Fearless (The Lost Fleet, #2)

by Jack Campbell

“Because, to the great misfortune of humanity, military history is very often the story of commanders repeating the same unsuccessful way of fighting again and again while their own forces are destroyed in droves. I don’t pretend to know why that is, but it’s a sad truth; commanders who don’t learn from immediate or long-term experience, who keep hurling their forces forward as if causing the same useless deaths time and again will eventually change the outcome.”

The longstanding thorn in your side Captain Numos is stupid. In fact, Numos is so dense that I’m surprised he doesn’t have his own event horizon.

Ignorance is bliss, he thought. No, that can’t be right. What I don’t know right now is driving me nuts. Ignorance is only blissful if you don’t know you’re ignorant.

“Lieutenant, if self-interest motivated humans, then you, I, and every other Alliance and Syndic soldier, sailor, and Marine would be sitting on a beach back on our home worlds drinking beer. For better or for worse, people believe in things they’ll fight for. In our case, better, in their case, worse.”