Ender's Game (Ender Wiggins Saga)

pants.”
      "So teach me.”
      "So learn.”
      "I'm not going to quit my freetime practice sessions.”
      "I don't want you to quit them.”
      "Rose the Nose does.”
        "Rose the Nose can't stop you. Likewise, he can't stop you from using your desk.”
      "I thought commanders could order anything.”
      "They can order the moon to turn blue, too, but it doesn't happen. Listen, Ender, commanders have just as much authority as you let them have. The more you obey them, the more power they have over you.”
      "What's to stop them from hurting me?" Ender remembered Bonzo's blow.
      "I thought that was why you were taking personal attack classes.”
      "You've really been watching me, haven't you?”
      Dink didn't answer.
      "I don't want to get Rose mad at me. I want to be part of the battles now, I'm tired of sitting out till the end.”
      "Your standings will go down.”
      This time Ender didn't answer.
      "Listen, Ender, as long as you're part of my toon, you're part of the battle.”
      Ender soon learned why. Dink trained his toon independently from the rest of Rat Army, with discipline and vigor; he never consulted with Rose, and only rarely did the whole army maneuver together. It was as if Rose commanded one army, and Dink commanded a much smaller one that happened to practice in the battleroom at the same time.
      Dink started out the first practice by asking Ender to demonstrate his feet-first attack position. The other boys didn't like it. "How can we attack lying on our backs?" they asked.
      To Ender's surprise, Dink didn't correct them, didn't say, "You aren't attacking on your back, you're dropping downward toward them." He had seen what Ender was doing, but he had not understood the orientation that it implied. It soon became clear to Ender that even though Dink was very, very good, his persistence in holding onto the corridor gravity orientation instead of thinking of the enemy gate as downward was limiting his thinking.
      They practiced attacking an enemy-held star. Before trying Ender's feet-first method, they had always gone in standing up, their whole bodies available as a target. Even now, though, they reached the star and then assaulted the enemy from one direction only; "Over the top," cried Dink, and over they went. To his credit, he then repeated the exercise, calling, "Again, upside down," but because of their insistence on a gravity that didn't exist, the boys became awkward when the maneuver was under, as if vertigo seized them.
      They hated the feet-first attack. Dink insisted that they use it. As a result, they hated Ender. "Do we have to learn how to fight from a Launchy?" one of them muttered, making sure Ender could hear. "Yes," answered Dink. They kept working.
      And they learned it. In practice skirmishes, they began to realize how much harder it was to shoot an enemy attacking feet first. As soon as they were convinced of that, they practiced the maneuver more willingly.
      That night was the first time Ender had come to a practice session after a whole afternoon of work. He was tired.
      "Now you're in a real army," said Alai. "You don't have to keep practicing with us.”
      "From you I can learn things that nobody knows," said Ender.
      "Dink Meeker is the best. I hear he's your toon leader.”
      "Then let's get busy. I'll teach you what I learned from him today.”
      He put Alai and two dozen others through the same exercises that had worn him out all afternoon. But he put new touches on the patterns, made the boys try the maneuvers with one leg frozen, with both legs frozen, or using frozen boys for leverage to change directions.
      Halfway through the practice, Ender noticed Petra and Dink together, standing in the doorway, watching. Later, when he looked again, they were gone.
      So they're watching me, and what we're doing is known. He did not know whether Dink was his friend; he believed that Petra was, but nothing could be sure. They might be angry that he was doing what only commanders and toon leaders were supposed to do-- drilling and training soldiers. They might be offended that a soldier would associate so closely with Launchies. It made him uneasy, to have older children watching.
      "I thought I told you not to use your desk." Rose the Nose stood by Ender's bunk.
      Ender did not look up. "I'm completing the trigonometry assignment for tomorrow.”
      Rose bumped his knee into Ender's desk. "I said not to use