The End

Echo Team

We trudged across the Tarmac surface of the bridge in silence. We had abandoned the subway to directly cross the street to the bridge, battling the hordes of Malakists and I demonstrated my abilities by incinerating and crushing half of them.

We had then left the howls of the Malakists behind and had walked onto the bridge. I looked at the Thames that flowed beneath us murky and deep and wondered if Tyler was in a better place, but suddenly Ray's radio crackled to life as a voice spoke out "Alpha team this is Echo team do you copy?" Ray unhooked his radio and replied "Echo team, Alpha reads you five by five".

"Good to hear from you alpha" said the voice"we've set up on the other side of the bridge and are awaiting your arrival", "roger that" answered Ray "ETA momentarily". A hiss of static and then "sentries have been posted and will challenge you, be advised challenge is duck answer is cover, safe trip over", "roger that" said Ray and he cut the radio.

We walked on for another minute and we had reached the peak of the bridge when we were confronted. "HALT" came the call and we stopped where we stood and looked ahead to see a makeshift barrier made of car wrecks stretched across the road and two men stood behind it. They were both dressed in identical urban digital camouflaged military fatigues and helmet with grey tactical vests, straps, bags and sand coloured boots and gloves, they both also had identical M20 assault rifles levelled at us.

The one to our left called out "duck!" And ray answered "cover!", the men visibly relaxed and lowered their weapons before hurrying over to us. When they reached us they both saluted crisply before the one on the left said "greetings sir we've been instructed to escort you to the commander as soon as you arrive sir!", Ray returned the soldiers salute before nodding his satisfaction and saying "lead the way soldier!".

The two men turned and we followed them as we headed off down the bridge, and after a minute we arrived at a hive of activity. 6 black Humvees with mounted miniguns were parked in a line and at least 40 men were patrolling, standing guard or talking around them.

"When was this arranged!?" I asked Ray surprised, not unpleasantly, at the amount of people here. "Back at BadTown I got on the radio and talked to command at base and I explained our situation. when I told them about the letter, who it was from, and where it needed to go they assigned us the callsign 'Alpha Team' and we've been given top support and security status AND I've been given level1 clearance for requisitions so I can get whatever I want and or need to see this mission through!".

I whistled, that was a LOT of effort for a letter! I wondered, WAS the strength and efforts of all these people worth this letter? But my train of though was interrupted as we reached our destination, we had stopped in front of a group people and the soldier leading us had saluted crisply before reporting "Alpha Team present and reporting sir!!".

"Good work soldier dismissed!" Called a voice and the soldier saluted once more before turning away and marching off. Another man dressed in exactly the same uniform as everyone else stepped forward and held out a hand, he had a hard angular face and dark hair flecked with grey was poking out from beneath his helmet. "Lieutenant Rogers sir", he said with a smile and Ray shook his hand smiling as well before saying "your men are well drilled lieutenant!" And the lieutenant laughed before replying "they're good men sir!".

He smiled at the squad and we answered it with our own before Bull asked "what's the plan Lt?", Rogers now became businesslike as he outlined the plan. "Well it's simple really, we all mount up and drive to Phoenix!" He said calmly, "what that's it?" Asked Anna incredulously and Rogers chuckled. "On paper yeah but in reality we're gonna be driving through 25 kilometres of hostile territory".

We all frowned and he said "yeah so we're gonna have to watch it!", Rogers then pulled out a datapad, a small electrical device that look like a piece of glass lit up with swirling numbers, text and images. He looked at it while saying "we brought a extra Humvee for your squad," he paused and looked up at us "but one of you seems to be missing?".