Force Effect: A Star Wars/Mass Effect Crossover

Bonus Chapter 2: The Upper City

A/N: Originally this version of the story had a female character named Anaiya Brightstar, one of the Jedi traveling with Bastila. Specifically, she was the one who gets killed on the Endar Spire by Exploding Conduit/Console Syndrome® She was meant to be a stand-in for female Revan and would have romanced Carth but I've taken her out to maintain consistency. Alas for poor Anaiya; perhaps you will show up somewhere else in this fic...

Again, this story is not dead and I AM working on a chapter of the actual crossover. As a little preview, I'll say that it will involve Shepard waking up in a certain apartment to be introduced to a certain group of KOTOR characters. ;)

--Force Effect--

Matthias dreamed. And his dreams were strange indeed. In his dream he saw a female Jedi on the bridge of what seemed to be a Sith ship. The Jedi wasn't dressed in the standard robes of the Order, but in a form fitting unisuit, with an ornamental tabard on the front. She held a blazing yellow lightsaber and was dueling fiercely with a dark Jedi, dressed in gray and black. Slashing her saber across the Sith's wrist caused him to drop his weapon. The Jedi drew back her yellow blade and struck. With a dull thud, the corpse of the Sith collapsed to the deck.

------

Matthias awoke to find himself lying on a bed in some sort of apartment room. He sat up, stretched for a moment, and then stood as fast as his aching muscles would allow.

"Good to see you up instead of thrashing around in your sleep. That must've been a hell of a nightmare,' said a voice from behind. Matthias turned around to see a man seated at a table in the middle of the room. He was dressed in a burnt orange leather jacket, he vaguely recognized. Seeing that he wasn't responding Leather Jacket decided to keep talking.

"I'm Carth. I was with you when we jumped in that escape pod. Do you remember?"

"Carth, the one from the Endar Spire, right. What happened after we ejected?"

"Well when we came down, you got a nasty crack on the head. I had to drag you out of there and make a break for it. By the time the Sith showed up we were long gone."

"Thanks for that, Carth."

"No thanks are necessary. I've never left a man behind before and I wasn't about to start now," replied Carth demurely.

"Right. So where are we anyway?" asked Matthias.

"We're in an abandoned apartment on the surface level of Taris. You've been unconscious for a day or so. While you were out, I did some scouting around. The basic bad news: Taris is a now a Sith world. Their fleet is orbiting the planet, they've replaced the local government, declared martial law, and imposed a planet wide quarantine, but I've been in worse spots," said Carth.

"The Upper City, where we are now, is where most of the elite of the planet lives and is pretty safe at least for us. However the farther you go down, the worse it gets. The Lower City is filled with swoop gangs that are in the middle of a bloody war for control and the Undercity is even worse. Turns out The Undercity is home to mutant creatures called rakghouls. All in all not a very pretty picture. Now I heard some reports of Republic escape pods going down in the Undercity. I figure that's probably the best place to start looking for Bastila."

"How can we even be sure that Jedi Bastila is still alive?" asked Matthias.

"We can't be sure. But, for the sake of the Republic war effort we have to try and find her," replied Carth.

"Not to sound too much like a pessimist, but given the odds of finding Bastila alive, shouldn't we worry more about getting off the planet and getting back into the fight?" said Matthias.