Together

Chapter 32 ★ Amy

The weeks pass, and about a month after our informal introduction to Ender, the army of fighter pilots is ready in the simulator room waiting for instructions. Colonel Graff walks in, followed closely by Major Anderson and the Toon Leaders.

"Greetings, Squadrons. Take a seat everyone," Graff says as everyone, even the Toon Leaders, take their assigned seats. The room lights up with our display monitors, showing that today we will be running a sim with everyone, including an unnamed commander who will oversee us. Definitely Ender.

"Today you will meet your commander, Ender Wiggin," he boasts. I smile as I think of the various meals and training sessions I've already been in with him, and all of our stupid jokes and teasing also rising to the surface. However, something is still off. They told us we would meet Ender weeks ago. I turn towards the Colonel and stand up.

"Excuse me, Colonel," I say while offering my snappiest of salutes, "but weren't we supposed to meet him a month ago?" Graff's placid look turns quickly to a scowl as he looks at me.

"That's not your place to be asking, Thompson, squadron leader or not," he snaps. "However, most squadrons couldn't learn to work as a team as quickly and as efficiently as yours did. We were waiting until everyone was ready," he says with a pointed glance at Alex, a member of Allie's squadron​with discipline issues. Until Graff and him had a "little talk" last week. "Dismissed."

"Thank you, sir," I chirp as pleasantly as possible before taking my seat. My squadron, seated on both sides of me smile in appreciation.

★★★

After about five minutes of not much happening, Graff suddenly barks "What took you so long?" disrupting the silence and effectively making everyone jump.

"Sorry, Colonel. Thought I forgot something." I hear Ender say. "Besides, I'm still five minutes early." Oh. We didn't see him at breakfast. He must mean that he was looking for us.

"We'll go on and introduce yourself, Wiggin."

"I believe you already introduced me, sir. Everyone appears to be anxiously awaiting the start of the sim. Let's get going." Everyone begins tapping login codes immediately as he pulls up our simulation for this session.

★★★

The first battle as a group is an easy one. The enemy fleet hovers over an ice debris field.

"Bean, Alai, take your cruisers and mirror their path. Track them from below the ice," Ender says over comms.

"C'mon, this one's easy," Alai complains.

"Which means we should be careful," Ender replies smoothly. "I'd like to do this without the loss of a single ship." Bean and Alai's ships break formation and head under the ice.

"Everyone else, deploy drones," Ender commands. Petra opens our docking bays and my squadron flies out to join formation. We rapidly close on the enemy formations.

"Open fire!" Ender yells. I lock on and begin firing. Everyone around me does the same. I turn autolock on and watch as it targets and fires for me.

"Bean, Alai, fire up at them from below the ice," Ender says.

"We're gonna shred em!" Alai chirps excitedly.

"Why'd we have to do the boring part?" Allie complains in my ear.

"Us girls gotta stick together," Wolf says.

"Yeah. No offense to the other Toon Leaders, but I trust Petra more," I say. Petra giggles into our comms.

"You guys are great, and Alai, Bean, and Tom would like to say that they are deeply offended, but would like you to watch this," Petra says as Bean and Alai fire at the cruisers from below, effectively shredding the enemy force before they could even think about touching our cruisers.

Cheers erupt around the room as the lights dim down.