The next thing I knew, I was drowning.

Caught completely by surprise, I admit that I panicked, and kicked towards the surface, but though there was little light by which to see, there was just enough for me to tell that the surface is much too far away.

I'm going to die. I realized. Things started fading to black as a burst of bubbles issued out of my mouth...

...

...

...

...

...

Pain. I'm choking. I coughed and sputtered as a torrent of water spewed from my mouth, and light stung my eyes.

"Easy, take it easy. You're safe." I heard someone say as if over a radio, feeling someone patting my back.

Looking up, I noticed a man in a diving suit, who's face could be barely seen through the faceplate of the suit. Noticing my surroundings, I stared around in surprise. It's an underwater base. It's rather small, and has a few windows showing a view of the ocean outside, with the surface far above us. The air in here has a chemical scent to it that I'm not sure what to make of.

Coughing some more to clear my lungs, as the man continued to try and comfort me, "That's it. Easy. Nice deep breathes. You're gonna be fine. My name is Nathan. What's yours?"

"Matthew," I offered, my voice coming out in a croak and winced, "You wouldn't happen to have any fresh drinking water would you?"

Nathan nodded, and pulled out a thick plastic bottle shaped container which had water in it with a squeezing nozzle on top. Gratefully I took it and squeezed some water in my mouth. After a few swallows I offered it back, but he shook his head.

"Keep it. You look like you need it anyway. The bottle will self dispose once it's empty anyway." Nathan said.

I blinked, then shrugged and finished off the bottle. To my astonishment, the thing then crumpled up on its own and continued to crush itself until it was too small and then seemingly disappeared. "Woah..."

"What, never seen self disposing technology before?" Nathan asked, his tone making it obvious he found it strange.

I shrugged, "I'm not exactly from around here."

Nathan snorted, "Neither am I. I'm a xeno deep ocean explorer, with my current coworker/handler Madison holding station on our research vessel on the surface. Unfortunately, my sub took a nasty hit from something down here and it ended up falling apart. Now I gotta fix it to get back up to the surface."

I nodded. That pretty much matched up perfectly with what I knew of the backstory of Farsky. Though the bit about this being an alien world was new, though fairly obvious in hindsight.

"So what about you? How'd you end up down here?" Nathan asked.

I sighed, "Would you believe me if I told you I got voluntold to go universe hopping, and the system I got stuck in that transports me to a new universe every week evidently doesn't care if I got dropped in an environment that can kill me?"

Nathan was silent for a few moments. "...Huh. Well, that'd be a new one, that's for sure."

I shrugged, "If you don't believe me, that's fine. Perfectly understandable really. Still, thanks for saving me. Considering you crashed your sub and still took time to grab me before I died... Well... Thanks."

"No problem. I wasn't just going to let you drown if I could help it. Anyone would've done the same in my shoes." Nathan said, waving it off.

He then stood up, and looked around, "Anyway, since we're both stuck down here, I haven't really gotten a good look around this base to see what's available. I figure if we help each other, we can get out of here that much faster. Should even be able to make you a diving suit of your own if I can get the materials."

"Well..." I said, a tad embarrassed, "You shouldn't have to worry about that so much. Now that I'm not suddenly appearing underwater and panicking my head off, I can tell you that I should be fine without a suit, though eye protection would be appreciated." I said, pulling out the Jedi rebreather from a pocket on my chest.

"What's that?" Nathan asked, curiously.

"Rebreather," I answered. "From what I understand of how it works, it should basically work indefinitely, or at least pretty darn close to that."

"Really?" Nathan asked, "Mind if I scan that?" he asked.

"Sure, go right ahead," I said, holding it out to him. Nathan took it, and a light from inside his helmet came on and flashed a beam which hovered over the device. After a moment passed and the beam disappeared, Nathan gave out a low whistle.

"Well I'll be damned. That's some fancy tech you've got there. Be hard to make another without a better fabricator, but this'll solve a lot of problems exploring underwater. You don't mind if I use the design do you?" Nathan asked.

I shook my head, "No, go right ahead."

Nathan grinned, then the grin fell from his face, a curious look overtaking him. "...You were serious weren't you. That tech is way more advanced than anything I've ever seen. You're really not from this universe."

I nodded. "I actually got that from... about three jumps ago I think. Sorry, they're starting to all blend together a little. Guy gave it to me when I got stuck with him and his student in a dangerous situation, and it was a fairly advanced galaxy spanning universe full of space fairing races too."

"And you could just jump anywhere then once the week is up?" Nathan asked, sounding like he was thinking.

I nodded. "Yeah."

Nathan nodded as if to himself, then said, "Yeah... I can't just do nothing after hearing that. If you're willing to pool resources with me, we'll do what we can to get out of this situation as fast as possible. Once we're back up to the ship, I'll use the onboard fabricator to fix you up a suit that can handle hazardous environments."

"I'd appreciate that, thanks," I said gratefully, then began to strip off my armor and backpack to lay them out to dry, along with my Piptool, and opened the backpack and grimaced at the state of things inside. "Great..." I said, pulling out my soggy clothes and laying them out as well. At least most of my electronics are waterproof. I think. The piptool appears to still be working at least. Nathan watched in interest as I set some of the things out. "Mind if I scan some of this?" he asked.

I shrugged, "Go right ahead. If it'll help, then all the better, especially if you can make me a suit that'll blend in with a pre space flight society or even a medieval era in case I end up in a place like that while still incorporating my equipment and armor. My biggest problem though is that I can only take what I'm wearing and what I can fit into a backpack with me. Between my armor and current set of clothes, a lot of the space available is already used up."

Nathan hummed thoughtfully then said, "I'll see what I can do."

I then took one of my rations that I'd pulled out and unwrapped it to eat. I then held up another. "Hungry?"

Nathan nodded, and took the rations, smiling gratefully. "Thanks."

"No problem," I offered.

We ate in silence, me in my underwear and an undershirt and Nathan in his suit, which he slid the ration bar into a port on his helmet which brought the food to his face for him to bite at. I grimaced, "Yeah, I'd definitely need a retractable helmet, or one I can at least take off."

Nathan nodded in understanding, then paused. After a moment, he grinned, "Seems you're in luck. Madison is offering to design a suit for you and send it down to our coordinates if I can scan you for your measurements."

I nodded. "Alright. Do I need to lay down or something?"

Nathan shook his head, "No, just stand still."

"Alright," I responded, and held still as the beam of light from his scanner passed over me a few times. Nathan then finished scanning the rest of my stuff, then nodded. "All set then. I figure you'll want to stay in the base, so if you're willing to tend to the hydroponics and manufacturing while I go out for resource runs and to find the pieces of my sub, we should be out of here in no time. Sound good?"

I nodded. "Sounds good."

After searching the rest of the base, which just consisted of the single room on the first floor, with the exit to the ocean itself on the bottom, and a smaller room up on a ledge above, with a chest of some resources, along with different crafting stations that would serve well to fabricate new equipment. Nathan then left to get some resources.

I settled in to wait, but didn't have to wait long as Nathan came back regularly to replenish his air supply, and swore after the dozenth time that he couldn't wait to integrate the rebreather tech I got from Star Wars into his suit. Evidently it was good enough to last around 500 years before needing to replaced. My particular one still had a good 450 years to go, which made me wonder where the previous fifty years of life for it had gone.

Shrugging, I waited, and once Nathan had enough resources for it, he created a mini fabricator for me, which he modeled to fit and interface with my Piptool. Now he dropped off more and more resources for me and I got to work creating a chest and some planters so that we could start growing food when hungry.

Eventually Nathan did have enough to fabricate an upgrade for his suit based off my rebreather. By the time he got that done though, night had fallen, and it became far too dangerous for either of us to head outside of the base.

As for the base itself, with Nathan ferrying materials for me, and the already available crafting stations, I was able to make a two level underwater base, with a third level underway. As of now, all of the crafting supplies and stations, including the chests Nathan's been offloading supplies into, are on the first floor. I was able to modify the floor entrance into the base so that the way in was now a large square ring with ladders enabling climbing up from any direction. This lead to a square platform in the center of the room, which had a ladder I planned to replace with a spiral staircase leading up to the second floor, with the crafting supplies and chests cluttered around it.

Beyond the opening to the first floor were simply walls that held the water at bay, and I was currently in the process of making them all into surprisingly durable glass to allow for easy viewing outside to allow for spotting enemies before entering the water.

Up the ladder is the second floor, which I was currently in the process of creating rows upon rows of plant plots for growing food. After Nathan looked around, he turned to me and asked, "This is an odd design. How'd you come up with it?"

I shrugged, "Where I come from, from the point of you crashing the sub to finding the pieces and getting to the surface are the main features for an underwater survival game called Farsky. This design is based off the one I used in the game. Though I'm starting to consider switching to just a design using one floor. Climbing that ladder to the second floor over and over again is a pain, nevermind the next one to the third floor I haven't made yet, which is supposed to be the observatory/living space/crafting room. Why the heck are there no stairs preprogrammed into these crafting tables?"

Nathan shrugged. "Setting aside the idea of any part of my life being a video game... I don't know. Ladders worked well enough, so I guess no one thought to mess with what works. There's also the danger of slipping on stairs to consider."

I raised an eyebrow, "I'm not sure which is more dangerous slipping and falling down stairs, or slipping and falling off a ladder."

Nathan hummed, "You make a fair point."

"So let's forget stairs and ladders then. Why not gradual slopes? And if slipping is such a problem, handrails ought to help." I suggested.

Nathan nodded and forwarded the suggestion to Madison.

Overtime I and Nathan began to get a little stir crazy as the days passed. More and more time would pass between Nathan coming back to base. When asked, he said he had to go out farther to get the submarine pieces, and he also found another base at a deeper level. I generally passed the time playing minesweeper or Sudoku on my Piptool, and made a mental note to download more games or books to read next time I had access to an internet, or extranet, or holonet, or whatever.

It was the fifth day when things changed a bit. I was counting fish out the window when a metal pod came floating down through the water and thunked the ground nearby.

I blinked. What the heck is that? Is it a bomb? Should I be swimming away quickly at this point?

With Nathan not here, I decided not to risk it and grabbed my backpack, which Nathan had been nice enough to waterproof for me, put my rebreather in my mouth and high tailed it a ways away.

I waited, partially behind a nearby hill for a while. It'd taken a while, but by this point, my eyes had gotten kind of used to the weird uncomfortable feeling of being open while underwater.

I'd been hanging back for nearly an hour when I heard churning water behind me. Looking back, I spied Nathan swimming towards me. When he got close, he made some handsigns, but I had no idea what they meant. The look of frustration on his face was slightly funny.

With a bit of pantomiming, pointing between me, the base, then the spot beneath me, shrugging, and a few other gestures, I figured out that he was asking why I was out here.

In response, I pointed at the mysterious pod thing.

Nathan looked where I was pointing and began swimming towards it.

I grabbed his leg and pulled it back. His face through the helmet looked partly incredulous and questioning.

I pantomimed an explosion with my hands, then pointed at the pod.

He looked back towards the base, then at me. He rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, then grabbed my wrist and started pulling me along back to base. I tugged to get loose. If he wanted to blow up or something, then fine, but I'll wait here thank you!

Unfortunately I couldn't break his grip without trying to hurt him. So I resigned myself to whatever fate was in store.

Instead of the pod, he dragged me back to the base and pushed me towards the entrance.

Climbing up, I waited till he came up, then his exterior speaker crackled.

"Why the hell would you think that's a bomb?" Nathan asked incredulously.

I threw up my hands, "I don't know! It could be anything! I decided to play it safe and you go dragging me back towards it! The hell man?!"

Nathan sighed in exasperation, "Don't you remember me saying Madison would make a suit for you? That's the capsule she dropped it down with!"

"Oh." I said sheepishly. I'd honestly forgotten about that after five days of tedium with nothing to do but tend plants and play the few games I could give the VI rudimentary instructions on how to program.

Nathan shook his head. "Just wait here and get dry. I'll go grab the suit."

The man then put some stuff into a chest, then went back out into the water.

Once he came back, he pulled the items out of his molecular inventory, something that I found out was currently a prototype tech being tested by the science and exploration division of the Human System's Alliance. The suit I ended up in ended up being even more like a prototype, what with Ms. Madison had gone out of her way to integrate the tech I already had into the suit itself, giving it a bit modular in a way, since I could take off bits and pieces to camouflage it. The helmet wasn't able to collapse into the neck like I hoped, but it was able to disappear into molecular storage, along with the odds and ends that would help disguise the suit as civilian wear, though why they decided to go with what amounts to a 1950's style brown detective trench coat and hat for a disguise is still beyond me. I did ask, but the only answer I got was 'gotta respect the classics'.

On the plus side though, this suit is rated for space walks, though the air supply in space would be limited while in water it would be technically infinite thanks to the rebreather technology they integrated into the suit.

As another plus, my armor from my stint in the Halo verse was also integrated into the suit as well, so I actually no longer needed the UNSC specific armor. As such, I decided to leave that with Nathan.

Now with a suit of my own, I was able to head out to help Nathan hunt up some more minerals, which we used to upgrade both our suits to make them tougher and increase their rating for deep diving, which is good considering we ended up going almost 500 meters down to fetch all of the sub pieces.

Once said sub was finally reassembled, and altered to have enough space for a second passenger, the both of us broke for the surface. To be fair, with the rebreather technology, we could've just gone straight to the surface already, but turns out that sub was experimental in the first place, hence why it kinda blew up, so it needed to be returned and examined to figure out what went wrong anyway.

Once we reached the surface, the both of us were collected up by a ship. An honest to goodness ship. Like, it looked like someone in the Human System's Alliance decided that since the command structure of their space fleet would follow the Navy standard, the ships oughtta too. The ship would pass as a pretty futuristic looking cruise liner crossed with a classic submersible design, with a dash of steam punk thrown in.

Unfortunately the one thing this HSA government didn't have seemed to be FTL travel like warp space or hyper space. It would take a handful of years in cryosleep while the ship travelled back from the fringe of HSA space, and since I only had a couple of days left, we mainly spent the rest of the time dropping back into the ocean to check a few things, with Nathan writing up and examining the sub, and helping me pass the time by getting used to my new suit of armor.

Finally the time came for me to leave. Dreading appearing in the dead of space next, I decided to go for a mixture of both disguise and air tight suit, and put the helmet on once it came time to make the next jump. I waved to Nathan and Madison gave me a hug, who told me to look them up if I ever found myself in the neighborhood again. I promised to do so, and everything went black.