“Are you okay…?” Mia asked.

“Yeah, don’t worry, I’m fine!” Leon felt a little embarrassed, but if anything, he figured this would be something to laugh about later down the line. “Emil and Jun are helping me out.”

After the other two rangers steadied him, one of them--his vision was too blurry to see who--pointed to the right side of their helmet, Leon’s left.

“I think someone wants me to press the button on my helmet.” Leon informed.

“That works out fine, actually. Um, I have to,” Mia hesitated, and Leon could hear the captain’s voice in the background, “talk with the captain.”

“Okay, have fun!” Leon pressed the button and heard the clicking sound again.

Jun spoke first. “Duuude, what happened?”

“Where were you??” asked Emil. “Don’t tell me you were behind the ship!”

“I...was.” Leon sheepishly admitted, looking at one of them.

“Emil’s over there.”

“Yeah, over here, buddy!” The lieutenant confirmed. “Hey, are you… crying?”

“Oh yeah! I pressed that button when you told me to, but I didn’t hear the rest of what you said, and you and Jun just kind of left, so I figured I’d go look at the Earth, and that’s when I got misty-eyed.” explained the rookie. “When I turned around, I couldn’t even see the ship!”

“Man, that’s wild…” Jun reacted. “Yeah, after he told us to press that button, I mentioned that we should always be in front of the ship so that… that doesn’t happen.”

Emil held himself accountable. “That was my bad. Sorry! I should’ve mentioned it way beforehand, but I guess now you learned the hard way. How far back were you? Do you know?”

“Nope!” Leon answered the blurry face. “All I know is that Mia got me back here safely.” He felt so thankful, which reminded him that he needed to thank her later.

“Good on her.” He could barely make out Jun clapping.

“Yeah, go Mia!” the lieutenant agreed. “Anyway, let’s get you back on the ship. You’ve had enough adventure for the day.”

Arm in arm, the trio made their way back inside of the loading deck. The door shut behind them once they verified that all three were there and accounted for. Gravity returned and so did the oxygen, but they had to wait until the panel at the top of the staircase turned green before they could remove their helmets. Not that Leon remembered how.

Emil, blond locks in full view once more, noticed this, lifted up the panel on the right side of his helmet, and pressed a button. Air rushed out of the helmet, and Leon was finally able to remove it from his head. As he blinked, his eyes, now tear-free, adjusted to the environment.

“Thanks, Emil!”

“No problem!” He winked.

The three removed all their armor and placed it in their respective cubby holes, then headed upstairs. Today was the first time Leon saw the oxygen panels by each doorway display anything other than a green screen. The group actually had to pay attention to them on the way up to the observation deck to make sure they didn’t step into a room with a less than breathable amount of air.

“We’re back~!” Emil threw open the door. Aiden merely blinked in response, but the captain spun around, his cape billowing out behind him.

Jun stepped into the observation deck next. “Hey guyyys.”

“Junzie!” Roxie clapped excitedly.

“Hiiii!” Leon waved.

Mia meekly waved the fingers of one hand back at him.

“Welcome back.” Captain Galhardo greeted. “Please take your place by your respective partner so that I may start the performance review.”

Uh oh. Performance review? Leon wondered if his hiccup would negatively impact that, but he did make it back safely, so maybe there was nothing to worry about. Maybe. He stood by Mia, beaming down at her. She nervously smiled back.

“Ranger Kelly and Lieutenant Captain Galhardo.” The captain approached Aiden and his brother first. “Ranger Kelly, you could stand to be more vigilant about watching the cameras, but luckily nothing happened to your partner. Take this as a warning. Lieutenant, your command of the jet armor was decent, but do be careful about pulling so many unnecessary stunts. You nearly collided with Ranger Kim.”

“Sorry.” Emil whispered to Jun.

The captain stepped over to where Roxie and Jun stood. “Ranger Allen, Ranger Kim. Excellent work. Ranger Allen, you maintained good communication and kept focused on your partner’s surroundings. Ranger Kim, your handling of the jet armor was satisfactory and you responded quickly to your partner’s warnings.”

Jun placed a hand on Roxie’s shoulder, grinning. Roxie closed her eyes, smiling back.

The captain walked over to the remaining pair. “Ranger Wattson… Ranger Summers.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Ranger Summers, if you weren’t sure where to go, you should’ve kept a close distance to one of the other rangers. Ranger Wattson, if you weren’t sure where he should go, you should’ve notified me or advised him to contact the other rangers, especially if he was visually impaired. Ranger Summers venturing off on his own was a potentially costly and dangerous mistake on both your parts, and you should make certain never to let it happen again.”

Leon found himself unable to look the captain in his eyes. Thankfully the captain himself hadn’t looked directly at either of them.

“That being said…” Captain Galhardo tilted his head toward the ground. “For the situation to go as badly as it did, you both handled it exceptionally well. Ranger Wattson, your resourcefulness is to be commended, and Ranger Summers, for someone as inexperienced as yourself, you’ve improved rapidly over the course of this outing. Keep practicing.”

“Thank you, Captain!” Leon perked up.

“Thank you, Captain…” Mia nodded humbly.

The captain made another dramatic turnaround. “That concludes the evaluation. You all are dismissed.” He began walking toward his room.

After standing up from the observation station, Mia pressed a button on it, sending it sinking into the tiled floor. Leon was enthralled.

“How does it do that…?”

Mia shrugged. “I dunno, but it’s certainly fancier than the ones on the Moon Base.”

“You used to do this on the Moon??”

She nodded.

“Wowww. No wonder you were so calm and stuff! You must’ve had cases like this all the time!”

The freckled redhead laughed nervously.

“I guess that’s a no…?” Leon scratched the side of his head. “Either way, thank you so much for not giving up on me! I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for you. Probably still crying and lost in space!”

“Oh, it’s--” Mia waved her hands. “I couldn’t have just left you there. Especially since I did just kind of let you wander off on your own. Let’s just make sure never to let something like that happen again, okay?”

“You’ve got it!” Leon held out a hand to shake. Mia stared at it for a second before taking it.

“Do not despair!” Roxie jumped out in front of the two, startling them both.

“R-Roxie! Hey…” Mia stumbled backward.

“From what I was able to hear, the situation went much worse than what the captain mentioned, but do not despair!” Roxie repeated, clamping a hand on Leon’s shoulder. “I too, was really bad at using the jet armor. But if I had someone as wise and collected as Mia to guide me--”

“Wait, what? I’m not--!”

“--I would’ve never met Jun.” Roxie concluded.

“Yeah.” Jun called from the background.

“Aww, that’s nice!” Leon felt comforted by the knowledge that sometimes mistakes can bring people closer together.

A long, awkward pause ensued between Leon and Roxie. Finally, she spoke. “I don’t know what the moral of that was supposed to be. It kind of sounds like I’m saying to keep being bad at flying, which is not what I want, because just hearing you guys’ conversation was stressful! Don’t do that again!”

“Keep practicing, you’ll get it.” Jun advised.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Mia offered, “I still need a lot of practice with the armor, too.”

“Yeah!” Emil shouted. “We all need practice! Maybe with enough practice, I can be like Aiden!”

“No one can be me. Do your own thing.” With that, Aiden walked away from the group.

“...That works too!” Like magic, Emil transformed Aiden’s words into something positive. “With enough practice, we can all become our best selves!”

“Well said!” praised Jun.

“So inspiring…” Leon felt like he could go right back out into space.

“Today is a cause for celebration! Because you’re alive!” Roxie pointed at him. “And I’m alive! And we’re all alive!”

“And we can cook!!” Emil blurted out, seemingly unrelated. “Now that we have gravity, we can cook things! C’mon, everybody, let’s head to the kitchen!”

“We can share some jet armor pointers while we’re there.” Jun suggested.

Leon left along with the others, content in being surrounded by new friends. He hoped to venture back out into the stars soon, especially knowing he had Mia, a partner he could rely on.