A/N: Reviews:

AnarionRising27: I will! One of the main criticisms people had when it came to False Masks was the pacing, particularly after the first few chapters through to just after the middle. While I'll try to avoid rushing anything, I'm attempting to ensure that Spectre moves along at a brisker pace. I'm trying to introduce the various elements early enough that there is time to develop all of them though. Thank you once again for reviewing.

dekuton: You're right that many Mass Effect/SWTOR fics follow the plot of one of the games (particularly one of the Mass Effects) with only minor changes. Hence why I decided to try and do my own thing with False Masks and this story. As for the Mandalorians:

Mass Effect/SWTOR crossovers so far have largely concentrated on Sith as antagonists, so I had decided even weeks before finishing False Masks to go with Mandalorians for the sequel in order to mix it up. After all, we've already had Zaressh and so I didn't want to have another, more powerful Sith, as that would have been going through the motions. I really appreciate all of your support so far, you've been with me pretty much from the beginning after all!

Chapter 4: Echoes

Rassen didn't know how long he sat there, staring blankly at the wall opposite him. He didn't know how long the turian and two children remained where they were, looking at him with expressions of horror. As the continued sounds of blaster fire and the dwindling reports of mass accelerator weapons continued to sound around the colony, the Jedi stayed with his back propped up against the wall, oblivious to everything going on around him.

More than two years of trying to find a way back. Rassen had done things he wasn't proud of in that time. He had possessed little money and so had been forced to hide aboard passenger ships to get where he needed to go without paying, even if the crew were simply honest people trying to make a living. He had threatened people where diplomacy had failed. He had even killed when his own life was under threat. The whole time he had endured Zaressh's voice taunting him, trying to persuade him, and just generally making his situation more unpleasant than it already was. Throughout it all though, Rassen had believed that he was making the best possible decisions. Circumstances had forced him to adapt, but he had always chosen the solutions that prevented any harm coming to innocents. When he had killed it had always been because he had no choice, and he had been sure to do it quickly and painlessly.

But in the less than one day he had been back he wasn't sure he recognised himself. The Mandalorian woman he had met upon arrival hadn't required the constant threatening he had subjected her to, yet he had done it anyway. It had been his life against the final Mandalorian's when the latter had tried to beat him to death. But he had drawn out the man's suffering, enjoyed it, revelled in it even. In what was quickly becoming a trend, a memory sprung unbidden to Rassen's mind once more. It was a memory very familiar to him, one of the first he had of her.

Rassen watched as Shaela hesitated for a moment, then leaned back fully into the sofa at his encouraging nod. He then turned his attention back to the ankle that he still held lightly in his hands and reached out to the Force.

His first day here he had helped someone in distress. He had saved their life and healed them, not for any kind of reward, but because it had been the right thing to do. He had never been perfect, but Rassen had tried to be the best Jedi possible before he had met Shaela. Even afterwards, bar of course when he had admitted to her that he was as much in love with her as she was with him; he could still look back and honestly say that he had still acted for the most part as a Jedi should have.

In the same amount of time since returning two years later he had threatened someone and killed another slowly, enjoying their suffering. Some Jedi he had turned out to be. If Shaela saw him now… truth be told he didn't know what the quarian would think.

If the alien is still alive and not bereft of any sense then she would probably run away as fast as possible… hopefully tearing her enviro-suit on something in the process of doing so.

"Shut up," Rassen growled quietly, though his response was still loud enough to cause the other occupants of the room to flinch. He glanced over at the three of them, the turian slowly backing away from where he lay on the floor in order to get closer to the children. Rassen felt a stab of guilt. That however quickly gave way to a surge of rage as Zaressh's voice continued to taunt him.

How very unlike a Jedi. "There is no emotion, there is peace." Remember?

Rassen would have likely remained there for hours, mind raging against the Sith's taunts, if not for an unfamiliar squawking noise cutting through his thoughts. The Jedi slowly turned to face the other three occupants of the room. The turian had his arms around the two children and was looking at him mournfully. Rassen frowned in confusion before his eyes widened in understanding.

No omni-tool. I am currently unable to understand anyone in this galaxy… aside of course for the Mandalorians, provided of course that they use basic and not rely excessively on Mando'a.

He grunted before slowly rising to his feet, wincing as his head and face throbbed painfully. He needed to heal himself, but for the moment that could wait. Rassen glanced over at the turian, who spoke again, his words completely alien to the Jedi. The man then nodded over at the three corpses in the centre of the living area, before returning his attention to Rassen. The Jedi felt his heart clench. Now he understood what the turian was saying, what he was asking.

Are you going to do to us what you did to them?

Rassen shook his head tiredly, noting that the turian seemed to calm slightly, though he was still suspicious, if the tightness of his mandibles was any indication. The man then asked something else, causing Rassen to shrug his shoulders and point at his left wrist. The turian's eyes widened in comprehension before he nodded quickly, the movement causing Rassen to notice the dull orange face paint he wore for the first time.

An explosion seemed to occur only a few houses away and Rassen winced at his own stupidity. How long had he spent sitting on the floor feeling sorry for himself? How many people had the Mandalorians killed in that time? He paused, keeping his ears peeled for any sounds of mass accelerator fire. Nothing. Blaster bolts aplenty, but it seemed what little the colony had in terms of security forces had been wiped out while he was distracted. Force damn it.

The Jedi glanced around himself quickly, desperately trying to think of what his next move should be. If the Mandalorians found the three innocents in front of him, then he had no doubt that they would be subjected to the same fate as the rest of the colony. He glanced down at the floor before pausing, a small smile appearing on his face.

Rassen walked over to one of the unoccupied chairs, an old-fashioned armchair which had no legs to speak of, the base almost sitting on the ground, only being prevented from doing so by a small wheel at each corner. Rassen pushed the piece of furniture aside, noting with approval that the object was relatively easy to move. The floor beneath where the armchair had originally stood was now revealed, including the marks from where the wheels of the piece of furniture had scuffed it due to constant use. Rassen turned to the three people huddled on the sofa and raised a finger to his lips. The turian nodded in understanding before whispering something to the children, both of whom nodded in reply.

Rassen raised a hand, calling his lightsaber back to him. Motioning again for quiet, the Jedi ignited the weapon before cutting a circle wide enough for an adult to fit though. The two children squirmed at the sight of the weapon, but the turian whispered something else to them, causing them both to remain quiet. Rassen then raised a hand, lifting the manhole seized piece of floor up with the Force before depositing it off to the side. He leaned forward over the hole, noting with satisfaction that the area beneath the house among the foundations was hollow, likely to allow for easy repairs to be made should the foundations themselves need maintenance.

Rassen stepped back away from the hole and nodded at the turian before then doing the same in the direction of the makeshift hiding place. The man's eyes widened in understanding as he turned to speak encouragingly to the children he cradled, ushering the two of them down the hole. Once his two charges were safely hidden, the turian paused before following, turning to look at Rassen. The Jedi nodded to him and pointed to himself, then indicated the removed piece of floor and the chair. The turian's mandibles widened into a smile before he then proceeded after the children, joining them beneath the house itself. Rassen lifted the piece of floor back into place with the Force, noting with relief that it fit comfortably without falling through the hole, though the burn mark was obvious. The Jedi then placed the armchair exactly where it had been before. The chair now covered the damage perfectly, leaving the room looking exactly as before, aside from where blaster bolts had scored the walls, and of course, the three Mandalorian corpses.

Rassen crept over to the nearest window, alert for any nearby Mandalorians. Upon confirming that there were none nearby, the Jedi levitated the three corpses and their weapons and proceeded to walk out through the front of the house, the Mandalorians and their blasters floating behind him. Using the Force to ensure that there were still no Mandalorians nearby, Rassen gently lowered the corpses and weapons to the ground outside one of the nearby buildings. With any luck it would appear to any other Mandalorians that came along and searched the area that this group had attacked him in the living room of the house he had just left, pursued him outside, only for him to kill them outside another building in self-defence. Hopefully they would believe he had spent only mere moments in the house where he had actually killed their comrades, and that would be enough to keep the three people now hiding among the foundations safe from being noticed. It would however reveal to the Mandalorians that someone with a lightsaber had made the trip with them. The more experienced among them would recognise that one of the three had been killed with a lightsaber.

A wave of nausea suddenly overwhelmed Rassen, causing him to stagger forwards before collapsing to his knees. The Jedi's stomach churned unpleasantly, the world beginning to spin around him. Rassen groaned in realisation.

Concussion, it has to be.

He couldn't return to the house in order to heal himself. If he was discovered by any Mandalorians then they would certainly conduct a more thorough search of that building than they would otherwise perform. With how he felt, Rassen doubted the process of Force healing would be as quick as it normally was, given how he suddenly seemed to have difficulty concentrating.

That being said, staying on all fours among the corpses of three Mandalorians in the open was hardly an improvement.

Rassen pushed himself to his feet, staggering heavily and nearly falling over before he succeeded in straightening up. He needed to find somewhere else to hold up, somewhere the Mandalorians had already searched, as that would be somewhere they would be less likely to find him. That being said, if he chose one of the buildings near to his current position then that might cause the Mandalorians to search the houses near him more thoroughly should they find him, which would still mean the turian and the children might be found.

Gritting his teeth as his pulse pounded in his ears and the ground seemed to shift beneath his feet, Rassen began to look for somewhere suitable to hide.

Kasumi tapped two of her fingers absentmindedly on the control panel in front of her as she waited for the call to connect. Between the fact that many comm buoys had been destroyed by the Reapers, her ship lacking a direct QED connection and the distance she often was from Liara, her call requests normally took a long time for the Shadow Broker to receive. Naturally the quality of their calls was not ideal either, with bursts of static and the audio cutting out being common occurrences.

The thief frowned to herself, crossing her legs and placing both hands in her lap. While it did take a while to get through to Liara these days, this was the longest wait yet. Kasumi felt a slight pang of fear as she considered the possibility that something had happened to the asari, before she forced herself to relax. Old habits died hard it seemed. The war was over now, the galaxy being a far less dangerous place than it had once been, but it was unsurprising that she was still struggling to fully accept that. She doubted she was the only one.

Kasumi had met the current Shadow Broker for the first time late into the Reaper War, at Shepard's party before the final battle had taken place. Even though she hadn't known the asari for long, that didn't change the fact that Kasumi had liked Liara instantly upon meeting her. Both of them collected items of value, though Liara mainly limited herself to artifacts related to the protheans, while she would get her hands on anything which interested her. That and their methods for acquiring such items were rather different.

Kasumi began chewing her bottom lip. Hours had passed now, this was getting ridiculous. She finally leaned over to her ship's communication software to check it for faults, before static appeared across the monitor in front of her. The thief froze with one hand out-stretched before shaking her head, laughing softly to herself.

A bit more sentimental about others than I used to be.

The static abruptly cleared to reveal Liara, the asari looking haggard as she muttered a greeting. Kasumi raised an eyebrow at her friend's appearance. Liara's eyes were bloodshot, lacking their normal intensity. The asari's crest was flushed, indicating distress or sickness. Liara had been absolutely fine the last time they had spoken mere days ago, so what could possibly have happened to affect her so badly in that time? Kasumi opened her mouth to talk, but the asari beat her to the punch.

"Kasumi? Can you hear me?" A burst of static followed before the asari's face reappeared, the audio cutting out at the same time before returning.

"Barely, there are a few connection issues, but what else is new?" The thief replied, attempting to lift Liara's clearly down-trodden spirits. The asari hadn't looked so distraught since the war had ended. Her worry deepened. What could possibly have occurred over the last few days?

"A lot, I'm afraid," Liara muttered, eyes turning to a multitude of datapads in front of her as the asari scanned the contents of each before seizing the one she had evidently been looking for. "Horizon has been attacked by unknown assailants."

Kasumi nearly shot to her feet in surprise. "What!" She gasped, understanding what the asari had said but barely able to accept it. "When?"

Horizon was one of the colonies the Collectors had attacked when they had been abducting humans in the Terminus Systems. It was also where Shepard and his team (her included) had dealt them their first major setback. Cerberus had later turned the colony into a slaughterhouse, luring in refuges during the war in order to convert them into husks and study indoctrination. Now Horizon was once more a colony. Many of the buildings had largely survived Shepard's successful shutdown of the place. With the sheer number of refugees in the galaxy and the lack of housing, the colony had been returned to its original function, despite the lives lost there. Beggars couldn't be choosers.

Liara blinked tiredly, the pressure of the situation clearly weighing on her heavily. "Only a few hours ago according to an agent I had there. He didn't report in after sending me what he could and had orders to continue to provide more information in the event of anything suspicious happening. He claimed that the colony was under attack from an overwhelming force. I have to assume the worst has happened to him… and that the colony has been destroyed."

Kasumi shook her head sadly, heart clenching at the thought of the people who had gone to Horizon to make a new life once the Reapers had been defeated. "Who would do something like that though? None of the races are in a position to organise a strike against a colony and most of them are on better terms than they have been in hundreds of years, perhaps ever." She paused for a moment. "Is the Alliance able to do anything?"

Liara shook her head before responding. "Even though Horizon is once again a majority human colony, the Alliance is stretched too thin. They won't risk sending a single ship under the belief that it could be destroyed. They will send a taskforce to investigate in all likelihood, but that could take weeks to organise, the situation being what it is. Everyone else has the same problem." The asari looked up from the datapad at Kasumi. "I currently have no idea who is responsible, or whether they could do this again. While I have managed to circulate everything I do know to the Alliance, no one there had responded. It is likely that they know as little as we do."

"What happens now?"

"That… well, that…" Liara swallowed before looking away from her. Kasumi felt her stomach sink slightly.

"You want me to go and check it out. I'm the closest person you know to Horizon, aren't I?"

Liara nodded, though she was clearly unhappy with herself. "Yes," the asari admitted. "If my agent's report was accurate and we factor in the delay in its arrival owing to the communications situation, then the colony will be entirely devastated by the time you arrive. Hopefully whoever is responsible will be gone, but have left enough clues to give us something to work from." Her friend looked straight into Kasumi's eyes, causing the Japanese woman to straighten in her seat. "I know this is not the kind of thing you normally do, Kasumi, but lives could depend on this. Garrus would be the best choice, owing to his past with C-Sec, but he's currently on Palaven. For all we know another attack is imminent. Someone needs to investigate as soon as possible."

Kasumi nodded slowly, pushing away her doubts. This was certainly outside her comfort zone, but it needed to be done. She looked back into the asari's eyes, lips pulling into a small smile which Liara tentatively returned.

"Send me the report and I'll head to Horizon right now."

He wasn't sure how long he had been moving. It probably hadn't been long, but his perception of time seemed to be more than slightly off. He knew it had been getting dark when he had arrived, but the sun had almost entirely set now, darkness blanketing the colony, though it was occasionally broken by the scarlet flashes of blaster fire. Rassen groaned quietly to himself as the pounding in his head seemed to grow stronger for a moment. The longer he spent moving, the worse it became. The Jedi glanced behind him, unsure how much ground he had covered. He groaned again before stumbling into a narrow alleyway, doors to various buildings lining each side, all either open or lying on the ground, knocked out of their frames. The Jedi smiled painfully before making his way to the nearest building, a storage facility of some kind judging by its appearance, leaning on the wall leading to it heavily for support.

The sound of a nearby voice caused Rassen to freeze, pulse racing. Inwardly, the Jedi cursed himself for letting his concentration slip. It was too easy to lose focus and awareness of his surroundings, owing to the pounding in his head and how the ground seemed like it was spinning beneath him. Truthfully he wasn't sure how he had managed to make it this far. Rassen continued moving towards his chosen hiding place as the first voice was joined by several others, the stomping noise of heavy boots reaching his ears. The Mandalorians weren't far away, perhaps just around the corner at the opposite end of the alley to where he was. Rassen gritted his teeth as he forced himself to speed up, doing his best to remain as quiet as possible as he did so.

He was just about able to make out that the voices were speaking Basic as he entered the first building, slowly making his way through the first room before collapsing onto his back in the one beyond it, breathing heavily as he did so. Basic meant Mandalorians and given his injuries, he quite frankly didn't like his chances against one of them, let alone several. Rassen forced himself to breath more quietly as the sound of the Mandalorians' heavy boots and voices grew louder. They had to be in the alley now, if the noise they were making was any indication. Rassen frowned as he tried to make out exactly what the Mandalorians were saying, struggling to prop himself up on his arms as he did so.

"That's the last of the ones in this section of the colony, people. We proceed west to meet up with the squads which have finished there." Rassen snarled in anger at the callous tone of the Mandalorian commander. He and his soldiers had killed innocent people; did they feel no remorse for their actions? Were they just blindly following orders?

One of the commander's subordinates spoke up. "Sir, if we're linking up with the other squads, then that means that command is taking that report seriously, doesn't it?" The question was followed by a moment of silence aside from the continued footfalls of the Mandalorians. Rassen frowned in concentration, trying desperately to sense how many there were. Three? Four? Not many, but certainly more than he could take in his current condition.

By the time the commander answered, the Mandalorians had marched past his hiding place and made it to the other end of the alley. "Yes," he admitted, his voice continuing to grow fainter as he and his men moved further away. "Two are confirmed killed near the colony's wall not far from here, and four more haven't reported in, so they're probably dead as well. While we still don't have proper confirmation, it's almost certain that a Jedi is present…" Despite Rassen's best efforts, the Mandalorians moved out of earshot before he could hear the end of the man's explanation.

Rassen grunted before rolling over onto his side, using one arm to keep himself steady. He raised the other to position his hand on the back of his head in order to lower the hood of his cloak. As much as the blows to his face still pained him, the concussion was likely the result of the damage done to the back of his head. The Jedi closed his eyes, reaching out to the Force as he did so. The pain in his head flared worse than ever, causing Rassen to cry out, but he kept trying. Slowly but surely the familiar warm feeling only the Force could bring seemed to suffuse his body. Rassen gently directed the flow through his hand and to the back of his head, moaning in relief as the pain began to slowly fade, his vision sharpening as the concussion gradually receded.

After a few minutes of gentle healing, the back of his head was as good as ever, though between the effort of fixing his wounds there and the events of the day so far, he felt exhausted. Pushing his fatigue aside, Rassen moved his hand to his face and began the process again, several more minutes passing before his face no longer pained him.

The Jedi's other arm slowly gave way, causing him to sink back down onto the floor on his back, eyelids heavy. Rassen grunted quietly before rolling onto his front. Fatigue or no fatigue, people still needed his help. He could still hear the sound of blaster rifle fire, though it seemed less frequent and further away than it had been. That was probably important, but at that exact moment Rassen couldn't figure out why.

After a minute or so he had finally managed to get back to his feet, swaying now not as the result of a concussion, but from a need to rest, a sense of tiredness more profound than he had ever felt before. His mind began wondering as he took a step forwards towards the alley outside. He had been lucky this building was still intact, bar the damage done to its door of course. Rassen blinked in surprise as he looked around himself, finally taking in where he was. His initial guess had been right in that he stood in a storage facility of some kind, relatively large, the first room he had passed through being a reception. He was currently in a warehouse of some kind, pieces of various technology lining the shelves around him. Nothing military, but there was farming equipment, kitchen appliances and most interestingly of all…

Omni-tools.

Rassen staggered over to the nearest one before slipping it onto his left wrist and then activating the piece of technology. The orange glow felt like an old friend as it enveloped his forearm, softly illuminating the room around him. He could figure out how to activate its translation software later. It would certainly be useful down the line, but there were lives to save first. Rassen frowned, eyes practically closed as he tried to remember where he had been before he had begun noticing his surroundings. Something about being lucky that this building was still largely intact.

Wait, why was this building still intact? Furthermore, why were the ones near it intact as well?

Eyes snapping open, Rassen began thinking as fast as he could. He had observed the Mandalorians breaking into buildings before destroying them. Blowing them up with vehicles would have been quicker, but he hadn't heard the familiar drone of either tanks or aircraft above the sounds of fighting. The Mandalorians presumably hadn't been able to bring any vehicles with them, the device apparently only being capable of transporting people and handheld equipment. After all, the Mandalorians he had followed had only transported themselves, their armour and their weapons. Their attack was purely infantry orientated, meaning they had to destroy each building using whatever could be carried by a person. Hence they must have put an explosive, perhaps something as simple as a well-placed thermal detonator, into each building once they had cleared them, before then moving on. The colonists were killed by blaster fire and then each building was rendered unusable. Just doing the latter would not have guaranteed the death of the colonists; hurling grenades into a building did not always kill the occupants if you were unsure where they were within it.

Now he turned his thoughts to what he had just overheard. The Mandalorian command knew he was within the colony and had worked out his approximate location. The squad that had passed him mere minutes ago had been leaving the area in order to link up with others like it. The buildings around him had already been cleared, but not yet damaged beyond that.

A shrill ringing sound suddenly whistled from seemingly every direction. Rassen twisted on the spot before noticing a red light flashing from behind what appeared to be a plough of some kind. He froze upon noticing that the culprit was a ramshackle device, cobbled together out of whatever technology the Mandalorians had been able to scavenge, blaster power packs and worst of all, thermal detonators.

The Mandalorians knew roughly where he was. They were leaving the area in order to regroup elsewhere. They had searched the buildings here but had not yet destroyed or even seriously damaged them.

Then the bomb in front of him exploded.