Crossing the River

Jordan had learned a long time ago not to tell other people about the voices.
Sometimes, it was unavoidable. Like when they told him to get off shuttles before they crashed. He'd spent two years being interrogated for a potential terrorist link before they found enough evidence to convince them that he was serious about the voices. And by serious, they meant crazy.
Sometimes, it was just an accident. Like when he had saved Mei from the crash last year. He sometimes spoke to them aloud when he was stressed, and he had needed their help to find her. And because he had finally tried to explain it, she was now convinced he was crazy, and wanted to get away from him forever.
Which wasn't working out well, because the voices were particularly insistent today that he needed to get out of the city, but wouldn't say why.
They didn't actually speak, not the way Humans did. They didn't form words that he understood. They gave impressions. Directions. It wasn't "Turn left at the next light," it would be a shadowy picture of a generic crossroads, then a directional guidelight would appear, and indicate the proper direction. Sometimes they would actually say "Yes," or "No," or if they really had an important message, like today, they would build a phrase, putting together pictures and sounds that triggered the right reaction, and then keep repeating it over and over until he did what they said.
"Leave the city."
Jordan gritted his teeth, and knocked on Mei's door again. "C'mon, Mei! I just want to talk." I'm not leaving without her, he said in his mind.
Mei's father answered the door. They had never approved of the young musician dating their daughter, and they only tolerated him because he had saved her life. "Jordan, I'm sorry, but Mei is lying down with one of her migraines. She doesn't want to talk to you right now."
He tried to say something, but the voices stopped him. "Leave the city," they said more insistently, using images and almost-words. He couldn't even imagine why they needed him to leave the city. Mindoir was a farming colony. There was an Alliance outpost, but other than that there was nothing here. Jordan walked back home, and tried to call Mei again. She still wasn't answering.
"Mei, please, if you get this message, meet me at our summer spot. I just want to talk to you, please. Bring whoever you want, just come."
He grabbed his guitar and his backpack. His parents were still at work, and they were used to their youngest son taking off for the weekend. They wouldn't be surprised at all, probably relieved.
Jordan took his bike out from the garage, checked the fuel and made sure that he had a bottle of water. He was irritated to find that Venn had left his guns in the bike again. Their father disapproved of weapons, and wouldn't have them inside the house. So when his older brother Venn lost his license, he had taken to hiding his weapons in Jordan's things because no one ever searched there.
"Serves you right," Jordan muttered to himself and strapped on his guitar, leaving the pistols in the saddlebag. He put on his helmet and riding armor, and took the dirt roads out of the town, heading towards the secret cave that he had showed to Mei last summer, when she was still wildly in love with him. He cranked the bike up to its top speeds, racing the wind, and played his normal game of keeping in cover as much as possible.
The 'summer spot' was a small cave that Jordan had found years ago, when he was a child. He had only shown Mei the front entrance, but there was a lower level that he had never shown to anyone. He took his bike in through the concealed lower level entrance, and parked his bike. Jordan checked the engines for any road wear and made sure the hover enablers weren't cracked. He'd never had an accident with his bike, and he didn't want to start now.
He looked around the chamber. It wasn't very large. There were weird things in the walls, structures that could have been ancient statues, but were probably just large natural bulges, or maybe rusted pipes from the underground irrigation system. It just struck him, now, for some reason, how small the room would be if you had to stay for more than a few days. Only big enough for one person, really. Maybe two, but they would have to be really close. Jordan suddenly realized those weren't his thoughts, and that the voices were trying to tell him something.
A crack, louder than anything he had ever heard in his life, hammered into his head. Jordan ran upstairs, and looked outside. There were ships dropping out of the sky, shooting. They were everywhere.
Houses were burning. People were burning. Jordan stood completely still. He knew that the overhang of the cave entrance meant that no one could see him from the sky. The Alliance outpost was a smoking crater. The downtown office building where his mother worked was tilted oddly, and seemed to be toppling over in slow motion. The fields where his father would be at this time of day was a blaze of fire. Venn's factory was a pillar of smoke.
"Why... why didn't you tell me earlier?"
The voices were silent. All he had was that impression from earlier, the smallness of this one, safe refuge.
Jordan fell to his knees, but he couldn't take his eyes away from the devastation. He had to do something. He couldn't just sit here and watch his entire world be destroyed.
The comm tower. They would have taken out the first one, but if the secondary comm tower, the one out far away from everything, was still up and running, he could call for help. Even if they had disabled it, he knew enough about that old and outdated tower to get it back up, at least enough to send a distress signal.
Jordan took one last look at the shattered colony, and retreated to the lower level to wait for sundown. He tried not to think about his parents, his brothers, his girlfriend. He concentrated on planning out the run to the old comm tower. Getting past the standard security. Dodging any guards the raiders might have. Opening the lock on the rear entrance. Planning out every step, calculating every possiblity. Anything to keep his mind away from what was left of his home.
He set his bike for silent running, and put his riding armor back on. The dark color would help with sneaking. He had considered walking to the tower, but a fast getaway was too important. He raced through the fields, keeping low so he wouldn't make a ripple in the stalks, in case anyone was watching. Once out of the fields, he used the aqueducts for cover, knowing that the shadow of his bike on the pipes and the water would be indistinguishable unless they were right on top of him.
The last part of his run would be hard if the attackers had set any guards on the comm tower. Jordan stopped at the last section of the aqueducts and hid his bike in the shadows. He would have to walk from here. There was a small shuttle on the outskirts of the communications relay.
Jordan waited patiently, scanning the area. There were some aliens in the comm tower, and one was standing at the edge of the road. He'd never seen anything like them before. They had four eyes, and The alien was leaning on the fence, and smoking a cigarette. Jordan decided to take the risk, and snuck through the underbrush to the rear of the shuttle. It was a standard galactic make, the typical Elcoss build. Jordan stood on the lower exhaust vent so his feet wouldn't be visible from the road, and crouched so his shadow would blend in. He carefully opened the rear access panel, and quickly moved a few wires around before replacing the panel, then did the same thing on another access panel. He carefully dropped back down to the ground and went towards the comm tower, careful to stay in shadow and moving slowly and silently.
He went around the back of the tower, and carefully lifted the grate covering the sewer. The sewer had an entrance to the service tunnel, where the tower's distress signal "black box" was located. It was currently disconnected because the systems tech who was supposed to fix it had been fired last month, and no one had ever put it back. Jordan remembered how angry Venn had been at losing the job, because they were just going to hire him again. There weren't that many techs on Mindoir that they could afford to lose one permanently.
As he had hoped, no one had ever fixed the service tunnel door. Jordan listened carefully. No one was down here. He entered the tower, and unscrewed the last four service stairs just in case someone tried to come down from the main level. He pulled out Venn's old toolbox from where he had left it under the workbench, and began working on the black box. He worked as quickly as he could, and was eventually rewarded by a soft beep, indicating that a signal was being sent to the Alliance.
Suddenly, the entire relay came back online - there must have been a remote control on the auxiliary relay. "Who the hell is this?" demanded an Alliance operator. "Are you kids playing with the comm tower again?"
He heard movement upstairs. "This is Johto Station, on Mindoir," said Jordan quickly. "The entire town is gone, the colony's being attacked by four-eyed aliens. Send help, something, anything!" Someone was trying to open the door.
"Is this a joke?" said the operator suspiciously.
"They bombed my mom's office!" Jordan hissed. He wanted to yell, but he knew he still needed to escape. He picked up Venn's tools, started digging through the bag. "The whole outpost here is gone, do you understand? Everything is on fire, this is the only tower standing. I don't - I don't even know if anyone else is alive. Just send someone, send someone here. You have to stop them!"
Jordan grabbed what he could, hit the service door so that it was ajar, and took cover after setting up the door.
Feet clattered down the rickety metal stairs, an oddly inhuman rhythm. "This tower is transmitting!" growled the one in the lead. "See to it that Erk is punished severely for this failure."
Jordan smiled to himself as the leader tripped over the missing stairs with a hoarse scream.
"Those are Batarians," said the Alliance operator in shock. "Captain, we have a situation on Mindoir!"
The leader, his leg twisted beneath him, roared in anger and fired at the relay terminal. Sparks flew, and the lights went out. The leader groaned in pain, and demanded medical attention before sending the rest of the aliens with him through the service tunnel door. "They must have gone that way! Find whatever Human did this, and bring it back alive."
Two of the aliens ran to the door, and Jordan shrank further into the corner where he was hiding behind a crate.
The first one opened the door, knocking the pin loose from the grenade. The explosion hurled them backwards, and one was literally impaled on the handrail. The fire alarm went off, and the fire suppression system activated. Smoke filled the room from the chemical mix, and Jordan used the cover to make it to the access tunnel door. He left another trap at the grate in case any of them had survived and tried to come out this way.
The alien who had been smoking a cigarette ran to the front door. Jordan could see the trails of smoke from him as he ran. As soon as he was inside, Jordan broke for the cover of the stand of trees nearby. He waited, to see what they would do next. The surviving Batarians were carrying their leader to the shuttle, presumably for medical attention. They clambered into the shuttle and flew away. They hadn't noticed anything wrong.
Jordan grinned to himself. He climbed the tree, then went over the branch so he could drop down on the other side. He carefully searched the horizon for any signs of life before leaving cover of the tree. He heard the shuttle coming back. Jordan dropped into the road and began running as fast as he could. The shuttle's sensors picked him up, and started after him. He heard their guns warming up, and redoubled his efforts to get out of range before they fired.
The guns sputtered, then overloaded, and the entire shuttle shook, then plummeted like a stone as the engines cut out. Jordan kept running, and hoped none of the debris would hit him. The crash was stunning, and nearly knocked him from his feet. He rolled with it, and continued running back to where he had left his bike.
He headed back for the cave as quickly as he could. The Batarians were probably more concerned with finding out what had happened at the tower, and to the shuttle. He made it without being seen, and set a few mines at the door just in case before he collapsed on the floor.
He slept the entire day, and only got up because his body made him. He drank some water and ate one of the energy bars from his bag. Jordan forced himself to walk upstairs and take a look. He didn't stand this time, on the off chance that the aliens might have tracked him.
A heavy fog of smoke lay where his home town had been. The taller buildings were all tilted crazily. Smoke was still pouring out of the factories. The fields were all black and still. There were only a few minutes left before the sun set completely.
He heard a noise, a sharp scream of something cutting through the atmosphere. Jordan looked up. A pair of Alliance frigates came in, full speed. They shot down any alien fighters that tried to take off, and took out the hastily constructed turrets. One frigate circled, dropped off some ground troops. Jordan watched, calculated that they would land in Farden's Field, just outside the original Alliance outpost. He ran back to his bike, checked it for any damage again, and then took off to go meet them. He went silently for most of the way, and stayed in cover when he could. He didn't want to bring any unwanted guests if he didn't have to.
When he thought he was in range of their sensors, he stopped, and switched the bike back into normal so they would hear him coming and be able to identify him. He approached the drop point, was waved in by sentries. They pointed him to a tall woman who was in command.
Jordan brought his bike to a stop, and pulled off his helmet.
"You're just a kid!" she blurted out.
Jordan nodded, unable to say anything for a moment. He felt overwhelmed. Swallowed nervously. "I'm from here, I can tell you anything you need to know about the area."
"I'm Lieutenant Wills, SSV Reading. You were the one who called us, right? You're alone?"
Jordan nodded again.
She shook her head. "I - what's your name, kid?"
"Jordan Shepard."
One of the other officers nearby started at the name. "Venn's little brother?"
Jordan nodded, unable to speak.
"Jordan, I have to get you off this planet. We've got this situation under control, for now. I appreciate the offer," she said gently, "but we need to get you somewhere safe."
"But I -" he wanted to help. He couldn't concentrate for some reason, and was trying not to cry in front of all these officers. He didn't want to look up, didn't want to see the mangled landscape behind them.
"You need sleep, Jordan. When was the last time you ate?"
"I - I had - " he slumped on the seat of the bike, swayed a little. Someone picked him up, and carried him away. He couldn't think, he just knew that he was safe. And that everyone else was gone. They hadn't said anything, but the way they had all looked at him. He knew.
When he woke up, the first thing he saw was his guitar case lying next to him. He sat up a little, and saw his backpack on a chair in the unfamiliar room. The hum of machinery was everywhere, and the air tasted strange and recycled.
He was alone.
Jordan put his face in his hands, and cried.