The Always War by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page A

shot down all our spy satellites, our military’s seeing the same thing we are,” Dek snapped. “Let’s focus on doing things that keep us alive, shall we?”
    Gideon probably would have kept protesting, but they hit a pocket of air just then that made the whole plane buck wildly. He had one hand on the airsickness bag and one hand stretched out toward the controls—he wasn’t holding on to anything solid. He tumbled over backward.
    Tessa grabbed for his arm.
    She caught his sleeve; he curled his fingers around her wrist.
    “Are you trying to pull her arm out of its socket?” Dek shrieked at him. “Do you hurt or kill
everything
you touch?”
    Gideon let go.
    “No!” Tessa screamed.
    But when she looked back, Gideon had only shifted to clutching the back of her seat.
    Tessa wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the landing got even rougher after that. Maybe the wind currents were more dangerous closer to the Earth’s surface; maybe even theautopilot had lost power, and gravity was taking over. The plane shimmied and shook, rolled and throbbed, slammed down toward the ground. This seemed to go on for hours. Tessa’s teeth pounded together; her spine jolted against the seat; the belt bit into her hips. And then, even when Tessa was certain they had to be on the ground, they
bounced.
    When they finally stopped moving, Tessa didn’t dare to breathe for a full minute.
    “Is … everyone … okay?” she asked in a small voice that sounded tinny and panicked even to her own ears. She had a sudden fear of looking around: What if Dek or Gideon was dead? She kept her eyes focused forward, staring straight at the computer screen, which had gone completely dark.
    Suddenly a hand slapped against the screen.
    “On! Come! Back! On!”
    It was Dek. She’d sprung out of her seat and was alternately hitting the computer screen and slamming her hands against the controls.
    “Who designs a computer system to shut down just when you need it most?” she hollered. “Where’s the backup power?”
    “It … serves the … military’s purposes, not to have a drone plane loaded with all our coding … fall into enemy hands,” Gideon said in a creaky voice from behind Tessa. He was alive! “So … blame your bosses … for not … retrofitting … enough.”
    Tessa spun around, to see if Gideon looked as pained as he sounded. But the jerky movement was too much for her after the wild landing. Her stomach lurched; her head throbbed; her vision receded and then surged again.
    By the time Tessa could see straight once more, Dek had already launched herself from the pilot’s seat and was running toward Gideon. He was huddled in a broken-looking way against the padded column.
    Okay,
Tessa thought.
Dek will take care of him. She’s not as heartless as she tries to sound. She’s all bark, no bite.
    Dek bent down beside Gideon. But instead of checking for broken bones or dabbing at the cut over his cheek, she immediately began tugging at his shirt.
    “We’ve got to get that uniform off you and hide it!” she cried, her voice brimming with fear. “Tessa, help! If the enemy shows up and sees him wearing that, they’ll kill us all!”
    Gideon twisted around and shoved her away. She hit the wall hard.
    Maybe Gideon wasn’t hurt as badly as he looked.
    “This uniform may be the only thing that saves us,” he insisted. “If I can say, ‘I surrender’ before they shoot me, they have to treat me like a prisoner of war. There are
rules
for that. Policies they have to follow.”
    Dek snorted.
    “Only way that uniform is going to protect you is if it’s bulletproof,” she muttered. She rubbed the back of her neck, where she’d hit the wall. “And what’s going to protect Tessa and me?”
    “I will,” Gideon said.
    Tessa expected the other two to ask what she thought, to give her a chance to weigh in with her own opinion. Would she have to cast the tie-breaking vote?
    But Gideon was already lunging to his feet,