Ender's Game (Ender Wiggins Saga)

"What if they've sent a fleet to attack us?”
      "Then we're dead. But our ships haven't seen such a fleet, not a sign of one.”
      "Maybe they gave up and they're planning to leave us alone.”
      "Maybe. You've seen the videos. Would you bet the human race on the chance of them giving up and leaving us alone?”
      Ender tried to grasp the amounts of time that had gone by. "And the ships have been traveling for seventy years--”
      "Some of them. And some for thirty years, and some for twenty. We make better ships now. We're learning how to play with space a little better. But every starship that is not still under construction is on its way to a bugger world or outpost. Every starship, with cruisers and fighters tucked into its belly, is out there approaching the buggers. Decelerating. Because they're almost there. The first ships we sent to the most distant objectives, the more recent ships to the closer ones. Our timing was pretty good. They'll all be arriving in combat range within a few months of each other. Unfortunately, our most primitive, outdated equipment will be attacking their homeworld. Still, they're armed well enough -- we have some weapons the buggers never saw before.”
      "When will they arrive?”
      "Within the next five years. Ender. Everything is ready at I.F. Command. The master ansible is there, in contact with all our invasion fleet; the ships are all working, ready to fight. All we lack, Ender, is the battle commander. Someone who knows what the hell to do with those ships when they get there.”
      "And what if no one knows what to do with them?”
      "We'll just do our best, with the best commander we can get.”
      Me, thought Ender, they want me to be ready in five years. "Colonel Graff, there isn't a chance I'll be ready to command a fleet in time.”
      Graff shrugged. "So. Do your best. If you aren't ready, we'll make do with what we've got.”
      That eased Ender's mind.
      But only for a moment, "Of course, Ender, what we've got right now is nobody.”
      Ender knew that this was another of Graff's games. Make me believe that it all depends on me, so I can't slack off, so I push myself as hard as possible.
      Game or not, though, it might also be true. And so he would work as hard as possible. It was what Val had wanted of him. Five years. Only five years until the fleet arrives, and I don't know anything yet, "I'll only be fifteen in five years," Ender said.
      "Going on sixteen," said Graff. "It all depends on what you know.”
      "Colonel Graff," he said. "I just want to go back and swim in the lake.”
      "After we win the war," said Graff, "Or lose it. We'll have a few decades before they get back here to finish us off. The house will be there, and I promise you can swim to your heart's content.”
      "But I'll still be too young for security clearance.”
      "We'll keep you under armed guard at all times. The military knows how to handle these things.”
      They both laughed, and Ender had to remind himself that Graff was only acting like a friend, that everything he did was a lie or a cheat calculated to turn Ender into an efficient fighting machine. I'll become exactly the tool you want me to be, said Ender silently, but at least I won't be fooled into it. I'll do it because I choose to, not because you tricked me, you sly bastard.
      The tug reached Eros before they could see it. The captain showed them the visual scan, then superimposed the heat scan on the same screen. They were practically on top of it -- only four thousand kilometers out -- but Eros, only twenty-four kilometers long, was invisible if it didn't shine with reflected sunlight.
      The captain docked the ship on one of the three landing platforms that circled Eros. It could not land directly because Eros had enhanced gravity, and the tug, designed for towing cargos, could never escape the gravity well. He bade them an irritable goodbye, but Ender and Graff remained cheerful. The captain was bitter at having to leave his tug; Ender and Graff felt like prisoners finally paroled from jail. When they boarded the shuttle that would take them to the surface of Eros they repeated perverse misquotations of lines from the videos that the captain had endlessly watched, and laughed like madmen. The captain grew surly and withdrew by pretending to go to sleep. Then, almost as an afterthought, Ender asked Graff one last question.
      "Why are we fighting the buggers?”
      "I've heard all