Together

Chapter 10★ Amy

Our schedule is Battle room, breakfast, class, free, lunch, battle room, gym, dinner, class. I don't really see the point of classes so late since it's unlikely that we'll retain enough information to pass them.

We get to the battle room for the first time and Ender starts showing us some moves. Since we have eleven launchies, he starts off pretty simple. He shows one technique that is really useful. He used to use it all the time, which is why he has such high Battle Room ratings.

"Tuck your knees to your chest. Show them your feet. Why is that useful?" A pause. No one is brave enough to hazard a guess. "Anyone? Okay then, Bean! Why is going foot first into battle useful?" Bean looks at his feet for a minute, thinking.

"Because your feet are a smaller target. And if the enemy does manage to hit you, they only freeze your feet or legs, allowing you to keep shooting."

"Yep. Now, orientation. How have your past commanders had you orient?" A voice behind me pipes up.

"They haven't really told us how to orient. They just assess the setup and call a formation."

"Exactly. But I think it will be much easier for all of us if we orient the same way, since we will not be doing formations. Now, what is the easiest way to orient?"

"Same way you came out! Obviously." It's the girl from Centipede.

"Well, we could try that, but how can you reorient from across the Battle room?"

"You can't." The words are out before I know what I'm saying. Ender looks at me. "You need a large point of origin that can be seen from all areas of the Battle room. There are only two. The enemy's gate and our own."

"Absolutely. So what does this imply about the way we need to orient?" We all look at each other. No one knows. "Nobody? Okay then, Thompson, since you seem on top of this subject, why don't you tell us how we should orient."

"It means that the enemy's gate is down. It is very easy to imagine the enemy's gate as the gravitational origin. We fall towards the enemy's gate, as opposed to jumping up towards it."

"Yep. Now-" Ender is cut off by someone in the back.

"Wait, sir. We aren't doing formations?"

"That's what I said, I should hope."

"But everyone else does formations!" Says a different voice. Aiden.

"Which is why we'll have the advantage. Our toons will be able to adapt to a battle, as opposed to sticking rigidly to a preset formation." Everyone nods. We all agree that this is a good idea.

"Speaking of which, there will be five toons of eight, as opposed to four of ten, which I will assign now. Toon leaders are : Tom, toon E, Dink, toon C, Fly, toon D, Amy, toon A..." I don't hear anything else. Why would Ender make me a toon leader? He calls out names, and directs us to split and work with our toons.

★★★

I notice right away that Ender put about equal amounts of veterans and launchies in a toon, which means we all have about levels of experience. Smart. This way, if the enemy takes out toon A or B, we don't lose all of our best soldiers.

I walk over to my toon. Aiden is here. I smile at him. He smiles back. I look around. Bean, and another launchy.

"Alright." They all turn to look at me. I'm suddenly very nervous. "The first thing we will do as a toon will be getting to know each other better." The launchy pipes up.

"Why, sir?" Oh gee, I'm a sir now. Right, moving on.

"Trust is imperative. We will be able to work together better if we know each other. You will need to get to know each other's fighting style, which will also enable us to better work together. Sit together at meals, group study sessions for class, whatever. End of this week, I want each of you to be able to tell me the name of every dog ever owned by anyone in this toon." They all giggle. I take that as a good sign. "Divide into half toons. We're going to battle each other. Ten seconds." I count off in my head.

"You two launchies can't be together."

"Why not?"

"The two of you need to pick up fighting skills from the rest of your half toon. It's much harder to get a good skill set if the two of you make up half of the toon." Bean nods and walks over to the other toon. "Our battle space will consist from here to the back corner. This star," I say, gesturing to a line of stars beside me," marks the other boundary line. My team, you are team one. We go to the wall. Team two, pick a leader. When we reach the other wall, give us two minutes to pick a leader and then come after us. Get it?"

"Got it." Replies the whole of my toon.

"Good. Team one, let's go!" I push off of a nearby star and head for the back wall.