Lucas paused. His distracted mind snapped back into true focus for a second, and he immediately found an explanation for what happened toward the end of the battle outside the dead planet.
He had felt the change in focus of the mission of his opponents, going from trying to kill him and snuff a threat to the fleet to stalling him, holding him off until a change they never managed to wait for. But he had indeed felt faint ripples of another super long-distance jump after the first one that brought the fleet to that stellar system, ripples that never turned into strong enough winds to part the watery curtain of the universe and bring its source over. Thus, what he deduced must have been the reinforcements never came for the Macans.
But it was indeed an army, then the part following the vanguard must have pulled back to minimize the casualties, and no response for a threat of his level got mobilized fast enough before he got bored and left.
