Together

Chapter 17 ★Amy

We get battles once a day, every day, for three weeks. At one point we fight Petra and her Phoenix army. She's at least recovered from not being chosen. I talked to her afterwards. While she was upset, to say the least, about losing she seemed genuinely excited to see Fly, Dink and I. In one battle, enemy soldiers unfroze at regular intervals, so that was a bit difficult.

After the three weeks, most of us are deprived of sleep and have low grades in class or have plenty of sleep and missing work. I have managed to keep my grades at an A minus average, with not much sleep, but I know many others aren't doing as well. Even Bean and Wolf seem to be struggling to keep up.

After three weeks, we start getting two battles a day. Every day. For two weeks. Until we have fought every army in this blasted school, and won every battle. Most of us have stopped caring about grades at this point, but I still manage to scrape by with a B and 6 hours of sleep. Ender checks on me every once in a while. He knows it's stressful, probably even more so for him than it is for me. We just talk. About nothing. Family, home. Math. It's nice to not talk about battles and strategies and statistics every waking second of every day. He tells me about studying Formic flight patterns, and how every other commander copies him, but doesn't know what he's looking for. He bases some of our strategies off of them though, so I guess he's beginning to understand.

After a month of stress, battles and ever changing battle scenarios, Ender comes in with something so completely away from the system that I know that Graff and his blasted superiors plan to make Ender the Battle commander for the Third and final Formic War.

"Wake up! Battle with Salamander and Leopard, in five!" I check my watch. 0300 hours. We all fly to attention. But Fly lands on his foot wrong while jumping from his top bunk. He sprained it.

"How bad?" Ender asks.

"Not good," replies Fly. Snarky to the last second.

"Dink, get him to the infirmary. Everyone else, get dressed, we're late! Come on!" Ender yells, then exits the bunkroom.

By the time we've formed up by gate B, the gate's already open. A wall of stars blocks our view of the rest of the Battle room. It's about four yards away. Some people behind me mutter their surprise at the gate already being open. Ender gestures for us to be quiet, then points in a rectangle around the gate. I think he means that they put people around the gate to fire at us as we exit.

"Heard you needed a sub," says a familiar voice behind me. I turn. Graff brought Petra in as a sub.

"Petra?" Ender says in disbelief. She nods so enthusiastically, that I no longer think that she ever got over being rejected. Ender's eyes light up.

"Dink, kneel."

"What?"

"I have an idea. Kneel!" Dink sits on both of his knees and feet. Ender freezes them. He then has Petra sit and use Dink as a shield. Three more of these are made. It takes four people to throw them. We launch them as quietly as possible and step back. Shots fire as soon as they've cleared the gate. Since each person has two guns and a shield, the people on the wall are easily taken down with no extra damage to Dragon.

"Twenty clear!" Petra shouts. 60 left.

"Any bright ideas to take a look behind the stars and see what Bonzo's up to?" Asks Caleb. I look at Bean and so does Ender. Bean has been perfecting the use of an ultra thin, super strong,and lightweight cable. He attaches one end to a star and the other ties around his waist and he can swing in a fulcrum. A very large one, if need be. Bean steps forward. He hands Ender one end of the cable and ties the other around his waist. Ender passes the cable all the way back to Tom, who leaves a majority of the coil on the floor.

"Ready?" Ender asks. Bean nods and jumps out of the gate. He lands on a wall and jumps again, clearing the stars and heading for gate A. After 15.7 seconds we hear firing.

"Pull!" Ender commands. Everyone holding the cable leans back. The cable goes taught, and Bean appears on the right side of the gate 12.635 seconds later leaving a trail of "Woah!"s and "He just changed direction in mid air!"s. He floats through and unfreezes. Some kids catch him.

"The enemy has a bunch of stars around their gate like a giant doughnut. They're just hanging behind them. No one closer." Bean reports.

"Good." Says Ender. "We're going to do a formation."

"But sir, we've never done a formation!" Exclaims Bernard.

"And neither does any one else anymore. So they won't expect one." He starts directing people into place behind the stars. It's a very intricate formation, and he ties people together using the cable. Me, Tom and three people from E don't get put into the formation. There is only one spot left. Ender takes it.

"Go along the current bottom wall. Sneak up behind them and put a person through the gate."

"Isn't that against the rules? Don't we have to freeze all of them first?" Asks one of Tom's soldiers.

"Nope. Don't recall that ever being in the rules." Ender situates himself in the formation. We tie him in then push the formation up over the stars and towards the enemy, then head along the wall by most of the soldiers feet.