Follows the life of Ender Wiggin's comrade Bean from his escape from the mean streets of Rotterdam, to his student days at the Battle School, and to his role as Ender's right hand ally, strategist, and friend in the epic struggle to save Earth from alien invaders.

One hundred years before Ender's Game, the aliens arrived on Earth with fire and death. This is the story of the First Formic War. Victor Delgado beat the alien ship to Earth, but just barely. Not soon enough to convince skeptical governments that there was a threat. They didn't believe that until space stations and ships and colonies went up in sudden flame. And when that happened, only Mazer Rackham and the Mobile Operations Police could move fast...

The story of the Fleet in space, parallel to the story on Earth, told during the time that Peter Wiggin and Bean are consolidating the Hegemony on Earth. The terraformed Formic worlds are open to settlement by humans, and the International Fleet becomes the arm of the Ministry of Colonization, run by Hirum Graff. MinCol now runs Fleet School on the old Battle School station, and still recruits very smart kids to train as leaders of colony ships and...