The Authorized Ender Companion (43 page)

At Battle School, Ender found his bunk, the only one available in his room. Following instructions given by the computer, he also discovered his locker and the jumpsuits it contained. He met Dap, his supervisor, and learned quickly the geography of Battle School.

Ender enjoyed watching the video games the older boys played and, by watching, figured out how to win the games. He beat an older boy at the video game on only his second attempt playing. Though the victory did not gain Ender any respect, it was personally gratifying to know that he could learn and win so quickly.

A short time later, Bernard (the boy whose arm Ender broke on their spaceflight) assembled a gang of fellow students. Like Peter, Bernard enjoyed picking on Ender. Bernard also mocked other students including a boy named Shen. Ender, tired of the bullying, hacked into the school’s computer system and sent messages under assumed names such as “God” to the other students’ computer desks. These messages mocked Bernard and resulted in Bernard bullying others further to reassert his standing among the students. The messages also served to make students like Shen grow loyal to Ender. These loyal students became the members of Ender’s own gang in the school.

When Ender first entered the Battle Room at Battle School, it was an awkward experience, though by befriending Alai—Bernard’s best friend—he was able to work up rudimentary skills of zero-gravity motion. The two new friends teamed up, and with Shen and Bernard, they froze the rest of the first-timers in the Battle Room.

One of Ender’s most common activities during the allotted “Free Play” time each day was playing the “Giant’s Drink,” a video game that seemed unbeatable. Ender grew obsessed with defeating the Giant in the game, and though the process was frustrating, he eventually won. His character in the game killed the Giant, a fact that haunted the young boy. He felt that he was a murderer.

But accomplishing the impossible had a surprising consequence. Ender was promoted to be a member of the Salamander Army, commanded by
Bonzo Madrid. The promotion came over a year early, when Ender was still six. Such assignments never came before a student was eight. As he left his launch group, Ender shared a brief, tender moment with Alai, solidifying their friendship.

Bonzo resented Ender who, he felt, was too young and inexperienced to be in an army. Ignoring the harsh treatment from his commander, Ender decided to contribute all he could and learn even more during his time with Salamander. In Salamander Army, Ender also met Petra Arkanian, one of the few female students at Battle School. Both outcasts, Ender and Petra became friends. Petra took Ender to the Battle Room for an extra practice since Ender wasn’t allowed to practice with his army. For further practice, Ender organized Free Play practice sessions in the Battle Room, inviting his friends from his launch group.

Ender obeyed Bonzo’s orders, which included not drawing his weapon in actual battles. In a battle against Leopard Army, however, Ender finally broke from his commander and fired his weapon. As a result, Bonzo traded Ender to Rat Army. Ender was seven now. He’d been at Battle School for just over a year.

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 experience 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.