The Always War 1-100

The whole town of Waterford City is gathered in what used to be the school gym for a ceremony to honor Gideon Thrall. Gideon was a pilot for the United States military in the ever-lasting war that the U.S. has been in. The ceremony is to honor Gideon's courage and bravery with the highest award the military has to offer. This is very special moment for the beat-up town of Waterford City because only six others have received this award in history. Gideon is about to receive the award from the general when, out of nowhere, Gideon says that he doesn't deserve the award and says he is a coward. The whole gym is in shock as he runs out of the room. Tessa, Gideon's neighbor, runs after him to find out why he did such a thing. She found him throwing up in a trashcan and asked why he did what he did. He told her that he did terrible things in the war and shouldn't get a medal for what he did. Once she returned home to her apartment after a long day, Tessa laid in her bed and thought about the days events. After awhile, she heard a tapping on her wall coming from Gideon's room. Tessa figures out that it is Morse code and decodes it. Gideon is saying SOS. The next day she takes flowers over to the Thrall's apartment to give to Gideon, but this was only a diversion so she could get past Gideon's mother. Gideon asks her to bring him a laptop because he can't have one because of what has happened. Once Tessa gives him the laptop, he starts typing in things and bunches of codes pop up on the screen. He tells her she might not want to watch the next thing he does, but she does anyway. It is a video of over 1000 people, women and children included, being killed by a bomb that was dropped on them. He tells her that he is a killer and that is why he doesn't deserve the award. Tessa runs out of the room upset and keeps running out of the apartment building. After running for awhile, she realizes that he watched that video to find something in it and that he still has some hope of change. She heads back to her room to find that someone had been in there. She notices that there had been a hole in the wall and in her floor. Gideon had used her room to escape out of the building. Tessa set out to find Gideon and noticed him walking down the street in a cautious manner. She also notices that someone is following Gideon, so she takes off to follow them and to help Gideon if anything went wrong. They go into an alleyway in a part of town Tessa is unfamiliar with. She hides in what she thinks is a car to listen to what the two people are saying. Then Gideon gets in and starts it up. Tessa suddenly realizes that this isn't a car, as they are going upward towards the sky. It takes awhile for them to land, but once they do, Tessa hears Gideon talking with someone asking them to punish him for what he has done to them. Tessa figures out that they went back to where Gideon flew back to where he killed all those people and was asking them to kill him. She springs up and tackles him and closes the door. Gideon is furious that Tessa had followed him. A screen on the plane's dashboard shows that there is going to be another bombing run through there and they are right in the path of it. They try to get the plane back up and running but Gideon fails to do so, as that that was the first time he had ever flown a plane. All planes were controlled thousands of miles away by computers. The screen shows that the bombers went over but they didn't hear any bombs and didn't die. They were confused as to what happened, when a little girl named Dek appeared from the back of the plane that knew how to fly the plane. Something started hitting the plane, so the girl got the plane started and let Gideon fly it out of there. Soon after, gauges flashed telling them that they were low on fuel and the plane rerouted to Shargo. Shargo is the largest city in the war zone and where the enemy's headquarters are at. Luckily, they crash landed before they got to Shargo. Gideon thought that if he would surrender to the enemy before they killed them, they could possibly survive. When Gideon did so, no one was around to hear him.