The artificial sun of Granada Station bled a sickly orange into the cavernous hangar bay, illuminating the skeletal frames of transport vessels and the ant-like figures of maintenance crews swarming around them. Major Tanya von Zehrtfeld, commander of Zeon's elite Grenadier Elite Detachment (GED), stood on a raised gantry, her gaze sweeping over the controlled chaos below. A few strands of platinum-blonde hair had escaped her severe bun, an uncharacteristic hint of the relentless pressure she carried.
A comm-pad glowed faintly in her gloved hand, displaying a countdown: 72 hours until they descended to Earth.
"Major, final pre-flight diagnostics are green across the board," reported Lieutenant Mila Petrov, her voice crisp over the comm, even from twenty meters below. Mila—young, sharp, and almost dangerously idealistic—stepped onto the gantry ramp. "The Hammerhead and its escorts are cleared for atmospheric insertion. Our landing zones near Central Asia are confirmed. All systems nominal."
Tanya nodded, a curt dip of the head. Her ice-blue eyes narrowed as she watched a squad of engineers scrutinizing a re-entry shield. Zeon's High Command had dubbed this a "symbolic occupation wave." Tanya called it what it was: a prelude. A dangerous one.
"It's almost hard to believe, isn't it, Major?" Mila ventured, her tone betraying a glimmer of hope. "The Federation surrendering. After everything... is it truly over?"
Tanya turned to face her, unreadable as always. Mila's optimism was persistent, but naive. Tanya respected her efficiency, her discipline. But idealism was a liability.
"Over?" Tanya said, voice low. Her gaze flicked to the massive observation window where Earth shimmered, a distant blue marble. "We didn't break their spirit. We caught them between breaths. Wait until they exhale."
Mila frowned. "But their fleets... orbital defenses... they're shattered. What more could they possibly muster?"
Tanya let out a cold, dry scoff. "Humans adapt. Empires rebuild. And the Federation, for all its rot, still has deep roots. You don't kill a tree by trimming its branches."
She tapped her comm-pad, pulling up a tactical overlay of Central Asia. Wide swaths of mountain and desert, intersected by critical supply arteries and defunct Federation bunkers.
"This mission isn't about celebration. It's about fortification. They'll come back—not with parades, but with fire."
Encrypted missives from her twin brother Lelouch still replayed in her mind. His last message had been brief, buried in a logistics code: Victory is prelude. Expect claws.
The Zeon High Command, Gihren especially, believed they had decapitated the Federation. Capturing General Revil. Scattering their fleets. But Tanya had seen it too many times in history. Broken enemies did not stay broken. They became something worse: united.
"Reports show Federation remnants regrouping in the Outer Rim," Mila added, trying to align her perspective. "But they're scattered. Leaderless."
"Leaderless today. Tomorrow? They'll find a new one," Tanya replied, her tone clipped. "And they won't care about rules or optics. They'll want revenge."
She recalled Richter, her late comrade lost during Loum. His death had been precise and clean—just like every kill GED delivered. But it had shaken morale. She had replaced him with Halberd, a quiet rookie with a sniper's focus. The rest of GED remained sharp: Yorick, Camilla, and the twins, Sten and Vera. Each of them a blade she had personally honed.
A ping echoed from her comm. Headquarters had requested a recorded statement for public morale. A speech. Tanya deleted the message without opening it.
Speeches didn't hold lines. Soldiers did.
The klaxon blared—final boarding call. Engineers scrambled to disconnect umbilicals. The hangar vibrated as the great Hammerhead-class transport awoke.
"Major, your orders?" Mila asked, visibly steadier now.
"GED, rapid deployment formation. Priority boarding for tactical and engineering units. Live comms across all squads through descent."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Tanya took one last look at Granada Station. Somewhere below, the Zabis celebrated. Dozle had already begun shifting troops. Kycilia plotted in shadows. Gihren prepared for his speech.
She stepped into the boarding tube, the scent of recycled air and ion residue filling her lungs. Her visor lowered with a hiss. There was no room for sentiment.
This was not an end.
The air in the Zeon command hub was thick with an almost palpable ecstasy, a heady scent of victory that intoxicated all who breathed it. News had ripped through the ranks like wildfire, celebrated in shouts and claps that echoed off the high, steel-plated ceilings. General Revil, the Federation's most celebrated strategic mind, had been captured. And the architect of this triumph? None other than the Red Comet, Char Aznable.
Amidst the boisterous celebration, the young Prince Garma Zabi stood radiating a boyish glee, his face alight with unbridled optimism. He clapped Char on the shoulder, his voice booming with the confidence of a man who believed the war was all but over. "Char, you magnificent devil! Revil captured! There's nothing left. The Federation will surrender within the week, I tell you!" His declaration was met with a chorus of agreements, loyal officers nodding vigorously, their faces mirroring his triumphant smile.
Lelouch von Zehrtfeld, standing a little apart from the main throng with his elder sister Selene, felt a shiver of unease trace its way down his spine. He watched Garma, a childhood friend, with an analytical gaze that saw not just the joy, but the dangerous, unshakeable certainty. Selene, ever attuned to her younger brother's subtle shifts, nudged him lightly. "He's right, isn't he? It's over." Her voice held a note of hope, a yearning for peace after years of conflict.
Lelouch's eyes, however, were already scanning the large tactical displays that still glowed faintly, showing the general disposition of forces, the last known Federation movements, the silent void that had settled beyond the immediate sphere of Zeon control. "No, Selene," he murmured, his voice low, almost a whisper against the celebratory din. "He's wrong. Terribly, dangerously wrong."
He'd been observing the data feeds for hours, long before the news of Revil's capture had broken. His mind, a labyrinth of deductive reasoning and cynical foresight, had been piecing together a different narrative. The silence, for one. It was too absolute. A defeated enemy might fall quiet, but not like this. There were no desperate, scattered signals, no frantic last-ditch counterattacks, no broken codes leaking intelligence. It was a vacuum, too perfect to be natural, like a sound stage where the audience holds its breath on cue.
"Look at the fleet movements," Lelouch began, gesturing subtly towards a corner of the main tactical screen. "They talk of mop-up operations, of consolidating our gains. Yet, observe the Fifth Zeon Fleet. Why are they redeploying towards the Riah space branch, away from the core Federation defensive lines? And the Ninth, supposedly crippled in the last engagement, seems to have vanished from the active roster, rather than returning for repairs. It makes no strategic sense for a victorious force to disperse like this, nor for a defeated force to simply… cease to exist."
Selene's brow furrowed, her bright eyes narrowing as she tried to follow his complex thought process. She had always been the more grounded of the siblings, pragmatic where he was theoretical, but she trusted his instincts implicitly. His mind worked on a different plane, seeing connections where others saw only isolated events.
"And the troop reallocations," Lelouch continued, his voice picking up a quiet intensity. "We've seen a sudden pull-back of certain elite Federation ground units from key supply depots, not in retreat, but in what appears to be a coordinated withdrawal. They aren't running; they're relocating. And the Zeon High Command, perhaps blinded by this 'victory,' seems to be shuffling our own forces into positions that, while seemingly advantageous for an invasion, could also be vulnerable choke points if the enemy were to suddenly… regain their footing." He tapped a finger on a schematic displaying troop concentrations. "Our supply lines, too. They're being stretched thinner than a gossamer thread, assuming a complete collapse of Federation resistance. It's an almost reckless overextension."
He felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. This wasn't the messy, desperate unraveling of a defeated military. It was too clean, too precise. It felt… staged.
"This silence, Selene," he whispered, his gaze distant, lost in the web of his own deductions. "It's not the silence of defeat. It's the prelude to an ambush. A trap. They captured Revil, yes, but what if that was by design? What if Revil's capture was a bait, a carefully orchestrated illusion to draw us into a false sense of security, to make us drop our guard, to overextend?"
His eyes flashed, a spark of the sharp, strategic genius that lay beneath his cool demeanor. This is a stage play, he thought, the phrase echoing in the quiet chambers of his mind. And someone backstage is cutting the wires. He could almost see the puppet strings, invisible to Garma and the celebrating officers, being expertly manipulated by an unseen hand. The Federation, supposedly crippled, was pulling its punches, allowing this grand charade of victory to unfold.
Selene leaned closer, her initial hope replaced by a growing dread. "But why? What could they gain from such a deception? Revil is a huge asset."
"Precisely," Lelouch countered, his voice barely audible above the fading cheers. "He is a huge asset. Too huge to simply give up without a fight. His capture could be a trade. A trade for our complacency, for our overconfidence. They want us to believe it's over. They want us to lower our guard. They want us to spread our fleets thin, to revel in victory while they prepare their true strike."
He traced an imaginary line on the tactical map. "Look at the patterns. The way their communication blackouts are layered, like a complex encryption, not a system failure. The way their 'retreats' always lead to sectors that offer tactical advantages for a counter-offensive. The way they've allowed Char to capture Revil, a figure already known for his unpredictable, almost theatrical, approach to warfare. It's almost too perfect for a natural flow of war."
He turned to Selene, his face grim. "They're not defeated. They're regrouping. They're observing. They're waiting for us to make the fatal mistake of believing Garma's pronouncements. They're playing us."
The celebratory sounds in the hub began to ebb, replaced by a low hum of activity as officers returned to their stations, still flushed with victory but settling back into routine. Garma, still beaming, caught sight of them and began to approach, likely to share another triumphant thought.
"We have to warn someone, Lelouch," Selene urged, her voice tight with concern. "They won't listen to Garma."
Lelouch's gaze hardened, drifting back to the silent regions of the tactical display. He knew the uphill battle they faced. To shatter the illusion of victory, to inject doubt into the intoxicating joy of triumph, was a thankless, often impossible task. Especially when the one delivering the unwelcome truth was seen as merely cautious, rather than insightful.
He watched Garma draw closer, his face beaming, ready to bask in the glory of the moment. And Lelouch knew, with a chilling certainty, that Zeon was walking into a meticulously crafted trap, a grand deception designed not just to win a battle, but to crush a spirit. The silence wasn't peace; it was the eerie quiet before the storm. And the von Zehrtfeld siblings, alone in their chilling premonition, could only stand and watch as the curtain rose on the next, far deadlier, act of the war.