As soon as Kane, El-Elf, and Renard returned to the Moon Base, Xiao Ran set aside everything else and summoned the three of them to his office. After learning that the scouts Xiao Ran had dispatched had returned, Lacus took the initiative to come over with Flay. Master Asia also came with Domon and Fukamura Rin because of Domon's concerns.
Xiao Ran did not stop the others from arriving. Instead, he allowed them to sit in his office and listen in.
Of El-Elf, Kane, and Renard, El-Elf was the more straightforward one in certain respects. Seeing that neither Kane nor Renard intended to speak, he did not hesitate. Taking out his Personal Terminal, he was the first to speak.
"Over the past half month, I focused my investigation on the self-destruction of the Apocalypse. Based on the wreckage from its destruction and the information recovered by repairing its systems, its self-destruction resulted from two causes. First, there was a backdoor in the Apocalypse's system backend. It was likely deliberately left there when the Apocalypse was built. I surmise it was prepared by ZAFT as a precaution against you."
"The second cause was that someone inside the Apocalypse actively helped open the backend and assisted in activating the backdoor's self-destruct program. However, the Apocalypse's systems were too severely damaged, resulting in the loss of much data. We can only determine the general range of people who logged into the system at the time."
Xiao Ran nodded lightly upon hearing El-Elf's words. When he had first learned that someone had entered the Apocalypse's backend and detonated it, he had suspected that ZAFT had left behind this backdoor. What he had not expected was that someone within the Apocalypse Unit had cooperated in the Apocalypse's destruction.
Domon was stunned when he heard El-Elf's