The Authorized Ender Companion (15 page)

Randall Firth was an alias given to Achilles Flandres II by his mother, a woman named Randi, to protect him from being taken from her by the Free People of Earth led by Peter Wiggin.

Flandres, Achilles I (ES, [EE], SH, SP)

Achilles (pronounced ah-SHEEL) Flandres was a bully on the streets of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He was smaller in stature compared to the other bullies who stole food from the smaller kids in groups called “crews.” Achilles’s status as a dominant bully was also challenged because of his bad leg. He walked with a limp that portrayed weakness to the other, stronger bullies.

When nine-year-old female crew leader Poke was advised by Bean to find a bully to protect her crew, she chose Achilles. It was a poor decision on Poke’s part, however, as Achilles’s charisma and intelligence quickly manipulated the crew into following him more closely than Poke. He called the crew his “family,” filling a need the kids didn’t know they had—love. Bean admonished Poke to kill Achilles, but it was too late. Achilles was the new unofficial leader of the crew and promised to take care of them like family.

Achilles arranged for Sarge, his right-hand man, to pick a fight with another bully named Ulysses in line at the local soup kitchen. The fight, which Achilles won by seriously hurting Ulysses, led to the family being in the front of the line and the first to get food. Achilles never accepted Bean or Poke, though. In fact, he was determined to kill them. This murderous desire grew when Bean convinced other bullies to protect small children, taking away the family’s exclusive rights to the front of the soup kitchen line.

It was Bean who warned Achilles that the other bullies were looking to kill him in retaliation for hurting Ulysses. Achilles went into hiding, running from the bullies, or so it seemed to his family. In actuality, it was a plot to kill Poke.

Poke knew where Achilles went and sought him out the night he left. They kissed, and Poke reminded him of a promise he’d made her: not to kill Bean. Instead, Achilles killed Poke. He beat her to death and left her body in the river. He returned to his family, blaming Ulysses for the murder. He swore revenge against Ulysses, never revealing it was he who killed Poke.

Over the next several months, Achilles underwent several surgeries on his gimp leg, performed by Dr. Vivian Delamar, whom he killed. The goal was to get him physically up to par to send him to Battle School, where he would be a test for Bean. Sister Carlotta warned against assigning him to Battle School, but the warnings fell on deaf ears.

Achilles arrived at Battle School around a year after Bean. He was immediately assigned to Rabbit Army, which Bean had just been assigned to as commander. The assignment was a test for Bean, to see how developed his leadership abilities really were. Achilles was initially disrespectful of Bean as his commander, but after Bean made it clear that stories of their time together in Rotterdam would not be tolerated, and demanded that Achilles answer his orders with “yes, sir,” he seemed to fall into line.

However, Bean was certain that Achilles intended to kill him, just as he had Poke. Shortly after he arrived at Battle School, Achilles was called into a meeting with Bean. Bean convinced Achilles to travel with him through the ductwork, where, Bean said, he and Ender had spied on other commanders. Achilles followed Bean into the ducts, but was tricked by Bean and tied up with deadline, Bean’s favorite ropelike tool, and held captive.

Bean gave Achilles a choice—either confess to all the murders he’d committed or die by dehydration in the heating system’s ducting. Achilles confessed to seven murders, including Poke’s, as well as Ulysses’s and even Dr. Delamar’s. A serial killer, Achilles murdered those who saw him helpless.
The confessions got him kicked out of Battle School, and put into psychiatric care. But they also renewed Achilles’s desire to kill Bean.

Achilles escaped from the hospital and began using Russian soldiers to kidnap ten members of Ender’s army after the Formic War. It was Achilles’s goal to use these most brilliant of military minds to establish armies under his command and destroy the world governmental structure. He longed for power and sought to obtain it on a grand scale.

He tried to kill Bean and his family but was unsuccessful. Nonetheless, he manipulated his captives, including Petra Arkanian, into presenting plausible, successful military strategies for his evergrowing armies.

After several months, Achilles noticed that Petra Arkanian, one of his prisoners from Ender’s army, had sent a message out to an unknown recipient that contained a coded message. He was unable to figure out the message and was frustrated by it. But it told him that Petra was the smartest and most talented of his captives.

Once the message got out, the political pundit Locke called for a rescue mission of the kidnapped war heroes. He used the information from Petra’s message to call on the Russian government to make things right and free the prisoners.

Achilles allowed this rescue operation to go forward for all of his prisoners except Petra. Knowing that she was the smartest, he interfered in her rescue, and rekidnapped her. He took her on an airplane, where he nearly killed her by sending her out of the cabin into the sky. He helped pull her back into the plane, though. They landed in New Delhi, where Achilles was hopeful that Petra would use her strategic brilliance to aid him in his plans of world domination.

He had made an alliance of some kind with the Indian government. Half a world away, Bean, Peter Wiggin, and Sister Carlotta determined that this alliance was a great threat to Asia, and to Bean and Peter personally. Peter had derailed Achilles’s plans in Russia by exposing his kidnappings, and Achilles wanted revenge. It was possible, they knew, that Achilles could form an alliance with the Polemarch, Chamrajnagar, who would expose Peter’s identity as Locke to Achilles, and bring about many problems for the world at large.

With much influence in the Indian government, Achilles orchestrated the next phase of his world domination. He convinced the prime minister of India to pull his troops back from the border with Pakistan. He then took Petra, whom he had forced to create new military strategies and then ignored, to
Pakistan and convinced the prime minister of that country to also pull back their troops.

It was his goal to take over Asia with Pakistan’s help. Masterfully manipulative, Achilles was successful in convincing the leadership to be a part of his plan. He also secretly got into the head of the top military leaders in Thailand and convinced them to kill Bean and his ally Suriyawong.

The assassination attempt was unsuccessful, but Achilles began his march across Asia by sending the Indian army into Burma.

He called Petra to his office. There he told her that he was certain Bean was dead and revealed that he knew about the secret messages Bean had been trying to send Petra through the online forums. Another female Battle School graduate in their military compound, Virlomi, had responded to the messages, and for that Achilles was going to kill her.

This warning led to a physical confrontation between Petra and Achilles. They beat each other up pretty soundly, and Petra changed tactics. She kissed Achilles and tried to convince him that she was on his side. She hoped it would help dissuade him from killing Virlomi. It was all an act, and Achilles was skeptical, but Petra gave it her all. Achilles dismissed her from his presence and returned to issuing orders for the army, believing Petra was becoming his.

All of Achilles’s efforts in India had been a cover. He was actually setting up India and Pakistan to be taken over by the Chinese. When this was exposed by rebellious Indian soldiers from his planning team, Achilles killed the soldiers and took Petra hostage as he tried to leave India for China. Bean was on his way to rescue Petra and kill Achilles, so Achilles was desperate to escape with his life.

When Bean arrived and confronted Achilles, Achilles held a gun to Petra’s head. The Chinese soldiers who had been working with Achilles to take over Asia had orders to return him to China unharmed. Bean exploited these orders, brokering a deal with the Chinese that let them take Achilles but free Petra.

Petra wanted Achilles killed. As the Chinese solider in command moved to free Petra from Achilles, Achilles tried to shoot him. But he was not fast enough, as the Chinese soldier took the gun from Achilles’s hand and broke his arm, freeing Petra. Bean used a tranquilizer to incapacitate Achilles.

Achilles traveled back to China, unconscious, with his soldiers. He was arrested and imprisoned. The Chinese government had determined that he was a threat to them and wisely put him away. As they moved him to another
prison facility, though, he was freed by a small army sent by Peter Wiggin, the Hegemon.

This small army, led by Suriyawong, took Achilles back to the Hegemony compound in Brazil. Suriyawong was overly respectful to Achilles, trying to gain false trust with him. He knew that Achilles always killed the people who had seen him helpless, and rescuing him from the clutches of a Chinese prison made Achilles appear helpless.

Achilles helped train the small army that Suriyawong had commanded. He was again positioning himself to assume great power in a governmental position, this time in the Hegemony run by Peter Wiggin. But it was all part of Peter’s plan to assert his own authority.

Peter had brought Achilles to the Hegemony to monitor his correspondence with his former allies in Russia, China, Thailand, India, and Pakistan. But the study was not as useful as Peter had thought it would be. Peter gave Achilles a new assignment: Assistant to the Hegemon, and they were to work closely together so Peter could control Achilles.

Achilles knew what Peter was doing and was playing his cards in such a way that he hoped he would again rise in power and position, free from being Peter’s prisoner. In fact, he’d secretly been winning the game from the start. It was revealed to Bean, who passed the information on to the Wiggins, that Achilles had arranged his own rescue from the prison convoy, passing it off as information from former Battle Schooler Han Tzu.

Peter’s parents realized what happened and took Peter from the Hegemony compound. Achilles tried to discredit Peter by claiming he was embezzling funds from the Hegemony. Peter countered the claims and asserted his authority and position as the rightful Hegemon through a full disclosure press conference.

In Brazil, Achilles tried to make it appear that Suriyawong was the new Hegemon, but no one bought in to his attempts at the power grab. Worse, Peter discovered that Achilles was still working with the Chinese government, and the world hung in the balance.

Peter had gone into hiding in space, and with the help of Hyrum Graff and Chamrajnagar, set a plot in motion that would expose Achilles’s evil intentions. The group sent an empty shuttle from space, claiming it carried Peter. Achilles shot it down, and the International Fleet subsequently authorized an Earth-bound attack on him.

In the meantime, Achilles set a trap for Bean. He claimed to have Bean and Petra’s stolen embryos, though he had actually implanted them in other
surrogates previously. Bean joined Peter in storming the Hegemony compound. Bean remained calm and didn’t fall for any of Achilles’s lies about the embryos.

Bean put Achilles back against the wall and held a gun to his face. Achilles ordered Suriyawong to kill Bean, but Suriyawong, who had never been loyal to Achilles, turned his back on him, leaving him alone to face the consequences of his actions. Bean shot Achilles in the face, killing him in vengeance for Poke and Sister Carlotta. Achilles was dead and would be buried at the Hegemony compound. But Bean still needed to know what his lifelong enemy had done with the embryos.

Flandres, Achilles II (EE, SG)

Achilles Flandres II was the ninth and final embryo created by Bean Delphiki and Petra Arkanian. He was implanted into and birthed by a young woman named Randi who had been told that the embryo had actually been created by Achilles Flandres I and his unknown wife. Randi worshipped Achilles and the work he’d done in trying to unify/take over the world. She named her son Achilles in his honor, though gave him a secret identity as “Randall Firth.”

Achilles II suffered from the genetic mutation known as Anton’s Key. His intelligence and growth were accelerated. Though born undersized, he would live to be a brilliant giant, like his father Bean, but would die at a young age.

Achilles II, under his alias Randall Firth, traveled with his mother to the human colony on the planet Ganges. He grew up on that planet, believing his mother’s stories that his father, “Achilles the Great,” sought peace and prosperity for the world. Through these stories, Achilles II grew to hate Peter Wiggin for defeating his father, and even hated Virlomi, the governor of his colony, because she undid the peace his father had created in India.

When Achilles II was sixteen, Virlomi told him the truth about his father and the reasons he was the most hated man in human history. Achilles II refused to believe her and struck her in the face. Arrested for striking the governor, and then perjuring himself afterward, Achilles II was to be exiled back to Earth.

Achilles II was the founder of a religious movement called Natives of Ganges, which based its teachings on
The Hive Queen
by the mysterious “Speaker for the Dead.” Sending out his teachings by ansible, Achilles II was able to use the book to discredit Ender Wiggin as a hero. Calling him “Ender the Xenocide,” Achilles got revenge on one of the relatives of the man he thought killed his father.

When Ender himself arrived at Ganges, Achilles II tried to kill him. Ender refused to fight Achilles II because he was the son of Ender’s friends. Ender
revealed Achilles II’s true parentage to him. He was the son of Bean Delphiki and Petra Arkanian. Though initially angry at what he thought were lies, Achilles II soon accepted the truth. He turned from a life of anger and vengeance and changed his name to Arkanian Delphiki in honor of his parents. This hurt his relationship with his surrogate mother Randi, but it was of little consequence to him. His sentence commuted by Virlomi, he stayed on Ganges.