(GQ #8) Mingling on the Moon

1. A Lunar Arrival

Leon Summers found himself face-first on the Moon's surface. In his excitement to take his first steps on new land, he tripped over a rock. It's okay though. Reduced gravity made his landing a soft one. Besides, he couldn't be more happy to exist!

"You okay there, Rookie?" The lieutenant captain's words clicked in over his headset.

"I've never been better!" Leon began making snow angels--moon angels--on the ground. He picked up some rocks, moon rocks, and beamed at them with unbridled joy. "These are moon rocks...!"

"They sure are, dude!" Jun's voice answered. They might've been one of the people staring down at Leon, but there was too much dust on his helmet for him to tell.

Someone gave him their hand and helped him to his feet. The kind soul was even nice enough to wipe the dust from his helmet, revealing herself to be Roxie.

"Thanks Roxie!" The rookie's face started to ache from smiling so hard, but he couldn't stop. "Can you believe that we're here? On the actual Moon? I feel like I'm dreaming!"

"It's not a dream!" Roxie shook her head in such a way that would've normally sent her curls bouncing all over the place, had they not been confined inside her helmet. She hooked her arm into his. "You're journeying into a new frontier. The final one, in fact! So we've been told."

Miles of foreign, rocky terrain stretched out on either side of the crew. The Moon's surface was much darker than it looked from Earth, which made the Celestion-5 stand out in comparison. A silver chariot in a desert of darkness. That sounded like something Roxie would say!

Just as Leon thought that, she turned to him. "Are you ready to venture forth, traveller?"

"Yeah!" He'd never been more ready for anything in his life.

"Okay! Let's gooo!" Roxie broke into a skip, lifting Leon upward as her arm swung forward. The low gravity sent them soaring into the non-existent air, floating down as gently as feathers. It felt like magic.

"This is so much fun!" Leon skipped along with her as he took in the Moon's landscape from new heights. The two continued to bounce around in circles, laughing all the way. Jun smiled up at them. "Hey Jun, do you wanna join us?"

"Bounce with us, Junzie!" invited Roxie.

They waved. "Nah, I'm fine just watching you guys have fun."

"Awww." Roxie whined. Someone else caught her attention. In the direction she looked, a lone star ranger stood by herself. Mia. "Dearest Wattson! Would you like to join us?"

The freckled ranger stepped back. "I-I don't know... Shouldn't we be conserving our oxygen?"

"You're correct, Ranger Wattson."

Out from the ship strode Captain Galhardo. Poised and calm, he surveyed his surroundings with the keenness of a hawk. He didn't flinch. When Leon and Roxie nearly crashed into him, he merely tugged Leon down by the hand.

"Cooool..." Leon and Roxie whispered in unison. They soon realized that whispering meant nothing when you're in what was essentially an in-person group chat. The captain gave them a quick glance.

"Uh, thanks Captain!" Leon spoke up. "For bringing us back down to Earth... or should I say the Moon~?" He winked. In the background, Emil did the same. The captain reacted to neither of them.

"We will be journeying over to the Interstellar Forces Moon Base ahead." The 19-year-old captain motioned a hand toward a bulky structure about a mile in front of the group. "The trip should only take 20 minutes, but that is no excuse to be wasteful with our oxygen supply. Or our jet fuel."