A few voices spoke at once, but Bean drowned them out. "Me, I'm Bean, and Peder, Wins, Younger, Lee, and Vlad."
Ender thought for a moment. Then he asked what the hell was going on. They laughed again.
"They can't break up the group," Bean said. "We were commanders for maybe two weeks, and here we are at Command School, training with the simulator, and all of a sudden they told us we were going to form a fleet with a new commander. And that's you."
Ender smiled. "Are you boys any good?"
"If we aren't, you'll let us know."
Ender chuckled a little. "Might work out. A fleet."
For the next ten days Ender trained his toon leaders until they could maneuver their ships like precision dancers. It was like being back in the battleroom again, except that now Ender could always see everything, and could speak to his toon leaders and change their orders at any time.
One day as Ender sat down at the control board and switched on the simulator, harsh green lights appeared in the space--the enemy.
"This is it," Ender said. "X, Y, bullet, C, D, reserve screen, E, south loop, Bean, angle north."
The enemy was grouped in a globe, and outnumbered Ender two to one. Half of Ender's force was grouped in a tight, bulletlike formation, with the rest in a flat circular screen--except for a tiny force
under Bean that moved off the simulator, heading behind the enemy's formation. Ender quickly learned the enemy's strategy: whenever Ender's bullet formation came close, the enemy would give way, hoping to draw Ender inside the globe where he would be surrounded. So Ender obligingly fell into the trap, bringing his bullet to the center of the globe.
The enemy began to contract slowly, not wanting to come within range until all their weapons could be brought to bear at once. Then Ender began to work in earnest. His reserve screen approached the outside of the globe, and the enemy began to concentrate his forces there. Then Bean's force appeared on the opposite side, and the enemy again deployed ships on that side.
Which left most of the globe only thinly defended. Ender's bullet attacked, and since at the point of attack it outnumbered the enemy overwhelmingly, he tore a hole in the formation. The enemy reacted to try to plug the gap, but in the confusion the reserve force and Bean's small force attacked simultaneously, while the bullet moved to another part of the globe. In a few more minutes the formation was shattered, most of the enemy ships destroyed, and the few survivors rushing away as fast as they could go.
Ender switched the simulator off. All the lights faded. Mazer was standing beside Ender, his hands in his pockets, his body tense. Ender looked up at him.
"I thought you said the enemy would be smart," Ender said.
Mazer's face remained expressionless. "What did you learn?"
"I learned that a sphere only works if your enemy's a fool. He had his forces so spread out that I outnumbered him whenever I engaged him."
"And?"
"And," Ender said, "you can't stay committed to one pattern. It makes you too easy to predict."
"Is that all?" Mazer asked quietly.
Ender took off his radio. "The enemy could have defeated me by breaking the sphere earlier."
Mazer nodded. "You had an unfair advantage."
Ender looked up at him coldly. "I was outnumbered two to one."
Mazer shook his head. "You have the ansible. The enemy doesn't. We include that in the mock battles. Their messages travel at the speed of light."
Ender glanced toward the simulator. "Is there enough space to make a difference?"
"Don't you know?" Mazer asked. "None of the ships was ever closer than thirty thousand kilometers to any other."
Ender tried to figure the size of the enemy's sphere. Astronomy was beyond him. But now his curiosity was stirred.
"What kind of weapons are on those ships? To be able to strike so fast?"
Mazer shook his head. "The science is too much for you. You'd have to study many more years than you've lived to understand even the basics. All you need to know is that the weapons work."
"Why do we have to come so close to be in range?"