The Lost Stars by Jack Campbell

backstop me and each other. If there’s a flaw in my plans or thinking, one of them will spot it and tell me before the other does. If one of them is missing something, the other will catch it. It makes for some drama, but they both know when to knock itoff.”
    â€œDo they?” Iceni asked.
    Perhaps something about her tone made it clear she was referring to Morgan because Drakon reddened slightly. “No one is perfect,” he muttered, before turning to study the main display intently.
    Iceni wondered if he was talking about Morgan, himself, or her. Had Drakon’s words been an oblique apology, a criticism of her, or a defiant defense of himself?
    Why do I care? It’s not like there aren’t much more important things to worry about.
    On the display, the Syndicate flotilla and the enigma attack force remained passive, giving no clues as to their intentions. It was very odd how hard it could be to deal with a lack of action.
    TWENTY-ONE hours after the arrival of the enigma force, new alerts sounded in the command center. On this part of the planet, it was nearly midnight, but Iceni took only moments to reach the main room, finding Drakon already there.
    â€œWhat is it?” she asked, trying to reconcile the symbols appearing on the display with her own expectations. But those symbols stubbornly refused to make sense until Drakon suddenly laughed harshly.
    â€œYour hero Black Jack is back.”
    She blinked, the symbols abruptly reordering themselves in her mind and finally becoming clear. “The Alliance fleet. The enigmas didn’t destroy it afterall.”
    â€œThey took out a big chunk of it,” Drakon growled, one hand waving toward the display. “All I’m seeing is battle cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers, and those numbers are down from what Black Jack left here with.”
    Iceni stared, her eyes running from totals to individual ship symbols. “None of the battleships? None of the heavy cruisers? The enigmas hurt that fleet badly.”
    Drakon frowned. “How could a mobile force lose just the battleships and heavy cruisers in total?”
    â€œIf they needed to escape,” Iceni explained in a voice she could tell had gone cold, her memory conjuring up dark recollections of some events she had witnessed during her time serving with the Syndicate mobile forces. “The battleships are slower, but massive. They form a rear guard, holding off pursuit. In the worst case, they sacrifice themselves so swifter ships can escape to fight another day. I suppose the heavy cruisers stayed with the battleships.”
    â€œDamn.” The one word from Drakon fell heavily, carrying a weight of meaning. “I know how that works in the ground forces. It’s a very hard thing to demand of people, to tell them to fight to the death so others can get away.”
    Iceni shook her head, her eyes still on the display. “Their auxiliaries aren’t here, either.”
    â€œAuxiliaries?”
    â€œThe repair ships the Alliance uses to accompany their fleets. And the troop transports they had aren’t here, either. The enigmas must have gotten them, too, because they weren’t swift enough to escape.”
    â€œIs it possible,” Drakon asked, “that we’re interpreting this wrong?”
    â€œThere’s a way to check.” Iceni took a few steps toward the primary control console. “Give us close-up views of those Alliance ships,” she ordered the operator.
    Large virtual windows appeared before her and Drakon, in which every detail of the far-distant ships could be plainly seen. Those ships were four and a half light-hours away, having arrived at the same jump point from which the enigmas had come. Each light-hour was a bit more than a billion kilometers, making the distance to those ships over four and a half billion kilometers. But optics in orbit around this world could see across space with crystal-clear