Ender's War

Chapter 23 - Battle Plans and Chaos

~AN ^Ender's presentation as described in this chapter.

One week later

Dink Meeker sat silently, among the other members of Ender's Jeesh as their commander prepared to speak. They were all sitting in a room that was obviously meant to be used as a classroom. The first two rows of chairs were taken up by the Jeesh, while Colonel Graff, Valentine, Peter, and ten former command school students resided behind them.

The room was fashioned as if it were a small auditorium. The seating section was arranged in a half circle formation, each row acting as the individual tier of a riser. Dink looked around. Bean was seated on his left beside Alai, while Han Tzu and Crazy Tom were on his right. They were completely focused on their commander.

Ender stood on a large platform at the front of the room, a small chair sat near by in case he couldn't stand on his feet any longer. A large desk was pushed to the side, leaving the platform generally empty besides the large projected screen that acted as a live feed from Ender's hand held ansible. He was currently typing commands into the platform, as everyone waited for him to begin.

"My brother," he started, looking out at the small gathering. His voice had the rough quality that only injury could cause. "gave the International Fleet the locations of the Warsaw bases."

Dink observed Ender's face as he talked. He looked healthier than he had during Mazer's funeral, though he was still quite worse for wear. His breathing was uneven and more frequent due to his recent surgery, and the significant bruising on his neck was still very visible. As he looked at the others sitting around him, he realized they were also assessing Ender's health. They were ready to jump in if he needed them. They were loyal.

"Because of that, Colonel Graff and I were able to come up with a plan of attack." He gestured to the big screen behind him. As he did, a map appeared showing the group a detailed overview of their chosen attack zone.

Ender took a long breath before he continued. He moved so he was standing beside the screen, his ansible tucked under his left arm. His green I.F. uniform, along with the dim lighting gave the impression that it was only a dark shadow against his clothing.

"The Warsaw Pact headquarters are located right here." He pointed to the centre of the map, which had a location circled in bright red. "This is Warsaw, the capital city of Poland. And according to my brother, this is where the Warsaw Pact's leader, Adam Vasiliev, will be. Taking down this headquarters is the main goal."

Dink could see that Ender waited to give everyone time to process what he had said. "There are four other major bases spread out in Poland. Our attack needs to be concentrated within the country. If we go somewhere else, our efforts will be rendered useless."

Ender took another very visible breath. Dink could see that this meeting was taking a lot of effort on his part.

"We must take out these four bases first. Once we do, Vasiliev will have nowhere to flee. He'll be trapped in Warsaw, waiting for us to get there."

Ender pointed to four smaller blue circles over the cities of Lublin, Bialystok, Wroclaw, and Bydgoszcz.

"There will be four teams: I will lead one, the others will be led by chosen members of my Jeesh. Each team will infiltrate each base. Everyone will be air borne, and will only be disbursed onto the ground if it is absolutely necessary. Once each base is secure, all team leaders will radio in to me."

Ender took a moment to type a command into his ansible, and multiple black arrows appeared on the map. "After every base has been successfully neutralized, all teams will follow this route. We will converge onto the city of Warsaw from all sides. The Warsaw Pact won't be able to defend themselves from an all around attack."