat. No hesitation."
Gary stared at the encirclement, at the satellite, at the kill zone they had drifted into.
And deep down, he knew—this was not a battle Zeon meant to win quickly.
This was a battle meant to hold them here.
Gihren Zabi stood alone in the command sanctum deep within A Baoa Qu, hands clasped behind his back, eyes fixed on the layered holographic projection before him.
The Federation vanguard advanced into the kill zone exactly as calculated.
He smiled.
On one display, the battlefield unfolded in cold geometry—White Base and its escort fleet slowing under Minovsky interference, Gundam units clustered forward, Zeon formations tightening the noose. On another, a far larger schematic rotated in solemn silence.
The Solar System.
And beneath it—new, refined, unmistakably lethal—
The A Baoa Qu Defense System.
The Solar System array had been the first step: a brute-force beam weapon, devastating but flawed. Long recharge cycles. Predictable firing windows. Immense energy draw. It had been designed for annihilation, not control.
Gihren had corrected that mistake.
"Power invites excess," he murmured. "Control invites victory."
The new system—built into A Baoa Qu itself—was the answer. Multiple distributed emitters woven into the fortress structure, each capable of independent fire. Shorter charge times. Rapid sequencing. Overlapping kill zones.
Not a single godlike beam.
A storm.
It had been completed only hours ago, rushed beyond safe margins, stabilized by theories no ordinary Zeon engineer would have dared implement.
The integration of beam harmonics with Newtype resonance fields.
A decision born of desperation—and genius.
And made possible only because Jason Arkadi's theoretical framework existed.
Gihren did not know the man personally. He did not need to. He had read the stolen projections, the impossible energy-flow equations, the concepts that treated human perception as part of a weapons system rather than a limitation.
Absurd. Dangerous.
Perfect.
"Newtype power was never meant to liberate humanity," Gihren said softly. "It was meant to refine it."
An aide's voice crackled in. "Supreme Commander, the Federation vanguard is fully within effective range. Gundam units confirmed at the forefront."
Gihren's smile widened.
"Excellent."
He gestured, and the projection shifted. The Solar System array rotated, capacitors glowing, while beneath it the A Baoa Qu system came alive—nodes lighting one by one like a constellation being born.
Two weapons. Two tempos.
The Solar System would strike first—overwhelming, spectacular, terrifying.
Then, while the Federation struggled to regroup, the A Baoa Qu system would speak—rapid fire, precision strikes, sustained pressure.
Destruction was not the objective.
Disarray was.
Let the Gundams burn. Let the myth of invincible Federation aces shatter in full view of their fleet. Let morale collapse under the realization that even their symbols of hope could be erased.
"If the Gundams fall here," Gihren said, almost reverently, "the Federation's will follows."
He watched the Vanguard drift deeper, unaware that the fortress itself had become a weapon—one designed not merely to kill ships, but to break belief.
"For too long," he continued, "Zeon has been forced to react. To endure. To bleed."
His eyes hardened, the smile never fading.
"Now," Gihren Zabi declared, "we remind them who dictates the future of this war."
And deep within A Baoa Qu, the first emitters reached full charge.