- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
I'm a stickler so I'll post an even bigger synopsis.
Earth has been invaded by the Flood. Another Gravemind led the Flood forces as they soon spread throughout Africa, Australia, and North and South America.
Sergeant Johnson and two squads of Marines discovered the copy of Gravemind. The Flood leader may have looked like the previous iteration of Gravemind that Johnson fought on Honor Without Mercy, but it had no knowledge of Johnson.
Jan was deployed in a local military hospital, coincidentally the same hospital that Will, Fred, and Linda were stationed at. The Flood soon attacked the hospital, and despite a valiant effort, the Marines were overrun. Jan remembered too late that the other Spartan 2.0's were stationed there, and when she went to check up on them, she was ambushed by the Flood-infected Spartans. Due to the grievous injuries suffered by their near-death experience on the Malta and Athens stations, the Spartans were weak. Jan was able to survive their ambush because of this, and later killed all three Spartans.
Sergeant Johnson received a transmission from Jan and left the wreckage of New Mombasa to assist her. Despite losing his arm for the second time, Johnson still managed to rescue Jan, despite another Flood assault. Jan had not escaped uninjured, and Johnson took her back to the Lewis Puller, the carrier that was operated by Miranda Keyes. While there Johnson filled Captain Keyes in about what happened on Earth, and before he could finish Keyes was informed that Fleet Admiral Hood was on board the ship and requesting that he speak to her.
Hood gave Captain Keyes a disc containing the coordinates of the Sangheili homeworld, as well as the Covenant home world, Danrun. He explained to her that the Flood were too numerous to stop, and it would be only a matter of time before Earth would be finished. Hood revealed an ONI plan to evacuate Earth and retreat to a corner of the galaxy to hopefully hide from the Flood and Covenant, where they would hopefully be able to last while the Master Chief and the Arbiter tried to finish off the Covenant.
Captain Keyes was then ordered by Lord Hood to follow the Master Chief, thereby guaranteeing that even if humanity was overrun on Earth, there was a chance that they would survive with their hopes pinned on Keyes' crew. Hood and General Strauss were the only soldiers that actually knew of the true orders that were delivered to Keyes. Once they had departed the two would tell the other Admiralty and ONI that the Lewis Puller had been assigned the task of hunting down the fugitive Colonel Ackerson.
The Master Chief and the Arbiter are now heading to Silone after destroying a Brute Fleet that had been assigned the task of intercepting the Attrition, a ship piloted by Lan 'Eranumee, a pilot that had been fighting on Danrun, now tasked with informing the Elders on Silone about the betrayal of the Prophets.
Meanwhile the Prophet of Truth is stranded on the Prophet's home world, being interrogated by what Truth described as a Forerunner.
Finally, Dr. Halsey and Kelly, have emerged from Slip Space and found a deserted Forerunner installation (not a Halo). They have apparently been galavanting around, as in their company is Atoning Deviant, monitor of Halo Installation 01. Halsey informs the monitor that if it helps them with the Forerunner devices and security measures in the installation, she will help him with his containment problems. Whether this means she will be helping the monitor with the Flood outbreak on Installation 01 that was seen in the final Covenant history chapter, or perhaps some other containment issue remains to be seen.
That's about it I think.
I've been working on Chapter 20, and I'd just like to make the odd statement that, once the chapter has been finished, I would ask everyone to not speculate on certain things that will be revealed about the Forerunner.
I'm not sure if anyone will actually link some of the hints together given in this chapter regarding the Forerunner, but some of you are pretty clever, so I'm not sure. That said, since the true origins of the Prophets/Forerunner history are my main secret in this story, I'd rather like everyone to keep their speculation to themselves, or at least keep it limited to PM's to me. I will not under any circumstances actually tell you if any of your guesses are correct, but I might throw you a bone or two.