5I own no characters organizations, etc.
Chapter Six
"I think he handled that well don't you sir?"
"No, he is too dependent on his subordinates, he needs to learn how to do things himself and not depend on those around him to solve the problems for him."
"I thought the idea was for him to inspire others to follow him into battle."
"It is, but this isn't following. This is battling for him, I never expected him to make some powerful friends so quickly."
"Maybe you underestimated him? As a fleet commander others would be doing the battling for him as well."
"Yes but they need to have the confidence that he would do the same for them, and that kind of confidence can't be won like this. I just don't know how this will work out well for us."
"Well, we will just have to make him work now won't we? I thought you said we may not have any other options, has something come up?"
"You're a Wiley one you know that Anderson? I never say anything but you always guess at my secrets. As a matter of fact I just got the report for Andrew Wiggin, he has had his monitor on for a few months now so they are starting to include me."
"Is the boy already three years old? It seems like just the other day we were having the monitors removed from that terror of a brother he has and a few months later from his sister, though I suppose that was two years ago now. Is he promising then, Colonel?"
"Well it is too early to tell, but I have hopes for him. He seems as intelligent as his older siblings; I just watched a clip of his sister teaching him Arithmetic, but he is much more gentle than his older brother."
"So Artemis isn't the one then?"
"We will keep pushing him for now, he will be old enough to lead an Army by the time we would need him so when the time comes we'll play it by ear."
The confrontation with the older boys on behalf of Greg didn't go unnoticed among Artemis's group. Most of them didn't get friendlier with Artemis and his friends but they did drift back to Greg and he wasn't seen alone in the room anymore, after all Iris had beaten up a boy much older and larger than he. So just like that everything seemed forgiven at least where Greg was concerned, if anything the group only seemed to fear Iris more, and Artemis, their cold quiet leader, was guilty by association. Only Kurt seemed immune to the prejudice as he passed easily from group to group chatting with them all as if he belonged, Artemis often thought that Kurt would make a much better group leader than he did but Kurt had no ambition or desires to be the leader. Artemis however couldn't deny that he did desire the respect that he assumed a leader would have, he wondered if he got that attribute as some kind of family genetic code or if it was because he just simply didn't want to lose the status he already had? In the end it didn't really matter he decided, he would have leadership whether he wanted it or the teachers did.
These were the things that Artemis was thinking about as his group followed behind Ben through the metallic hallways of the battle school. Ben had come to the room only minutes before and ordered them all to change into the dark green suits in their lockers that he called 'flash suits'. It was the first time Artemis had put it on, though he had seen most of the older launchies wearing nothing else, and all the children older then that only would wear their specially team-colored jump suit in public. Artemis didn't think much of the suit when he first put it on, the joints seemed stiff like walking through water, it was only after he had been jogging behind Ben for a minute that he realized the special significance behind the stiffness. He only noticed it because normally he would start to feel the effect of the running very quickly, but here he was jogging down the hall and hardly noticing it. There was some kind of machinery in the suits that amplified his movements so that once he started he could run faster and use less energy than he would have been able to otherwise, he would search for it later but so far he had detected no metallic elements to the suit.
They paused for a minute in front of a wall as they waited for 'the rooms to change' Ben said, Artemis wasn't sure what he meant until suddenly the wall went blank and they were staring through a doorway into a large room. Ben gave them only a moment as he stepped forward and jumped through the doorway, he then appeared to float steadily to the other side of the room. It took a moment for Artemis to figure out what was happening, it was just like back on the space shuttle, his heart was really beating fast now and it wasn't from the jog. Instinctively he smiled back at Kurt and Iris "Lets go"
Without a moments hesitation the three of them barreled through the doorway followed by a few others, many of the other boys slowly creeped through the door and ended up floating with no real control once they left the floor. Meanwhile Artemis and several others were hurtling through the air towards a far wall, Artemis watched as Ben rolled off the wall and almost instantly went flying off in a new direction. As they neared the far wall Artemis attempted to imitate the movements he saw Ben do but ended up flying in a direction he didn't expect and at a much slower speed. A quick glance over his shoulder told him that Kurt hadn't fared any better and most of the boys had simply had crashed painfully into the wall, only Iris performed the motion perfectly and was stopping behind Ben on the far side of the room. Artemis reoriented himself and bounced off a wall, shooting himself towards Ben and Iris, when he arrived Ben pulled out something and, pushing a button, everyone in the room drifted towards him. Magnets perhaps? If it was it wasn't targeting him, which was a little confusing.
"Ok everyone, this is the battle room..." Ben started as if he didn't notice the few boys still talking, which seemed to work as all attention was focused on him. "Much of your time in the future will be, if not inside here, focused upon what goes on in this room." Ben went on to explain to everyone how armies worked and how when they all turned eight they would be sorted into armies to battle each other in this very room. He then explained to them all how to use their flash guns and flashed a few of the noisier boys as an example. "Now normally I am supposed to teach you more on how to move around in zero gravity but I have always been more of the jump-into-it kind of a guy so lets have a mock battle, everyone sort yourselves up into teams of six and we'll get started."
The sounds of excited voices quickly filled the room as the children began splitting up into groups of six, Artemis, Iris and Kurt naturally stuck close to each other. Artemis had only a moment to glance around at the other boys imagining who would join their team when he noticed Greg and his two friends approaching him slowly while gripping the handles on the wall. Once their eyes met Greg dropped his gaze as if embarrassed "Hey don't you think it would be a good idea if we teamed up?" He asked slowly looking up at Artemis as he did.
Artemis leveled his gaze at Greg for only a moment as he tried to analyze the other boy's intentions before coming up with a response. "'Ya, I do." He replied casually as if it were an obvious conclusion. After shaking the larger boys hand Artemis turned towards Iris and smiled at her when he noted the confusion written across her features.
As if by signal Kurt put his arms around the shoulders of Greg's friends and began going on about how "there was no way we could lose with them on our team" Artemis noted that while Kurt was making them feel like they were needed their was no question that this was Artemis' team. Not for the first time Artemis was thankful for his American friend's charismatic personality.
Once everyone had split up into the groups they all made their way over towards Ben who was using the object in his hand to move large objects around in the middle of the room. Ben gave each group a single headband in a bright color, either red, blue or yellow, Artemis received the yellow one. Ben then went on to explain that they would be playing capture the flag today using the headband as the flag and whoever wore the headband as the "flag bearer", and that to win a team simply had to take the headband off the head of the opposing team's flag bearer.
Since there were three teams red and blue went first while Artemis and his group sat out and watched the first match. The "playing field", as Ben had called it; was 25 large boxes called "stars" set out in a 5x5 grid in the center of the room. The teams started at opposite ends of the grid and after 5 minutes to plan their strategy, Ben gave the signal and the battle began.
It took a moment for the silence to break as 12 boys all seemed to start shouting at once. Artemis carefully studied the two teams as they battled, the red team's tactic seemed to be an all out assault on the blue flag bearer, which seemed to work initially until they were lured into a pincer attack by the blue team. After a ten minute battle it was as much luck as skill that red managed to flash the last few blue members and take the flag with only one player able to move. A victory for red team, though a small one.
Ben was the only one who got up and clapped for red's victory, he pressed something on his control and all the frozen boys on red team began cheering at their victory as they all unfroze. "Good work red team, please return to your side of the playing attempt blue team, retrieve your flag and come over here; next up will be yellow versus red." Turning to Artemis Ben pointed to the side of the playing field that blue had just been on "Take your team over there, you will have five minutes to plan out a strategy and then we will begin."
Artemis nodded his understanding and, along with his team, pushed off the wall and slowly floated over to the star Ben had signaled towards. Once there they formed a small circle "Ok, so what's the plan boss?" Kurt asked smiling towards Artemis.
Artemis looked around the circle only to see that all of the eyes were on him. So that was it? They would all listen to his decision then. "Well..." Artemis began "We know that the opposing team rushes into the battle very quickly and are slow to adapt to surprises. In the last round they focused completely on attacking the opposing flag bearer and if they hadn't been lucky would have lost when red closed in on them." Artemis paused as he took a deep breath "So here is my plan then..." Artemis then explained the idea he had come up with while he was watching the last battle, by the end of it most everyone was nodding in agreement and smiling.
"What if they have changed tactics though?" Iris asked
"They won't" Artemis responded coolly.
"How do you know?" One of the other boys asked looking confused.
"Because it has already worked once" Artemis replied with a vampire-like grin. Ben signaled that they only had a few more seconds before they began so everyone took their positions on the star, "Are you ready?" Artemis looked over at Kurt who was wearing the flag on his head.
"No problem" Kurt replied nonchalantly "Its a good plan"
"Go to the left so that they all can see you really well"
"Got it"
A few quiet moments passed broken only when Ben shouted "Begin!" Instantly Kurt launched himself up and to the left flying towards the roof of the room at a surprising speed, the bright yellow headband standing out on his otherwise green figure. Artemis and the others held still a few more moments, would the plan work? With a shout from the other end the spotted four figures launch off the stars to pursue Kurt into the far corner of the room.
"Haha, well look at that! They took the bait" Greg grinned ferociously at the figures flying in the distance. At this Artemis' team moved, it took only a few moments to freeze the last two blue members who had not given chase to Kurt and take their headband signalling the end of the game. In total the game had lasted less than a minute, the other four members of the blue team hadn't even gotten close enough to fire at Kurt when they had already lost the game.
"Good work yellow team using a decoy" Ben congratulated them on their victory before directing them back to their side and having red team take up the spot on the far star for the final match. Once again they were given five minutes to plan out a strategy so Artemis' group huddled up in their circle once again.
"I can't believe that worked so quickly" Kurt grinned at everyone "But we can't do it again, they will be expecting it this time."
"And that is our advantage" Artemis replied
"What do you mean?" Greg asked, a confused look on his face.
"You have a plan?" Iris asked eagerly
"Yes" Artemis nodded "And this time I am going to need everyone's help..." A few minutes later after everyone understood their part in the plan and was silently waiting for Ben to signal the start of the next match. Kurt was standing in the front with Greg immediately behind him, Greg's two friends were to either side of him holding on to Greg by his shoulder and his hips. Iris was standing behind Greg next to Artemis who was wearing the headband this time. "Everyone ready?" Artemis asked as Ben signaled it was almost time to begin.
"Ready!" Everyone chanted in unison
"Don't worry boss" Iris gave Artemis a little punch in the arm. "Everything will work out" Artemis gave her a little smile to reassure her, and himself. He found it exhilarating to be in these little mock battles, he had never really done anything like this before. Even just playing with other children his age had seemed an alien concept to him only a few weeks ago, and here he was battling them and getting nervous over the results. His face went calm as he cleared his mind and waited for the signal.
As soon as Ben shouted to begin Kurt rocketed from their star, downwards this time. From the shouts on the other team it was obvious that they noticed him. "... leave 'em! He's just a decoy! Doesn't even have the flag this time!"
"Now!" At Artemis' signal Iris curled up clutching Greg's back and Greg's Friends curled their bodies to send Greg flying forwards flying just over the star in front of them.
Artemis heard the shouts as Greg opened fire on the boys below him, but only a moment later Greg froze and the shouts from the other boys turned into taunts. Artemis drowned them out as he watched below them, for a shadow to pass by... There it was! A whistle signaled that Kurt was ready, almost indistinguishable from the taunts being shouted by the red team. "Fire!" Artemis shouted as he and the other two boys dived over the star in front of them. At the same instance Iris from her position on top of Greg also began firing down at the blue team, and Kurt, who had bounced off the ground and returned to the field behind the blue team, began firing from behind. In their confusion blue team pressed together unsure of whether to fire upwards at Iris who was safely hidden behind Greg's larger body or face Artemis who was bearing down on them from the front. The whole time being carved up by Kurt who they still hadn't realized was behind them.
It took only a moment for Artemis and the other two to finish mopping up the remaining team members and Artemis promptly took the blue headband himself signalling the end of the match. Ben clapped for their victory and a moment later the red team also began cheering their approval. Artemis couldn't help but smile as he felt a sense of accomplishment rise up in his chest, in a moment Iris and Kurt appeared at his sides patting him on the back and congratulating him.
After everyone had calmed down and Ben had thawed all of the suits, he had them all leave the battle room and stand in their groups in the hallway outside as he put everything away inside. Artemis noted that all the teams were standing a little closer together this time, some of them even shook Artemis' hand and smiled at him.
Ben spoke to them for only a minute or two pointing out all of their mistakes and explaining how he would teach them more complex moves the next day, but Artemis could tell he was pleased with them when he dismissed them all for lunch.
Chapter End
Sorry it took so long for me to release this chapter everyone! I had lots on my plate recently and it didn't help that I actually ended up re-writing this chapter five or six times before releasing it...
But I promise to do better, and the next chapter will be coming out this next Saturday even if I have to stay up all night Friday to finish it.
One last thing; I know that when I mentioned the timing in which Peter ans Valentine had their monitors removed is not actually mentioned in the book, but if you read the book carefully you will see that I am right. It says that Peter had his removed at 5yrs old and Valentine at 3yrs old. When Ender had his removed he was six and he had been wearing it for 3yrs. Peter at this time was 10(Meaning Ender was actually already a year old when Peter had his removed [so they had requested Ender's birth when Peter was still 3 and Valentine hadn't even been tested yet?... yes]) We later find out that Valentine is 2yrs younger than Peter therefore when Peter was 5 and had his monitor removed valentine was 3 and also had her monitor removed! This sounded a little strange so i spaced it out by a few months...
I hope this little rant has helped you all understand how complicated it is to write this story without messing with what is actually written in the Ender's Game book!
Nos Vemos en una Semana! Chow!