Chapter 2

Rook dived through the void, whether he was falling or was just going in a straight line like a torpedo, he had no idea, neither did Omniscient, luckily through extremely complicated calculations Omniscient had marked where their 'dimensions' was.

"Trust me, navigating this place is going to get some getting used to," she said, "any idea where to head?" Rook asked as he continued forward. The entire void around them extended like a kaleidoscope as they moved.

"Well…" Omniscient began but didn't finish as suddenly a purple crack appeared in front of them and they shot through it like a bullet from a gun, Rook rolled in order to break his fall and then righted himself and skidded to a stop.

"Uh w-what just happened?" Omniscient asked a tad shaken from the surprise of this, "I… have no idea" Rook admitted, "perhaps the device had a default setting" Omniscient said.

Rook looked around, all around him were crates and boxes, large and small, long and short, he must be in some kind of cargo hold, "the default setting was a cargo hold?" Rook asked, deadpan "um…perhaps the location was random" Omniscient suggested, rather weakly, "so dimensionally, the setting was default but where we ended up in the dimension was random" Rook said just to clarify, "yup" Omniscient said popping the P.

Rook nodded, getting the idea as he began to look around, "these crates" Omniscient began, "let's not go poking around inside other people's business" Rook said.

"Yeah" Omniscient said a tad disappointed, "oh look a window" she added marking the location on his hub Rook turned to find that there indeed was a window, and outside it was stars. He was in space, he had been on enough space stations to know that.

And sure enough when he looked, down below was the planet, it was not a planet he recognised, obviously, but it still was breathtaking and rather beautiful, the planet was similar to earth or other planets like that. Dotted with oceans and large land masses with white clouds obscuring it from the atmosphere.

"These star constellations are none I recognise. Guess it's only to be expected" Omniscient said, "only to be expected" Rook agreed, "what's only to be expected" said a voice behind them. Rook whirled around and pointed his magnum at the source.

The voice had come from a short fat, gray skinned alien with scaly skin, black hair, glasses and wearing, civilian outfit, "wow hey there I ain't gonna hurt yah" the alien said, throwing his arms up in the air.

"Who are you?" Rook said, not lowering the gun, "do you work in this space station?", "I'm on a space station?, darn I must have taken a wrong turn" said the alien. Rook lowered his gun slightly in confusion at this statement, "as for your question I am somewhat of a traveler"

Rook holstered his weapon seeing this guy meant no harm, not that much would be a threat to a Spartan but training made you instinct defensive over time. "The planet down there, do you know what it is?" Rook then asked.

The alien then took a look out the window, "oh yes that's Igliak. Which means I'm In the Praxis sector of the Polaris galaxy" said the stranger, "this must be a PDF station".

"Let me guess Polaris defense force" Rook said, "smart one ain't yah. Anyway yes so I'd suggest not getting spotted, we would both be in trouble for trespassing". "Duly Noted" Rook said, "hey I think I heard something" echoed a voice.

"Uh oh I think you would do good to hide. Unless you want to get into trouble" the stranger said, ''Wait, is there a way off the station?" Rook asked, "actually there is an escape pod hatch but don't get spotted otherwise the lockdown will become tight" the stranger said.

Then he ran around the corner, "wait we never got your name" Omniscient said, "we?" the stranger asked, looking at Rook with a quizzical eyebrow raised. Rook remained silent. "Okay okay they call me the Plumber now toodaloo" the Plumber said as he pressed a button on a toilet shaped device before dove bombing down it.

"Um, w-what just happened?" Omniscient asked, Rook had no response, of all the things he had been expecting, a Plumber was on the very bottom of the list "I'm sure I heard something down this way" Said the voice from before, Rook pressed his back against the corner of the wall and looked out from behind the crates.

There were two guards, one was a robot, the other just had a very big one on a long stock protruding from where his body and no other facial features to speak off.

They held unusual weapons, and flashlights in the dim light, this was not a problem for Rook as Spartan augmentation allowed them to see in the dark like cats.

They swept their search lights around the area, and they rounded the corner.

Nothing there, except the strange toilet device, "hey I don't remember this being here" said the robot, the single eyelid alien followed suit.

"Huh wonder how it got here?" The single eyed alien wondered, speaking through a translator on his person.

He moved forward leaving the robot to turn back and continue patrol while his partner studied the toilet like device, then something hard hit something on the back of the single eyed aliens 'head' and he slumped down and something invisible grabbed him mid fall and sat him down against the wall.

That invisible something was Rook with the active camouflage arbiter had given him, for a second he partially materialized then simmered back out into a barely outlined haze.

"One down one go" Rook thought, unconscious was better than dead at the moment, he didn't want to get on the PDF's bad side if he could help it, "you done yet buddy?" Asked the voice of the robot. Rook stood still as the robot rounded the corner and gasped upon seeing his friend.

Rook went unnoticed as the robot bent down to check on his friend, as Rook lunged, becoming visible for a moment and sunk his knife into the machines neck and ripped it's head off, "it could be repaired" Rook reasoned as he gently put the robot down along with it's severed head, it's wires still sparking slightly.

Rook slipped past and made his way to the door. Halfway there the Active Camo deactivated for recharge. Now that Rook was visible, he quickened his pace and was more cautious in his approach.

Back in the storage room

The one eyed alien groaned as he came to and looked around rubbing the bruise on the back of its…Head?... The alien had been tougher than it looked and it looked very weak compared to Rook and Rook had used less force than needed in his over-carefulness.

Its eye rested on the decapitated robot. The Alien jumped and brought out its radio, nearly dropping it in its haste.

Back with Rook

"Intruder alter" an alarm blares, "Damn one must have woke up" Rook scolded himself, he should have tied the alien up, oh well not that he had anything to tie it up with anything other than some cuffs and he had a feeling he should reserve those.

"R-Rook we have a problem" Omniscient stuttered, "they have initiated a lockdown, escape pods have been disabled and the room locked down. Vehicles are being grounded"

"Damn" Rook said frustrated with himself, he had made a rookie mistake, oh well he would just have to improvise, "is the hanger still open?" Rook asked, "yes but.." Omniscient began but then the light build went on, "oh. Oh! Oh no way are we doing that".

"Got any better ideas?" Rook asked, "w-w-well n-no b-b-but…" she stuttered more than usual, "then we are doing it" Rook said with finality as he moved down the hall.

They ran into plenty of patrols but his shield and stealth skills made them easy to avoid and in no time they were at the hanger, the holo shields keeping the air and gravity in. Hiding behind some crates, Rook looked out of the shields from his position on a catwalk and saw the planet outside.

"You do realize that the Armor won't protect you completely from the fall right" Omniscient said incredulously, Rook hadn't thought of that, but by pure luck as he was looking around he found what looked to be a hovering trolley cart for moving resources and grates, it was rectangular in shape, had two handles on either side and was roughly bigger than Rook.

"Oh no" Omniscient said, "oh yes" Rook responded, "hey you stop" shouted a voice, rook turned to find a bunch of aliens that looked like giant lizards training their guns on him. Rook acted fast, he rolled out of cover then bolted for the hover trolley, he grabbed it by the handle and dragged it with ease towards the edge of the hanger.

"Stop", "halt and surrender", "place your hands over your head and drop your weapons" were all the shouts that followed. Unfortunately none of them were fast enough to keep up with a Spartan.

Rook tipped over the cart allowing the content to fall on the floor, picked it up by the handles, making sure he had a good grip, backed up a few steps and then sprinted forward and jumped out of the energy field and into space.

Back on the station, the entire staff watched this act dumbfounded, "d-did he…did he just…?" one stammered, "what the hard drive" a robot added, "scramble the fighters?" shouted the ranking officer, a rather insectoid like creature.

"Already on it" a cyborg alien said, as he flipped over a spaceship shaped piece of food, "already, for this afternoon's barbeque".

"No, not that I mean get after that Robot, or whatever it was!!!" Yelled the ranking officer

Everyone jumped to it, hopping into their jet fighters and setting off after the falling Spartan.

Speaking of which Rook could feel himself being pulled by gravity towards the planet, he didn't need Omniscient saying, "we're caught in the P-planets gravity" to confirm.

After a while of falling cloning to the hover carts handles tightly, Rook began to see glimpses of Orange flying past them and he was all of a sudden feeling the temperature rise as the sky began to become less star ridden and black and more of a blue color.

"We have entered the thermosphere" Omniscient confirmed, and displayed a monitor that measured their height, starting at 3000 km and rapidly descending, the heat from the fire around him pounding his Armor and if it weren't for the temperature regulation systems within the Mjolnir he would have been roasted alive.

But that was not where it got rough, as faster than Rook expected they had reached 85 km and "expect a bumpy ride as we are entering the mesosphere" Omniscient said.

The flickers of orange that had started in the thermosphere gradually grew until they were a ball of fire, even the suits' regulation systems, shields and metal casing would have struggled to withstand the force of entering the atmosphere at high speeds as they were.

Rook clung every tighter to the trolley device, crushing the handle bars, as it rattled and groaned from the unexpected joy ride it had unwillingly come on and Rook watched the distance display in his helmet as it continued to drop.

"Just a bit longer" Rook thought, after an eternity the monitor hit 50 km, "we're in the stratosphere. Let go Rook" Omniscient hurriedly said.

She had already halfway completed the sentence when Rook let go and the trolley shot away behind him trailing fire and smoke. Rook spread his arms and legs out to slow his descent and to stabilize his fall.

As for the trolley it hit one of the jet fighters that had followed him, luckily the damage only meant that the pilot had to land immediately and left the pilot unscathed.

"Any ideas for landing!?" Rook asked Omniscient, over the roaring of the wind that was now hitting them, he needn't have raised his voice, "there's a mountain range nearby, if we hit it right we can make your landing easier" she said, "setting course"

A green line appeared in his HUD, he turned to where the line was directing him and he could see the mountain, it was as pointed as the tip of a sharpened pencil.

Rook leaned to the right the micro thrusters built into the suit activating and helped adjust his course following the green line.

"What is he doing!?" Exclaimed a PDF soldier in his jet fighter as they watched rook, "well he's dead" said another.

He regretfully lost his money on that bet as Rook then adjusted himself, arms and legs straightened and was now in a skydive, this would help reduce injury.

Omniscient began the countdown to their inevitable landing "Hitting target in….3….2…" Rook raised his hands up over his face and curled up into a ball to further reduce injury.

"….1…."

BOOM

That was the sound Rook made when he hit the downslope of the mountain and this repeated as he skipped like a stone down the mountain rolling and pinwheeling as he went. He lost more and more momentum as he did so.

Finally he hit the ground at the bottom of the Mountain hard creating a small crater.

The Armor undamaged, the metal holding through the entire ordeal and the shields having absorbed much of the impact until it had broken from the damage.

Rook could see black spots descending over his vision, he closed his eyes, allowing himself to pass out into unconsciousness even a Spartan can't withstand hitting the ground from space without a scratch or being knocked out.

And so he lay there to be found.