Chapter-2 …And Thus The Sky Was Torn Asunder
August 4th 2552
UNSC_AVALANCHE, Quezon, Reach
As always during a drop, Lukas watched his squad mates go, although they went only seconds before he himself dropped it still evoked a feeling of nervous dread. What if he didn’t get down there fast enough to save a life? What if someone died because he wasn’t there to cover them? These thoughts were quickly pushed to the back of Lukas’ mind as the countdown reached zero and the pod was released.
Lukas watched in anticipation as the first of the pods impacted the Covenant Corvette’s hull, not too long after impact the doors of his fellow ODST’s launched off. Lukas let off a sigh of relief to see that his squad made it and with only moments before impact he was sure that he would soon join them.
But alas poor Lukas for Murphy had other plans, for if something can go wrong it will and something was definitely going wrong.
Five seconds before the impact of his own pod, Lukas could only watch in horror as the Corvette’s energy shields flickered to life, for the poor souls of the ODSTs still on the outside of the ship life met a quick and harsh end as they were promptly decapitated be the hard energy shield materializing inside of them at about neck level. He could do nothing but fear for his life as the small covenant ship prepared to engage in a slip space jump.
It took the covenant ship all but three seconds to perform all this and within those last two seconds it fired up its engines to full tilt and made it halfway through the portal before Lukas’ pod simply bounced off of the ship and into the void.
- - - - - - -
Darkness, it was the first thing he thought of and it was the first thing he saw, did I die? Lukas thought to himself.
“No, if I was dead my head wouldn’t be pounding like a woodpecker on a walnut tree.” He grumbled to himself, “Huh, so this is what slip space looks like.” Lukas observed a swirling mass of dark purples, blues, and complete and utter emptiness.
“Well fuck.”
“Might as well make sure-“ He was interrupted by a blinding flash and then unconsciousness.
- - - - - - -
Lukas soon awoke to a very familiar feeling. Why does it feel like I’m falling? All his questions were answered when he opened his eyes to see the hatch of his SOEIV, more specifically, the clouds he was rapidly approaching.
“Oh shit.” Was all he could say before his pod burst through the clouds and towards a very large and foreboding forest.
But that wasn’t the destination chosen for him by gravity, no the world decided to fuck him sideways and threw him right into a bog.
Lukas’ pod didn’t take lightly to this treatment it was going through, it decided to show its displeasure with the current state of the world by giving Lukas a big, fat middle finger and refusing to deploy its drag chute and only firing one of the break rockets. This, of course, causing the SOEIV to tumble out of control and impact the muddy water at an awkward angle promptly throwing Lukas back into the realm of unconsciousness.
- - - - - - -
“What the hay was that!?” was all Rainbow Dash could shout. She had just finished practicing her latest trick when there was a bright flash, a loud boom, and what looked like the very fabric of the sky being torn apart and opening enough to let a black object through before closing with an audible snap.
Rainbow Dash watched in open mouthed confusion and shock as said object continued to barrel through the atmosphere. She kept her eyes trained on the object and attempted to discern where it would land.
“Phew, looks like it’ll miss Ponyville, and impact somewhere in the Everfree…” She let out a sigh of relief before looking back at the object and observing its trajectory one more time.
And then it hit her, not literally but something clicked in her brain.
“THAT THING IS GONNA HIT MY CLOUD HOUSE!!!” Rainbow Dash shouted, after a small moment of observation she was certain she could minimize the damage by moving it if she got there in time.
By nearly causing a sonic rainboom, Rainbow Dash was able to reach her house before the object, she quickly set to the task of pushing her house out of the way of said other worldly projectile.
Moments before it smashed through half her house, the object let out a burst of flames that caused its course to change and only completely destroy her bedroom as opposed to half her cloud mansion.
“Awwww, pony feathers, now I have to fix that, and I was gonna nap and everything.” Rainbow Dash grumbled to herself before noticing the space rock smash into Froggy Bottom Bog before sinking to the bottom after a short while at the surface.
But while it may have only been at the surface for 10 seconds or so, she could still make out the angular look of the rock.
“That’s way to symmetrical to be a rock, but what else could it be?” Rainbow contemplated this before resolving to investigate the strange object’s impact site.
“Oh, I wonder if its aliens, the look on Twilight's face would be priceless!” The prismatic mare exclaimed in excitement. “Sure do hope they’re friendly… and if they’re not then I’ll just have to kick their flanks, yeah!”
As Rainbow Dash neared the crash site of the strange object she noticed it was completely submerged in the muddy water and there was no way she was going to be able to get to it or get it out.
“Hmph! Now I’m gonna have to get egghead to lift it out and that could take FOREVER.” Rainbow Dash said with a sigh.
And then something happened, she wasn’t sure what it was but there was definitely something occurring.
- - - - - - -
“Great, its fucking dark again.” Was all Lukas managed to mumble to himself as he awoke for the second time that day in his SOEIV. That was before the distinct feeling of being upside down hit him.
“Gah! Where am I anyways!?” he exclaimed as he nearly hit his head on the pods ceiling only being stopped thanks to the harness keeping him strapped in.
As he began to remember the events that led to his unfortunate arrival at the bottom of a bog or swamp he groaned in despair. “Well at least I’m no worse for wear, if a little shaken up.” The disgruntled medic assessed of himself.
“Should probably get out of here before I suffocate.” He quickly glanced around at his limited surroundings, “and before I get extremely claustrophobic.”
He promptly unlatched himself from his seat and fell to the ceiling while exclaiming, “ouch.” After quickly righting himself in the pod he began to gather all his gear. While he still had most of his medical supplies and his handy-dandy jetpack strapped on, he did need to retrieve his M7S caseless submachine gun from the side of the seat.
Once properly equipped for the impending journey he checked his HUD to see that he had about ten more minutes of life giving air left in his suits reserves.
“Huh, I hope the atmosphere of where ever I am is breathable to humans… yeah that would suck.” With that final self confidence boost he made to eject the SOEIV hatch via the emergency micro explosives. With a nice bang the hatch shoot open…and then stopped after two feet due to the viscous mud-water. “Nothing ventured… nothing gained.”
And with that he stepped into the unknown.