The weeks pass and the simulations only get more and more challenging. Something changed in the programming of the simulations, but I'm not sure what. It feels.... wrong. Every move I make, every command I call, every time I even so much as think about one of our previous battles, an uneasy feeling settles over me.
As of today, I've had enough. I have a to know what it is. I have rare free time today, so I stuffed down the blanket of apparent wrongness long enough to walk to the library and watch an old battle.
I watch how we move. Ender seems to command us flawlessly from an outside standpoint, and our formations shift around almost perfect unison. I watch the formic formations... but it's like looking at a reflection of our ships. Formations move, shift, change, flawlessly, seamlessly. I leave our old battle up, but pull up an old vid from the First invasion. The human formations look tight, rigid, military, while the formics... wait a sec. I watch the old vid a second longer, then our battle from last week, then the old vid again. The formics look the same. They weren't following the same flight paths or using the same formations, but the patterns look distinctly similar. We can mimic them, but the way it seems as though they operate with a hive mind is present in both vids.
I type some quick key words into a new window to quickly skim the library. Two books pop up and I quickly try to open them. They're heavily encrypted. What don't they want us to know?
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I don't let the encryptions stop me. I send the books to my personal desk using fake (stolen) officers' emails and set to work decrypting. It takes me three weeks. Three long weeks of no sleep. Of bags under my eyes and lower battle performance. Not low enough for anyone else to notice, I just feel terrible every time my phasers lock and fire.
0249 hours, August 17, 2218. The moment in time I broke the encryption that broke my will to fight this war. The books open and I skim. Hyperspace this... lightspeed that.. ah. An.. ansible? Blah blah blah... used for near instantaneous communication.
Are we really fighting a computer simulated enemy?
Or have we ended real lives with our ignorance?
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FanfictionEnder's Game fan fiction. Based on movie and book. Ender's isolation must never be broken, orders of Colonel Graff. But what happens when a girl named Amy finds her way into Salamander Army?
