1 Introduction

"Yo, wake up dude, we're almost there."

As my eyes slowly open, feeling stiff as if from a lifetime of rest, I am overcome with a relief that our journey is nearly over. Looking around, I see that we are still on the same small speed boat we had left the port on, and as I look towards the direction of where the boat is heading, my mind instantly turns towards fear of the mission at hand. A massive aircraft carrier, so large that it could be considered its own country, came into view, but before I could even comprehend the possibility of such a large ship being able to exist, the sound of a large explosion echoes the pure blue sky, rocking the waves of the deep ocean we are traveling on.

"Shit, looks like its already pierced through the atmosphere."

The same voice, coming from the person sitting across from me. With his true name being unknown, even to the government, I commonly refer to him as redirect. Though he is quite mysterious, he actually isn't that much older than me, as we both are 16 years old. His physical appearance is definitely not that one of a normal teenager though, as he is quite the well toned body, though not overly toned to the point where he is pure muscle. Mainly his core, arms, and legs are just defined enough to give him an edge in any given fight, and his six-pack abs and wide back show that he knows how to fully build himself up from start to finish to get where he wants to be, without going overboard. A pure definition of efficiency. As he stares off in the sky at the object that felt like it just broke the sound barrier, his pale skin shines off the sun, and his his short, dark brown hair begins to flow with the wind, along with his loose white tank-top, basketball shorts(?), and flip-flops(???).

(Its like he's ready for vacation in the tropics) I thought.

He directly contrasts my entire appearance, with my straight black hair, and wearing a zipped up black hoodie, and a pair of jeans and running shoes. As I hide my own pale face and green eyes in the shade of the boat, I thought about how out of all the things I could have worn, I chose the outfit that seemed to be the hottest in the southern ocean sun, just because I thought that it would be good for not getting any water splashed directly onto my skin.

(Ah well, I'm not even the main player for this mission's success anyw-)

"We're here." States the man who drove us in the boat.

Before I could even finish my thought, I quickly jumped out of my seat to to get on the aircraft carrier. We were stopped on the far side of the boat, opposite of where the object had broken through the atmosphere, so as I climbed up the metallic ladder built into the side of the craft, I get a full view of what had rocked the ocean just moments before.

A massive rocket painted entirely white was completely enveloped in smoke and flames, not to mention pointing towards the earth. It definitely seemed to be a launch gone wrong. I can't help but be amazed and terrified at the same time.

"Holy shit."

It was all I could say, I felt like I had completely forgotten my mission. As I stand there in awe, Redirect puts a hand on my right shoulder as he comes from behind me, supposedly just getting up the ladder himself.

"It's beautiful, except for the fact of how deadly is could be." He commented.

The rocket spun on its nose as it rampaged through the heavens, and with the reflection off the top of the water created a section of almost like two separate spears crossing paths in the heat of battle. The scenery was only interrupted by the sandy, coastal town that was obscuring the rocket's path. That was the goal of today's mission, protect that town from the rocket.

"I still don't understand, how could a rocket could get this out of control?" I ask.

In today's age of 2056, the era of renewed space travel has taken effect. People want to leave the Earth and the horrible history behind, pushing towards starting a new life and new era of peace, all on a new planet. The only real struggle was the lack of resources being dedicated to the new rockets, so rockets were constantly being reused. Do to that fact, I figured that humanity would be pretty good at launching and retrieving rockets on an almost daily basis without having any of them getting out of control. Luckily, in today mission status briefing it was mentioned that this ship was not carrying any passengers, and only materials for a supposed space station checkpoint to Mars, so things weren't as bad as they could have been. I was a little nervous about the town below the rocket though, but we (a team consistent of Redirect and I) were specifically sent here to deal with the rocket using our "unique" skillset. As I begin to look down to continue moving across towards the far end of the ship to get closer to the rocket, Redirect was already running ahead of me, with his arms flailing about and the click of his sandals echoing across the concrete land mass.

"Guess I better get moving now, while we still have an opening." Redirect stated as he came to a sudden halt at the other edge of the ship.

I start to slowly walk towards him, watching as he start to anchor his legs into a wide stance. He then began to raise his right arm, stare intently at the rocket, and spoke to me one last time before making his move.

"You got my back right, in case I screw up?"

"Yeah, go ahead and start." I state with absolute confidence. If I hadn't given him a direct answer ensuring his safety, I worried that he might not feel confident enough to go through with this. His life could be in danger after all. After a couple a second of him seemingly flexing his arm, with his focus squarely on the rocket, the rocket began to turn in the sky, slowly inching its direction away from the town, and towards us. Once it was aimed directly at our position, Redirect jumped out of his stance and came running towards me.

"Alright, now that we changed its direction, we have to back away from it now or else we'll get hit."

Thankfully there was nobody else on the deck of the ship but us, so if the rocket did hit the ship, we would be the only casualties. The rest of the ship seemed to be mysteriously automated, so as soon as we wanted to back up, the ship started to back up from the path of the rocket, almost like someone was watching us and moved the ship according to what Redirect had just said.

"Is it really safe to use an unmanned ship to retrieve a rocket?" I asked.

"Eh, its fine, are mission here is done so there isn't really anything we can be blamed f-"

As the ship back up, the rocket cracked the surface of the water, harshly scraping the side of the boat. As the rocket plunged deeper into the sea, the whole carrier began to rock from side to side, making it hard to stand. Falling to one knee, I watched as the rocket became fully submerged in the ocean water, eventually float back up until it leaped in the air, splashed on the waves, and lay perfectly on its side as it floated on the ocean's surface.

"Not the best landing, but it could have gone a lot worse." Redirect stated.

I was simply just glad that the both us and the town were safe. As we were relieved that we had accomplished our mission, another speedboat was coming towards the carrier from the mainland on our left side to pick us up. I turned around and walked towards the ladder, eager to go home and rest after such a stressful day.

"Mission accomplished." Redirect cheered.