The Authorized Ender Companion Page 33

  Rat Army had been commanded by the soldier known as “Rose the Nose.” Like Bonzo, he tried unsuccessfully to get Ender to stop his practices with his launch group. He also ordered Ender not to use his computer desk. Ender disobeyed the orders on the advice of his toon leader, Dink Meeker.

  Ender and Dink, while not friends per se, had established a positive relationship. Though Dink held a cynical view of Battle School and the Formic War with which Ender disagreed, they were supportive of one another. Dink furthered Ender’s training, and after a short time slipping to number four in the Battle School rankings, Ender was back in the top position—the best soldier in the school.

  Ender’s launch group practices got smaller because of rumors of blacklisting. But after his unofficial team defeated several older boys, many commanders sent some of their soldiers to Ender for additional practice.

  Late in the year, Dink and his fellow Dutchman, Flip, secretly exchanged holiday gifts. This infuriated Zeck Morgan, a fellow member of Rat Army and a religious zealot. Zeck complained that an apparent expression of religious devotion had gone unpunished and convinced a group of Muslim students to say their daily prayers publicly. The Muslims were arrested for the religious observance, and Zeck was ostracized from the rest of Battle School for his role in the religious uprising. It wasn’t until Ender spoke with Zeck, and helped him realize the actual rights and wrongs about his religious traditions, that Zeck found any kind of acceptance among the Battle School community. It took Zeck beating Ender up, but it worked, and Ender had once again shown himself to be a remarkable person.

  At this same time, Ender renewed his obsession with the Fantasy Game where he’d killed the Giant. As he played it more, Ender killed wolflike children and a snake. He realized that there was a part of him that was a killer, and it made him sad. He even saw a reflection of himself in the game’s mirror, but the image was of Peter. Ender knew, deep down, that he was no different from his murderous older brother.

  By the time Ender was nine, he felt like nothing much had changed at Battle School. He’d become a toon leader in Phoenix Army, with his friend Petra as his commander. He had fallen into a bit of a depression. Seeing Peter’s face as his own in the mirror had been devastating. But more upsetting was the letter he received from Valentine. Although positive in tone, Valentine’s letter had been forced by the International Fleet; his beloved sister had been made a pawn in the Battle School’s game against him. Angry and sad, Ender threw himself into his studies more fully, fighting a war not against the Formics, but the officers at Battle School who had manipulated Valentine.

  Only three years after entering Battle School, Ender was promoted to commander at age nine—unheard of in the history of the school. But it was the result of his being at the top of the rankings for years. (In the original “Ender’s Game” short story, Ender was eleven at this point.) He was given a new army, Dragon Army, a stigmatized name that had not been used in four years.

  Unbeknownst to Ender, six-year-old Bean had been assigned by Graff and Battle School instructor Dimak to put together a list of soldiers for a hypothetical army, but he could only use launchies and soldiers whose commanders had requested they be transferred. Bean knew this army was to be commanded by Ender and tried to create as good a list as possible. Bean believed in the soldiers he selected for Ender, including himself, even if the rest of the school felt they were too young and inexperienced.

  Ender made the best of what was a seemingly bad situation. His army had been made up of new recruits, three years his ju nior, and lacking in experience. He asked Major Anderson for more experienced troops, but was denied.

  Ender and Bean didn’t get along at first in Dragon Army. Both saw the other as arrogant, without really realizing that they were actually teaching each other a great number of leadership skills. On the first day of practice as an army, Bean told Ender he wanted command of a toon. Ender said no, but Bean promised he’d earn one. Four weeks later he did—a special toon, unusual for armies at Battle School.

  Following his promotion, Ender was not allowed to practice with his friends from his launch group. This put a wall up between him and the others, particularly Alai who had been told that Ender was too good to practice with the “little guys” now. Though it had been a lie put forth by the officers, Alai and the others believed it, and it motivated them to try to defeat Ender’s Dragon Army.

  Despite the challenges of having new, inexperienced soldiers in his army, Ender trained them well, and they went undefeated. Army after army fell to them, sometimes even two armies or more per day. But Ender’s war was not with the other armies; it was with the officers of Battle School. It seemed the officers at Battle School realized this, and they returned fire. They made Ender’s schedule that much more difficult, taxing his army almost to the breaking point. Yet, again thanks to Ender’s strategy and leadership, the army was undefeated.

  They had beaten Rabbit Army, Phoenix Army, and five other armies in the course of a week—one army a day. Ender took to watching the video footage of previous Formic battles, particularly those of Mazer Rackham and his “Strike Force.” Other commanders followed suit, hoping to figure out what made Ender so dominant, but none was able to grasp what Ender did. Ender knew that all the real strategy had been edited out of the vids, but he studied them nonetheless.

  Ender felt tired and on the verge of breaking. He confided in Bean that he thought the officers of the school would break him soon. Bean comforted Ender and reassured him that all would be well. He was, after all, Ender Wiggin—the best soldier in the history of Battle School.

  Ender earned the ire of his former nemesis and commander, Bonzo Madrid. Bonzo was embarrassed by the shellacking he and his Salamander Army had endured at the hand of Ender’s army. He made the decision to kill Ender. Dink Meeker and Petra Arkanian, both commanders and once friends of Ender’s, made efforts to warn him.

  Bonzo made his move when Ender was in the shower. Accompanied by Bernard and some other older boys, Bonzo moved to attack Ender. Ender used his soapy body and the bathroom’s humidity to his advantage and struck back. With vicious blows to Bonzo’s face, chest, stomach, and groin, Ender unknowingly killed his attacker, saving his own life. Ender felt great guilt over beating Bonzo so severely.

  Because of Ender’s tremendous leadership in Dragon Army, most of his soldiers were promoted to command their own armies three years earlier than normal. His soldiers were nine, and their promotions spoke highly of the training and leadership found within Ender Wiggin. A similar tribute was given to Ender himself as he was sent to Command School, skipping over the traditional steps of first attending Tactical and Support School.

  Before going to Command School, Ender was sent to Greensboro, North Carolina, where his family had moved. He saw Valentine and told her how scared he was that he couldn’t defeat the Formics. He told her that he didn’t understand them, and as such was sure they’d beat him. Valentine did a good job convincing her brother that he was qualified to beat the Buggers, restoring, at least momentarily, Ender’s confidence.

  At Command School, Ender was taught to use the communication device known as the ansible and trained in simulators. He mastered the simulators; and after a year of training on them, stated they never got any harder. Immediately after he made that comment, Ender noticed that Graff left him and he was given a new mentor to train him.

  For a long period of time, Ender didn’t know that his mentor was actually Mazer Rackham, the legendary hero of the early Formic invasions of Earth. Mazer and Ender fought physically when they first met. Mazer was brutal to the preteen boy, but Ender found the strength to fight back.

  He was shocked to learn that many of his former toon leaders from Battle School (such as Bean, Petra Arkanian, Han Tzu, Dink Meeker, Vlad, and others) had been assigned toons under his command at Command School, though he never saw them face-to-face. Ender communicated with them over radio, giving orders as they faced the “enemy.”

  Ender’s experi
ence at Command School was not too different from his time at Battle School. He constantly won battles by coming up with unique strategies. Because he kept winning, Mazer Rackham and the other instructors kept making the battles more difficult. Ender described his own life as a slow nervous breakdown. He grew more and more anxious about the tests and games with the simulators. He was losing ships in the simulators and felt great levels of guilt about the lives—even if they were pretend—that were being lost because of him. He was plagued by nightmares, often waking up in tears. He even injured his own hand, gnawing on it in his sleep.

  The pressure of the exams pushed Ender to his limit. In the middle of one exam, he fainted and was put to bed for three days. When he recovered, he went right back to work in the simulator/exam room.

  The final game was scheduled, and a large group of observers looked on from above the simulation room. Ender sat alone in the large room, with his toon leaders communicating by radio. In this final game, Ender’s army was outnumbered a thousand to one. Yet Ender pushed on, determined to defeat the enemy he was convinced was Mazer Rackham. As the small human army moved toward their simulated enemy, Bean reminded Ender, “The enemy’s gate is down.”

  Ender and his army fought nobly, again utilizing unique strategy. Ender initialized a massive weapon, the Molecular Detachment Device, launching it at the planet below. A chain reaction burst forward from the planet’s core, and suddenly the entire world Ender and his enemy were orbiting in the simulator was destroyed. The observers cheered, and Mazer Rackham hugged Ender, telling him that Ender had won. But he had not just won a simulation. Hyrum Graff and Mazer revealed to Ender that the simulations were actually real: Ender had been commanding a real army and destroyed the Formics’ home world. Consequently, the Formics themselves were all killed. The war had been won by an eleven-year-old boy. And that boy had committed xenocide.

  Ender felt the worst guilt he’d ever experienced over the loss of the soldiers’ lives, as well as the death of an entire species. The International Fleet promoted Ender to admiral, though they did not give him a ship to command: he was only allowed simple, menial duties, which allowed him more time to think and feel guilty. All he wanted to do was sleep and return home to Greensboro and to Valentine. Unfortunately, war had broken out on Earth, and Ender’s life was in jeopardy. Even after the brief conflict was resolved, Ender learned he could never return home. Essayists Locke and Demosthenes had called for Ender to stay in space. Because of these essays, and to protect his life, Ender was selected to be the governor of the first colony of human settlers on former Formic worlds.

  Not yet knowing for sure that he would be kept in space, Ender watched Graff’s court-martial and learned for certain that he had killed Stilson and Bonzo. More guilt over unnecessary death filled his heart and was a heavy burden. He was thirteen now, and waiting for the ship that would take him to his first new colony.

  Ender became obsessed with the Formics in this period as well. He watched and rewatched the vids from the various wars over and over again, trying to understand how they could allow themselves to be so easily annihilated. This obsession continued unabated, however. When Ender first toured his colony ship, he was fascinated by the Formic technology, which had been adapted for human use on spaceships. He was shocked to learn that the Molecular Detachment Device that he’d used to extinguish the Formics was also based on their own technology.

  Valentine arrived at Eros and told Ender that it was she, as Demosthenes, who had seen to his assignment in the colonies and inability to return to Earth in order to keep him free from Peter and his power as the leader of Earth. She had come to Eros to join him on the first colony vessel. Graff had, moments before, told Ender that his siblings were the essayists Locke and Demosthenes. Ender loved Valentine and was glad to see her, but he had no idea that she and Peter had been so manipulative on the world stage. But their reunion was a joyous one.

  As his colony ship departed from Earth, Ender posed for the requisite photos with Graff, Mazer, and other military and political leaders. Once on board the vessel, he met with the ship’s commander, Admiral Quincy Morgan, and advised the officer that he would not interfere with any operations on the ship. Ender said he had no authority as governor until he arrived at Shakespeare Colony and was no longer interested in giving military orders. The conversation was a little reassuring to Admiral Quincy, who was secretly making plans to usurp Ender’s position as governor when the ship reached its destination.

  Ender spent his time on the ship getting to know the passengers who would be his fellow colonists. If he was to govern them, he wanted to know them all as well as possible. Among them were Dorabella and Alessandra Toscano, a mother and daughter from Italy. Dorabella wanted her daughter to marry Ender. Ender knew that was Dorabella’s intent, but did not betray this knowledge. Instead, he was friendly with them, even helping them plan a reading of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew on board the ship. The play reading earned the ire of Admiral Morgan, bringing Ender and him into another confrontation.

  Admiral Morgan believed Ender was causing a mutiny by holding the play reading. He was more convinced of this when a large message from Earth interfered with ship communications. Admiral Morgan screamed at Ender, insulting him along the way. Ender listened to the insults patiently, and responded calmly to every accusation. The message, it turned out, was actually from Peter to Valentine, updating Valentine on Peter’s rise to Hegemon of Earth.

  Valentine arrived and showed the message to Admiral Morgan who, embarrassed, allowed the play to go on, and even ageed to attend. Ender knew that Morgan was still trying to usurp his role as leader of the people, and was now toying with him. Morgan attended the play where Ender performed opposite Alessandra Toscano. The performance increased Alessandra’s affection for the future governor.

  Ender fostered this affection by being kind to Alessandra, earning him the ire of his sister Valentine. She asked him to stop leading the girl on, which Ender denied ever doing. His sister’s request gave him cause to think about his actions, though, and he realized that he could do more to soften Alessandra’s feelings for him.

  Ender also kept in contact with the governor of Shakespeare. The two knew that potential power struggles awaited Ender on the planet and were both working to prevent them. A new governor, scientist Sel Menach, would be in power when Ender arrived. He would ensure that Ender’s position as leader of the colony would be maintained and respected. It was up to Ender to make sure that Admiral Morgan did not try to take over in the colony.

  With the help of Hyrum Graff and the new Polemarch Bakossi Wuri, Ender created a scenario where Admiral Morgan believed he could take over the governorship, but was proved wrong. Ender interrupted Morgan’s planned ceremony on the surface of Shakespeare and received a hero’s welcome from the original colonists. Morgan, humiliated, was livid at Ender. Ender gave Morgan a note from Graff and Wuri warning Morgan not to interfere with Ender’s position as both governor and a superior officer or he would face charges of mutiny. Morgan left Shakespeare Colony defeated, and Ender began his assignment as governor.

  Ender also used his influence to give Alessandra the confidence to leave her mother on the spaceship and stay on Shakespeare, too. The two would never be lovers, but Alessandra was grateful to be free of her mother’s influence forever.

  Almost immediately after arriving at Shakespeare, Ender learned that a species of Formic-like creatures called Gold Bugs had been discovered. He was saddened to learn that there were no Formics on the world. Or so he thought.

  More comfortable in his position as governor, Ender finally wrote a letter to his parents. It was a heartfelt communication, the first he’d sent since he left their home at six years of age. Though his parents were now very old, they cherished the letters Ender sent them.

  Ender also opened communication with Peter. Although his older brother was nearing sixty, and was the Hegemon, Ender found he was able to build a relationship with him, though he would fore
ver remember Peter as the bully of their youth.

  After two years on this new planet, he learned that a new colony ship was on its way. He was instructed to find a new place on the planet for them to settle. Traveling with an eleven-year-old boy named Abra Tolo, Ender discovered a grassy hill. He recognized it as being created from the Giant’s Drink game he’d played as a boy in Battle School, though that seemed impossible. Ender explored the hill, and there he found the pupa of a Formic Hive Queen. The Formics had apparently created the grassy hill from Ender’s mind, and left it for him to find years later. Ender could communicate with the Hive Queen mind to mind; he promised to care for the alien creature forever.

  Through the philotic communication between Ender and the Hive Queen, he was able to write the book The Hive Queen, which told the story of the Formic Wars from the Buggers’ perspective. The book was published on Earth under Ender’s new pseudonym, “Speaker for the Dead.” The book was revolutionary on Earth, becoming one of the world’s most-read documents.

  Through the book, Ender’s name was tarnished, however. He was no longer the hero of the Formic Wars, but the monster that killed billions, wiping out an entire species. Public opinion on the war, which was history now on Earth, had soured. Ender, once thought of as a hero, was now viewed as the greatest war criminal of all time—“Ender the Xenocide.”

  The Speaker for the Dead also wrote The Hegemon, a book that told the story of his brother Peter and his rise to power in world politics as well as his life with his wife, Ender’s friend Petra. In writing the book, Ender spoke with Peter, and the two estranged brothers were able to make peace for the first time in their lives. Peter was an old man, while Ender was still young. But they both were grateful for the chance to reconcile before Peter’s death, which occurred shortly before the Earth publication of the book.