I silently thanked Hale for providing me with such a nice plane… otherwise, we would have never been able to smell normal again. We took turns in the minute shower, using up all the hot water available. Grif had somehow gotten shunted to the back of the line and spent his entire two minutes in the water howling about how cold it was. The whole event took much longer than it should have, too—Caboose tried to pour the champagne in his hair while in the shower, and we spent a good twenty minutes convincing him to give us back the bottle.

We couldn't do anything about the formalwear either. The boys certainly didn't have a change of clothing. Although I could have gotten dressed in my armor again, Donut begged me to stay in the dress ("I'll never be able to convince you to wear something like that again!"). I couldn't argue with that.

I had originally figured that the plane would be outfitted to suit my needs, considering how my dress and everything had been personally selected for me… but when I opened up some other of the plane's cabinets, I was greeted with bottles of cologne and Old Spice.

Suspicious that something was awry, I went back to the bedroom and opened up the drawers. A man's change of clothes lay in the drawer alongside a pair of boxers in gray and yellow labeled "Property of Project Freelancer."

Wash.

My face reddened. Apparently, Wash had expected his evening to go quite differently than it had.

Although I resented Wash for his sneakiness, I was thankful that he had stocked the bathroom with deodorant. Between the showers and the Old Spice, we were able to get rid of the sweaty-man smell. I unabashedly used some too, not caring that I smelled like a guy.

Hair dripping all over the nice carpet and laughing at Caboose's reaction to actually tasting the liquor, we continued the plane ride casually. I knew it would be hours before we reached Blood Gulch again, but nonetheless, I was anxious to get home. It was exhausting, this saving-the-day stuff.

After a while, we were all starting to get tired. After calculating the time change, I figured we would get back to Blood Gulch in the morning, so we should try and get some sleep. There were two couches big enough for sleeping; Grif and Caboose called them instantly, and were soon asleep. Sarge had dozed off in one of the chairs, so I left him there. I gave Simmons a blanket and shoved him in the bathtub, where he rather crankily settled himself—I heard him snoring within minutes. Although I insisted that Tucker, Church or Donut take the bed, they refused. I sighed and handed them some extra blankets and pillows, and they were soon asleep as well on the ground.

I turned off the lights and fell into the bed, exhausted. All around me, sleeping soldiers recovered from a draining day, snoring quietly or murmuring in their dreams. I tried to stay awake a while, watching over them, but the rumble of the plane's engines soon lulled me into warm unconsciousness.

A rustle woke me. I opened my eyes and saw a figure standing in the doorway leading to the bedroom. I figured he would make his way to the bathroom, but instead, he made his way toward my bed. I closed my eyes quickly, pretending to be asleep.

I felt the figure sit on the edge of the bed. I tried to look at who it was through slit eyelids, but the room was too dark, so I just prepared to call out whoever was sitting there. It was Donut, probably, with a can of shaving cream ready to spray all over my face or Grif with a black sharpie about to decorate me with a moustache. Whoever was about to pull this prank would totally pay for it.

I felt a weight shift as the person leaned forward, and I could tell he was hovering over my face. Ready to reach up and smack the prank puller, I tensed up. The bed creaked as the soldier leaned forward, and I felt something touch my forehead.

Something stopped me from punching whoever it was, and I froze. What touched my forehead wasn't shaving cream or marker.

A pair of lips kissed my forehead.

Before I could fully comprehend what was happening, the figure pulled away and stood up from the bed. My eyes flew open as I tried to make out who it might be, but he had turned away and disappeared into the darkness. He was one of the soldiers, I knew that much.

But which one?

CLUNK.

I cried out in surprise as the plane jolted violently. The sharp vibrations shook the entire area and the other soldiers yelled as well, shaken forcefully from their sleep.

"What was that?" shouted Church from the darkness. I leapt out of the bed and turned on a lamp. The others followed suit, and we were soon able to see each other.

"I have no idea," said Sarge gruffly. "Don't they know how to drive planes around here? Back in my day—"

"Let's ask the pilot," said Grif. Before he could pull back the curtains leading to the front of the plane, however, the flight attendant strode out.

"There's a problem!" He stuttered, panicking. "The—the plane's motors just died! They're not starting up!" The flight attendant began running around the room in a panic. "We're going to crash! If you miscreants hadn't taken all of my liquor, I would have been able to have a last couple drinks before dying!"

Our stomachs flipped as we felt the plane incline downward.

"What the hell?" said Grif confusedly, glancing out the window. "I thought we were in space! How are we crashing downward?"

The flight attendant began hyperventilating. "We were pulled into some planet's gravitational field once we lost control of the motors!"

Caboose squealed in fear. "Are we going to die now?"

"Shut up, Caboose," Church shot at him. "Sarge, Simmons, let's go see what's going on with the pilot. Eleven, you and the others have to find anything we can use to—uh—"

"To survive?" Tucker suggested.

Church gulped, shrugged, and entered the cockpit with the others. We looked around, trying to find supplies. In the closet marked "EMERGENCY," we found an enormous blow up life raft, numerous flotation devices, a flashlight, water bottles, and dehydrated food. There was one parachute.

"Are you shitting me?" I gasped, glancing at the pathetic little parachute. "We've only got one of these?"

I set our one way out on the table and started looking for anything else useful with the others. We found absolutely nothing besides a lifeguarding whistle and a signal flare beneath the bed.

"Oh man… we're so screwed…" Donut moaned.

"All of you are," said a voice behind us.

The flight attendant had strapped the parachute to his back, smiling grimly at us. "Sorry, chaps. I may be old, but I'm not ready to resign just yet." We ran at him, but before we could grab the parachute, he wrenched the emergency exit open and jumped out into the night.