- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Ok. Here are the [b]real[b] spoilers:
Story 1 - The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor
This is a story that parallels the MC's infiltration of the Quarantine Zone during Halo: CE. It starts off with John-117 being dropped off in the swamp, before he encounters the Flood. It then shifts to a Covenant dropship, the Brilliant Gift, leaving the swamp. It heads toward the Infinite Succor, where it crash lands on a landing deck. Turns out the Flood were piloting the dropship.
The attention shifts to the Seeker of Truth, the Covenant flagship of their Fleet of Particular Justice stationed at Halo 04. SpecOps Commander Rtas 'Vadumee is given orders he is to board the IS and retake the ship, under the impression it has been boarded by humans - perhaps even the "Demon" is on the ship.
Once aboard the Infinite Succor, Rtas' battle group quickly realizes something is amiss. They head into a hunting preserve, where there are Flood infested animals that begin attacking the group. The group fights its way through to the bridge, where they find the controls have been disabled. It turns out a Legate, a Minor Prophet, is on board the IS and has disabled the controls, including the self-destruct overrides. The Prophet requires the group be medically examined before he meet with them, for fear of Flood infection.
Once medically cleared, the group meets with the Legate in a secret location on the ship, and they devise a plan to get off the ship and have it destroyed. During this time it is made known the Flood quickly learned the access codes of the ship, once they infected one of the Elites. As they continued to infect those on the ship, they learned where the bridge and engineering rooms were, and the Flood are now holed up in the engineering room. They are getting ready to make a slipspace jump to escape the system.
SpecOps Commander orders half the group to manually signal the Phantom dropship, due to the fact the Flood have disabled radio communications. The other half of the group is to infiltrate the engineering room and trigger the self-destruct sequence manually. Rtas heads to engineering, and his group encounters massive resistance. Eventually, all but Rtas have been killed. Rtas finds himself in engineering, face-to-face with the Flood's "Gravemind" they had been compiling since they landed on the Infinite Succor. The Flood form tells Rtas there is essentially no hope, that the Forerunners were not able to defeat the Flood and neither would the Covenant. Rtas is attacked by an infected Elite equipped with an energy sword, and a battle ensues. Rtas ultimately defeats the Flood-infected Elite, but not before his arm is mangled and he loses half his jaw.
The story ends with the IS two minutes away from a slipspace jump, Rtas still on board activating the self-destruct sequence, and the "Gravemind" talking with him. I infer the Phantom shows up to pick up Rtas just before the ship explodes, which happens just before the slipspace jump occurs.
Story 2 - Armor Testing
This story begins with Spartan-062 standing over an open airlock on a ship. The Spartan is being monitored by a group of military personnel. The Spartan jumps out of the airlock and plummets toward Earth. 062 falls through the atmosphere without a hitch, even sniping several marines while at terminal velocity. This is a test, so all bullets are paint.
The Spartan works through Marines toward a building, where 062 jumps through a second-floor window to take out more Marines. The exercise is then terminated, and the Spartan takes off her helmet to reveal she is Maria-062. She has a conversation with her superior officer regarding re-enlisting. Apparently she is a retired Spartan, and she had been testing the Mark VI armor for John-117.
Story 3 - Breaking Quarantine
Seargent Johnson has just encountered the Flood for the first time, and he is busy fighting infection forms off. A form attaches itself to him, only to fall off. Johnson fights through the room and then encounters a combat form that knocks him clear across another room. He continues to fight through the Quarantine Zone on Halo 04 until he reaches what seems to be a secret room. There is a mysterious-looking structure in the middle of the room, and we are left wondering what that structure is.
*Note: there is no dialogue in Story 3.
Story 4 - Second Sunrise over New Mombasa
This story follows a photographer/public relations man in New Mombasa just before the Covenant arrive. We learn he has been editing news for O.N.I. to make the stories seem much less gruesome and bleak, painting the war with the Covenant to be winnable. The area where he works is considered Old Mombasa.
When the Covenant attack, he knows exactly how the invasion will take place. He is running around with a group of human fighters when he records an Elite saying, "We need to clear this area before we can secure access to the Ark." A Marine tells the PR man he needs to get that recording out of the city. He runs away toward the dock while the rest of the fighters go kamikaze at the group of Elites.
When the photographer makes it to the docks, the last of the ships is leaving and he must fight through a throng of refugees to make it to the boat. Unfortunately he is too late, but he is able to slip the recording to a little girl as he watches the last ship leave New Mombasa.
Hope that was good enough. I also hope you don't use this as an excuse to not buy the GN, because it's worth every penny to see the artwork.