Énouement

Chapter Fifty Five

Command School was at FleetCom, and the location of FleetCom was a closely guarded secret because the entirety of the Fleet was the equivalent to children. The only way you ever found out where it was was to be assigned there, and very few people who had been there ever got to come back. I wasn't sure if we were one of them yet.

The adults briefed us beforehand. FleetCom was in the wandering asteroid Eros. We didn't realize until we got there that it literally was in the asteroid; We couldn't see anything beyond the docking station. They loaded us up into some kind of shuttle bug, which Dink claimed as a school bus. Five minutes was all it took to drag us down to hell.

The shuttle zipped through a cave and twisted cavern, but something felt off, wrong. The tunnels were so low, even though they looked altered. This wasn't a human base. This had been a bugger base. I looked at Bean, to see if he had noticed it as well. He nodded his head, but kept silent. I think he didn't want to freak out the others.

Im sure this was how we recorded our advanced technologies, by conquering bugger bases. The buggers had gravity generating machines during the first invasion. We learned how they worked and installed our own in places like the battle school. But no one knew, because the IF didn't tell anyone. How would they react, how frightened would everyone be, if they knew our greatest achievements came from these places?

The taller kids, Dink and Crazy Tom, even Petra, had to hunch over a little to fit in the tunnels. There was at least two meters of headroom, but the proportions were not made for human bodies. This place scared me. It was like tunnels of hell with the cold air of space seeping in. This was a place for Formics, not humans, not children. Not us.

But Ender would work well here. He's hate it just as much as me, any human would, but it would help him. He'd walk these halls as a bugger, learn and think like they do. He'd do it to beat them.

I don't want any of us to be separated, but the adults insisted on Petra and I having a room to ourselves. I snorted.

"You do know that we've all been changing in front of each other since we were 6?" The boys all snickered at the officers' red face. I didnt know if he was embarrassed or angry that I was arguing with him. Petra nodded.

"I mean it's not like our bodies look that much different from there's. Even then , it's just breasts. Or are you more concerned with us having our innocence ruined and seeing a penis?" At this point the boys couldn't hold back their laughter the officer scampered off down the hall. I called after him.

"Be sure to tell them that I will go into the boys room whenever I damn well please!"

The boys continued laughing as they walked inside their room, Petra following. Alai stopped me before I could go in. He was trying to look stern but was fighting a smile.
"What? I don't want to be separated from everyone. It's not right! I don't trust this place or the adults."
"What could they possible do to us here? There are no games like in Battleschool Tori."
I wouldn't be so sure," I muttered.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

To train us for the war, we had practiced on simulations and computer screens. Fake ships attacking fake buggers. It was funny though, because we weren't pilots or captains, but Admirals of our ships.

Bean's had malfunctioned one day, and he had told me that the ships automatically rejected his control and went under the control of someone else. When a technician came to fix his machine, Bean asked him about it. The technician said it was part of the simulation, but Bean thought it was weird.