(GQ #1) Bon Voyage, Celestion-5!

3. Touring the Ship

"Now where do I begin...?" Emil asked no one in particular, tapping his chin. He turned to the door behind him. "Well, this right here leads to the observation deck, but I think I'm gonna save that for laaast, so the only other place we can go is downstairs. Sound good?"

It sounded good enough to Leon. His eyes were dying to scour every inch of this ship, his new home.

Like a graceful breeze, Emil swept past him, stepping over the orange line separating one half of the room from the other.

"Jun, you're gonna wanna move back some. In fact, everyone gather around me for a sec."

Everyone congregated around him as he moved near some sort of panel on the wall. There were a few buttons on it, as well as a display screen that flashed a bright green. White numbers read 100%.

"Say hello to our braaand spanking new oxygen panel!" He presented it as if it were a prize. "It's here to make sure we don't die."

"Yaaay~" Celebration escaped Ranger Allen's lips before she sheepishly covered them up.

"No, living's good. Celebrate!" Emil urged her on. "Feel free to talk. It'd be a boring tour if no one else said anything. Now if you'll excuse me–"

He mimicked swimming the breaststroke, motioning for the crowd to part. When they did, he sauntered over to the orange stripe where the crew once stood. The metal disk stationed at its midway point was his destination.

"The room below, the tall staircase you guys climbed to get here? That's the airlock. When we get to space and have to let people in and out of the ship, all the air drains out of there into... uhhh," Emil paced around the disk, in deep thought, "I dunno, somewhere! It goes somewhere so that we don't lose it in space."

"Like an engine room?" asked Leon. "I heard about that in training."

"Probably. Anyway, that means sometimes the room below won't have any oxygen in it, and if you open it, that's baaad news." Emil pointed between the entrance disk and the wall panel. "So make sure not to open this unless that panel's green, or as I like to remember: Green is good, Red is dead."

As Leon took a closer look at the guide beside the panel, he noticed many colors between the green and red. "What's orange?"

"Hmmm." Emil tilted his head back some, shrugging. "Orange is okay, I guess. Good eye, Rookie. I'll let you do the honors of opening the door. Just press that big rectangular button below the screen."

Overcome with the excitement of impressing one of his superiors, Leon immediately reached for the button.

"Wait!"

All eyes turned to Mia. Her mouth remained open, a little startled, as if the words had been stolen from it.

"Lieutenant, you're standing on the entrance."

"Oh shoot–" Emil hopped off of the disk. "Thank you Wattson. Mia, right?"

She nodded.

He leaned down toward the panel. "That would've been a bad tumble, so thank you very much for looking out for me. Just as a warning, don't do what I just did." With a snap and a point, he motioned to Leon dazzlingly. "You can open the door now."

"Y-Yes, sir!" Leon obeyed, feeling pride and a sense of purpose, though a little offput by the near-accident he caused. He stood by the panel, absentmindedly watching the others leave, until Mia's pale red hair disappeared into the airlock. There's something he felt like he meant to tell her...

"Hey Leon, you comin' down?" The lieutenant's distant call cut through his thoughts.

"O-oh. Yes, sir, right away, sir."