Drabble: Commander
Word Count: 181
Character(s): Petra, unnamed watcher
Fandom: Ender's Game
Notes: This is a short drabble on a very young Petra, and the teacher that insisted she be tested.
Petra Arkanian was a girl.
It had to be the reason she hadn’t been tested, wasn’t already living in a space station learning to kill. The IF knew better than to test girls, let alone poor Armenian girls. (Who’d ever heard of an Armenian hero? For that was what they searching for up there, heroes.)
He knew the official story well: many millions of dollars had been wasted testing girls. None of them were ever top-flight, none of them were soldiers, none of them could ever command a fleet. Girls didn’t fight.
But she did.
He’d taught one other one like her, now a high officer of the fleet. He fought, but not the way she did. She thought about what she did, and she commanded. Where he was born to fight, she was born to lead.
Watching her playing with blocks, acting like the child she was, it was hard to imagine what she’d be like, behind a console, men’s lives at her fingertips. Still, he knew - knew with certainty - that she was a commander.
She would be, and she was.
Character(s): Petra, unnamed watcher
Fandom: Ender's Game
Notes: This is a short drabble on a very young Petra, and the teacher that insisted she be tested.
Petra Arkanian was a girl.
It had to be the reason she hadn’t been tested, wasn’t already living in a space station learning to kill. The IF knew better than to test girls, let alone poor Armenian girls. (Who’d ever heard of an Armenian hero? For that was what they searching for up there, heroes.)
He knew the official story well: many millions of dollars had been wasted testing girls. None of them were ever top-flight, none of them were soldiers, none of them could ever command a fleet. Girls didn’t fight.
But she did.
He’d taught one other one like her, now a high officer of the fleet. He fought, but not the way she did. She thought about what she did, and she commanded. Where he was born to fight, she was born to lead.
Watching her playing with blocks, acting like the child she was, it was hard to imagine what she’d be like, behind a console, men’s lives at her fingertips. Still, he knew - knew with certainty - that she was a commander.
She would be, and she was.