Disclaimer: Same as before...I don't own the rites to Star Wars, KOTOR or its characters, yadda yadda yadda...you know the drill ;-)

A/N: This is probably the longest chapter yet. It started off simple enough but just kept growing and growing into this horribly long beast. Well I hope you like it anyways and good enough to keep your interest the whole way through the chapter. How am I doing so far? Please R&R so I know what needs to be worked on. Thanks and enjoy:-)

ENDAR SPIRE 1.3 - Life Skills

The thunderous tremor of the ship being hit shook the very rafters of the Endar Spire, throwing Asha Stark onto the floor of her bunk unceremoniously. Dazedly she pulled herself to her knees still shaken by her nightmares.

Every night for the last two weeks she had been having horrible dreams; night terrors that would leave her to wake with pulse racing, skin all a sweat and the sheets tangled around her. This night was no different only this time her dreams caused her to thrash so much she fell off her bunk, or did it?

She could never truly remember her dreams, each time she tried her head would hurt, like a split in her skull; so she stopped trying. None of the doctors knew how to cure it, and the meds did not seem to help any; they only caused her to fall deeper into sleep, but each night she'd wake the same way, frantic, sweating and high strung…something was wrong.

Suddenly the door to her bunk slid open. On instinct Asha dove for her blaster beneath her pillow and aimed it at the man standing before her with no care for modesty as her blankets fell to the floor, her half-naked form now exposed.

"Woah Ash! It's me!" the tall blonde soldier said in surprise arms raised submissively, though he could not help but draw his eyes over her near bared form appraisingly.

"Don't give me a reason to shoot you Trask." Asha huffed with annoyance as she glared at the man almost daring him to say something about her attire or rather lack there of.

"On any other day Angel, I might have found this scene enthralling, you with a blaster half naked in that pose."

"That does it!" she cocked the gun in warning.

"Okay, okay. The Endar Spire is under attack!" Trask blurted out. "We've been ambushed by Sith."

"What?" Asha asked as his statement caught her attention.

The entire room shook again causing items to fall from the cabinets near by. Her electronic journal fell off a shelf and dropped on her head.

"Ouch!" Asha yelped as she rubbed her head, with her gun hand. "You can't be serious."

"They're bombarding our ships with their canons…listen to the alarms, look around you…does it look like I'm kidding." Trask replied. "Now Hurry up, we have to find Bastila and make sure she makes it off the ship alive!"

"Who?" Asha asked, the name was familiar but she couldn't place it.

"Bastilla. Our Commanding Officer, well not really an officer but…she's in charge of this mission…remember?"

Asha furrowed her brows trying to put a face to the name, but each time it was like something was fogging up her mind.

"How much did you drink last night?" Trask asked skeptically.

Asha held her head, "Enough I guess to Frack me up." She rose to her feet quickly when the next wave of bombardments started again. "What about Dizzy?"

"They scrambled all available pilots 5 minutes ago."

"What?!" Asha asked in a panic, "Why wasn't I woken."

"The announcement was made and repeated over and over for about 5 minutes. I'm surprised you didn't hear it." Trask replied.

Asha looked down at the bottle of meds toppled on her night stand, the deep sleep they caused most likely prevented her from hearing the alarms; she cursed herself.

Hurriedly she moved to her footlocker and grabbed her equipment and hastily got dressed.

It was then, Trask noticed the horrible scars on Asha's back and could not help but stare aghast at the grotesquely scarred skin.

As she turned to face him she noticed his look. "Not so pretty now huh?" Asha smirked.

Trask looked away in embarrassment. "Sorry Angel, I-"

"Don't be. You didn't do it." She answered as she turned herself around so that her injuries were no longer visible to him. "That's probably better eh?" She tried to offer a smile as she continued to dress.

She had just strapped on her portable communicator when a familiar voice squawked,

"This is Carth Onasi. The Sith are threatening to overrun our position! We can't hold out much longer against their fire power! All hands to the bridge!"

"Frack! That's the CAG." Trask said.

"Yeah I know." Asha mumbled as she pulled a shirt over her head, "Can't miss that voice."

"He's seen more combat than the rest of the crew combined. If he says its bad you better believe it. We better get to the bridge and help defend Bastila." Trask suggested. He had wanted to ask Asha more about her injuries but the sudden reminder of their predicament caused him to push out his initial curiosity to leave it for another time. 'There'd be plenty of time after to ask about her scars' he thought to himself.

"Right." Asha checked her blasters, tucked away her assortment of pills and electronic journal in her satchel and followed Trask out the door. She'd see Dizzy later and apologize. Knowing the Rhodian he was probably fuming that she wasn't at her seat with him; she was his best gunner and ECO after all.

Alarms sounded and the ground shook with every canon blast the Endar Spire suffered. A few times Asha was nearly thrown off her feet from the shock. They ran down the crew corridors until they passed a utility droid.

"Frack!" Asha cursed, "The door's locked." She slammed her fist at the barricade, "Most likely emergency lock down procedures. We need to find another route."

"No time. Let me slice into the access panel and open the door." Trask offered.

Within a few moments Trask stepped aside, "Bam! Just like that, the Hutt's your uncle."

"You bypassed that security panel pretty easily." Asha eyed Trask skeptically.

"Life Skills." Trask cast Asha a handsome grin, "I wasn't born in this uniform you know."

"So you're not just a pretty face after all." Asha teased.

"Nah! I got skills." He threw her a wink and flipped the switch to open the door. "After you beautiful."

Asha glared at Trask, "If it wasn't for the fact that we're running for our – What the Frack!"

Blaster fire seared passed Asha's head as the doors opened to reveal Sith troopers and Republic soldiers locked in a heated gun fight.

"They must be part of the Sith's advanced boarding party!" Trask called out over the din of blaster fire and he jumped into the fray guns blazing.

"Trask wait!" Asha called out.

"For the Reupbulic!" she heard him scream as he fired blast upon blast at the Sith troopers.

"Damn patriot." She muttered angrily as she peered behind the door to get a better look at the situation.

The Republic soldiers had all fallen save Trask who was now pinned by laser fire behind an alcove across from where Asha stood.

Taking a deep breath Asah drew out her two blasters and fired her way to a downed Republic soldier where she found a frag grenade. She holstered one of her blasters and retrieved the grenade.

Blaster fire exploded around her and she tumbled to avoid it. As she rolled, she pulled the pin of the grenade and released it. The grenade bounced between the two Siths and exploded taking out the remaining Sith troopers and Asha managed to roll with the force of the blast and regain her balance. Some stray shrapnel grazed her arm and caused her to bleed.

"Running headlong into battle without a game plan is pretty stupid!" Asha spat out irritantly at Trask as she held her injured arm, "Don't they teach you that or does the Republic hire them pretty but dim."

Trask smirked as he looked down at his injured bunk mate and pointed at her arm, "Was that part of your intricate plan?"

Asha glared at the man. "Next time I'm leaving you pinned with the Sith."

Trask laughed, "Come on Ash, you know you wouldn't leave me." He winked. "I'm too pretty remember?"

Asha cast the man a lopsided grin and stood up. "Let's go."

"Wait, you're injured." Trask said pulling her to him. "Let me have a look."

"It's just a scratch." Asha said pulling away.

"It might be more, let me look." Trask winced at the deep gash on Asha's arm, "That's gonna leave a nasty scar."

Asha smirked, "What else is new." She looked away as he quickly cleaned the wound and prepared to inject her with a Medpac; she never did like needles.

She settled back a bit against him as the meds kicked in and filled her with endorphins, the pain of her arm dulling to a numb hurt.

"You alright?" Trask asked.

"Yeah," Asha nodded, "Let's get going."

"Right."

They moved further down the corridors of the Endar Spire, cautious of Sith troopers roaming about. As they moved along the hollowed metal corridors, something ate at the back of Asha's mind.

"Something's not right..." Asha's voice trailed off.

"What do you mean?" Trask asked as he stopped his tracks and turned to look at Asha quizzically.

Asha shook her head. "I dunno. I can't quite place it…but something-" with a sudden swiftness that surprised them both, Asha pulled Trask into an alcove with her just as an explosion took out a utility droid and the corridor up ahead.

Trask turned disbelievingly at Asha, "How did you-"

"I-I don't know." Asha cut him off just as mystified with her actions, "Sometimes I get these feelings," she shrugged, "I don't know, maybe its woman's intuition." She shrugged. "All I know is when I have those feelings it usually means trouble and its saved my skin a few times, so I listen to my instincts."

"Well looks like that door is pretty much sealed shut." Trask said pointing to the one that exploded, "What does your instincts tell you about that door?" he pointed to the only door left for them to go through.

"What am I now your personal Reader?" Asha asked perturbed.

"You're the one with the Danger Sense."

"It comes and goes. I can't just flip it on like a switch."

"Well that's convenient." Trask muttered sarcastically.

Asha eyed the man nonplussed, "But, judging from our situation and the last door we opened I can safely assume that Sith are behind those doors. You don't need my instincts to tell you that." Asha smiled confidently at her bunk mate, "I say we go in guns blazing at the sight of the first Sith."

"You bet." Trask nodded as he readied his blasters.

"On the count of three…"

"One-" Trask started.

"Two-" Asha continued.

"Three-" Trask punched in the correct activation code to open the door.

Asha ducked the first stream of blaster fire and rolled under a table as Trask fired at the Sith troopers from behind the door frame.

Taking careful aim beneath the table, Asha fired two shots aimed for their heads and the two Sith soldiers dropped to the ground like lead weights. The room was cluttered with dead Republic and Sith soldiers from an earlier skirmish.

"Where'd you learn to shoot like that?" Trask asked as he helped Asha from under the table, "Are you one of those Special Ops cells?"

Asha smirked as she stood, "Life skills." She shot back at Trask as she knelt down and began to rummage through the dead bodies.

"Life Skills." Trask smiled as she turned his words back on him, but then his smile faded when he saw her kneeling by a dead female Republic soldier as she began to remove the combat suit from the body, "What are you doing?!" Trask asked appalled

"I need armor, supplies and ammo and these guys won't be needing them." Asha held out some grenades and stuffed it into her satchel then continued to hastily rummage through the rest of the bodies taking what she deemed necessary.

"Are these regulation?" she asked Trask having pulled some stims from a Republic soldier's corpse, "I thought these things were banned by the Republic. Only ones I knew that used Stims were the Mandalorians and Junkies."

"What do you know of Mandalorians?" Trask asked, his voice still reproachful.

"Nothing more than anyone else." Asha shrugged, as she put on the new armour, then noticed the disgusted way in which Trask was eyeing her. "Look, theses items are wasted on these corpses and if you want to get out of here alive you better strip yourself of your higher principles."

"My Civies are not going to protect me against anything, but this armour will." She said as she slipped into the combat suit, then narrowed her eyes at the man, "You got anything to fight in close quarters?"

Trask shook his head, arms crossed and still condemning her actions with his eyes.

"Exactly." Asha said self-assuredly, "We're heading to the bridge where we can't use blasters, and I'll bet if the Sith are looking for this Jedi of yours then they'll have sent out Dark Jedi of their own to take her…You wanna fight a Jedi with your bare hands, be my guest, but I like my chances with a sword." Asha pulled out two swords from the Sith bodies she shot earlier and tested out the grip and balance of each weapon and eyed the make of them appraisingly. "The Sith know a thing or two about making good swords."

"Those melee weapons are made using a cortosis weave that makes them strong enough to stand up against anything, including a light saber." Trask said.

"Exactly." Asha threw a beguiling smile and a wink at Trask. "So, what do you say? Want to live?" She handed Trask a sword hilt first.

Trask contemplated her words a moment then gripped the hilt and tested out the balance.

"Good man." Asha clapped Trask on the back and sheathed her sword, then picked up a second and buckled it to her other hip.

"Two swords?" Trask asked in surprise.

"Yeah," Asha replied nonplussed, "I'm ambidextrous."

"That sounds disgusting."

"It means I'm just as good with my right hand as I am with my left."

"Well that certainly has benefits." Trask smiled lasciviously.

"It also means I could kill you with equal efficiency using either hand." Asha glared.

"You really know how to kill a man's mood." Trask joked.

"Just move." Asha smiled and pushed Trask forward.

As they moved deeper down the corridors they were met with more Sith resistance, though better prepared they were able to handle them easily enough. Their last skirmish reaped a utility belt of ammo a medpac and more grenades; this time Trask did not complain about her pilfering.

Four doors laid before them at the end of the hallway though three of the four doors were either jammed or blown up, which left only the one remaining to go through.

Asha sensed something just beyond the door and as it slid open Trask pulled her back.

"It's a Dark Jedi and one of Bastila's Jedi in a duel!" Trask said, "This fight is too much for us…we better stay back. All we'd do is get in the way."

Asha watched the fight with rapture in her eyes. Her hand itched to join the fight, her feet yearned to join in the dance in battle, but Trask held her to him tightly. Part of her yearned to participate in the fray and felt that she could do better. Then her head started to hurt again as she questioned her feelings and the source of her desire to join in the melee combat.

The end of the duel showed the Jedi to be the victor and as she turned to give an order to Asha and Trask an explosion knocked the Jedi from behind and killed her. The flash of the blast, the sound and smell of the explosion stirred back images, emotions that flew quickly across Asha's mind and as she tried to cling to them to try and remember, her knees buckled and she crumpled in Trask's arms clutching her head.

"ARGH!"

"Asha!" Trask questioned in concern, "What's the matter?"

"Head…" she couldn't speak, as it felt like her head was splitting in two, she clutched at her temples, "Can't…pain…"

"Talk to me Ash, I'm at a loss here." Trask said helplessly as he held her, confused at what just happened.

With trembling hands Asha moved to her satchel and grabbed a bottle of pills that she held out to Trask. In understanding, he opened the bottle and shook out a pill and placed it in her mouth.

Asha bit down hard and as soon as the powder dissolved in her mouth the meds took effect and her body relaxed. The debilitating headache ebbed away to a dim throb.

"Thanks." She said to Trask finally pulling out of his hold.

"Anytime." Trask replied, "Wanna tell me what that was about?"

Asha stood and placed the pill bottle back in her satchel, "Blue bottle to help me sleep, Red bottle for the 'Hammers'."

"The Hammers?"

"Yeah, I suffer from really severe headaches. Skull splitting is the better description, though I call it the Hammers as it feels like my head is being split by a hammer and chisel. Anyways, they don't come often, but when they do it's like a maelstrom. The doctors prescribed the meds to help dull the pain when it gets real bad."

"Like what just happened."

"Yeah." Asha started to walk away uncomfortable with talking about it.

As she approached the fallen Jedi she knelt down and picked up the hilt. The blast had destroyed most of it, but as she examined it her head started to throb. Because of the medication in her system the pain was bearable. Her fingers moved with deft agility, as she quickly took apart the hilt; the crystals and everything destroyed with the exception of a vibration cell that she was able to retrieve.

Trask watched with amazement at how quickly she disassembled the saber's hilt. "Take apart many Jedi swords?" he eyed her skeptically.

Asha's amber eyes narrowed not liking the insinuation, "A small cylindrical device like this. There are only a few ways it could possibly open and it was already slightly a jar when I picked it up so it wasn't rocket science to open it further. Besides…" she said as she held up the item she found to Trask, "I can modify this piece into a vibration cell. And use it to modify a vibroblade. I've done such mods before, so yeah I know my way around swords and other weapons. A Jedi saber is just a fancy glowing sword."

"Life skills?" Trask smirked.

Asha stood face to face with the man and looked him in the eye in challenge, "Yeah, something like that."

Trask's stoic demeanor cracked and he broke out into a smile, "You are Special Ops." He said definitively.

"No, I'm just a scout." Asha answered straight faced.

"Yeah sure." Trask said as they moved to the door to the bridge.

"Just beyond this door is the bridge, melee weapons only. We can't afford stray blaster fire on the control systems."

Asha nodded and holstered her blaster pistols in exchange for two short swords, "Boy aren't we lucky we happened to have found some swords." She offered sarcastically.

Trask looked at Asha and smiled, "Yeah, yeah. You were right, what do you want me to do, kiss your feet?"

"Well, that'd be a start."

"Can I kiss anywhere else?"

"Depends how much you value your man parts." Asha eyed him devilishly as she raised her two short swords.

"Never mind."

"I thought so." Asha smiled.

Trask by passed the security on the doors and opened it up to the bridge; the place was brimming with Sith.

"Okay, let's see how good you really are Ash."

Asha never replied moving instinctively into the foray dual blades flashing as she parried and countered blow after blow and took down Sith after Sith. A swift blow aimed for the top of her head raced by.

With a single fluid motion Asha caught the blow with crossed swords pinning the Sith's blade between her own. She cast the man a feral smile, who in turn replied with a kick to the chest.

Asha flew back and slammed against the command table and had to roll off the other end to escape a fatal slice. She did not wait long for her feet to touch the ground that she slid beneath the table and tripped the Sith Soldier on the other end. Without thought in a motion fluid and natural she brought her blades down on the man's prone form. She did not wait long to find another willing combatant.

By the end the bridge was littered with Sith and Republic bodies with Asha and Trask breathing heavily in an effort to catch their breaths.

"Bastila's not here. They must have retreated to the escape pods." Trask said, "We better head that way too. The Sith want Bastila alive, but once she's off the ship there's nothing stopping them from blasting the Endar Spire into galactic dust."

"Then lets go." Asha urged, "I didn't fight this far just to die from a canon shot."

Trask moved to the next door and accessed the security panel when he heard sounds beyond the door. "There's something behind here."

As Asha approached the door she was filled with a suffocating sense of dread, "No Trask don't open –"

Too late, she thought to herself as the door slid open and revealed the danger she felt was waiting.

"Damn!" She heard Trask curse, "Another Dark Jedi!"

Asha's eyes met that of the Dark Jedi and a flash of the familiar hit her. The Dark Jedi's eyes widened when he saw her and he drew his saber and charged.

She was held in her place motionless, incapacitated by the feeling that there was something she should know; something familiar about the man. Asha was vulnerable in her catatonic state as she tried to pull the memory to surface, and as she did so the familiar pain in her head started again.

"ASHA!!" Trask called out and jumped into the melee, stopping a deadly saber blow from striking her down.

Asha's amber eyes widened at the nearness of the bright crimson blade, the Dark Jedi sneered at his foiled attempt and turned his attention to Trask.

"I'll hold him off." Trask shouted, "You get to the escape pods!"

Still stunned at the whole event and flustered by something that drove at her mind Asha did not respond and it was only when Trask pushed her and she fell on her back that she snapped out of her catatonic state.

By then Trask had slammed his fist on the release and sealed the door shut behind him. Asha jumped up to her feet and banged her palms on the door.

"TRASK NO!!!" she screamed from the other side as she pounded against the metal.

He was going to die she knew it. With ardent fervor she slashed at the control panel hoping a short would cause the locks to release, but to her frustration the door was still sealed.

She slashed vehemently at the doors, but they still remained closed, "Trask you Frack'n idiot!" she called out through the metal doors as she sunk to her knees crestfallen. Her head and finger tips rested against the cold metal, eyes shut in defeat.

"This is Carth Onasi on your personal communicator." A familiar voice squawked from her wrist comm., "Soldier can you hear me?"

"Yeah." Asha finally answered as she wiped away the tears in her eyes, "I hear you."

"Good. I'm tracing your position through the Endar Spire's life support systems. Bastila's escape pod is away…You're the last surviving crew member of the Endar Spire."

"Frack'n yay." Asha muttered dejectedly.

"Listen, I can't wait for you much longer; you have to get to the escape pods!" Carth pleaded.

"Alrgiht." Asha said and rose to her feet. "I'll be there."

She gave one last look at the sealed door where Trask was, then pulled out her electronic journal she brought up a map of the Endar Spire and looked for the quickest rout to the escape pods, and headed in that direction. She forced herself to think of the task at hand and mourn Trask's death later.

Asha had shot her way through to the corridors leading to the escape pods by catching the Sith off guard. She had also found a Republic pass card along the way. That made it easier to go through the restricted corridors as she did not have the slicing talents that Trask had; computers and repairs are one thing, but hacking security and encrypted systems were another beast altogether.

She entered a room for the first time, not crawling with Sith. A computer panel, a broken down droid and a few footlockers were all that cluttered the room. It seemed as though the Sith had not yet come this way. Asha rummaged through the footlockers grabbing what she could, computer spikes, ammo etc.

At the far end of the room was another door and Asha checked her map. One more door past this one and she was home free. Asha was about to swipe the pass card to allow her access to the next room when her communicator sounded causing her to jump.

"HEY WAIT!!" it was Carth Onasi's voice again.

"Force Onasi!" Asha whispered angrily, "Can you be any louder? I don't think the Sith heard you."

"Sorry, but I thought I'd warn you before you head there that there's a whole squad of Sith Troopers on the other side of that door." Carth replied.

"Frack." Asha swore, two or three Troopers she could handle but a whole squad was a different matter; life skills or not she'd die with those odds.

Quickly she scanned the room and saw the derelict droid and the computer panel to her right.

"Don't worry Onasi, I got it covered." Asha said into her communicator then set out to work.

She moved to the computer terminal and sliced into the programming matrix utilizing one of the computer spikes she found in the footlocker. Accessing the power subsystems she made the power conduits in the adjacent room to overload.

The power surge took out the cameras in the room so she could not access video feed to check for survivors, but she heard various loud screams emanate from the other side, so she knew her ploy worked; just how well was undetermined.

"Onasi, any survivors in the other room?" Asha asked into her wrist comm.

"Too much electrical interference in that room, it's messing with the life support readings."

"Alright nevermind." Asha said then headed for the derelict droid.

She inspected the broken down droid before her and after doing a few cursory diagnostics of its system found that it was just missing some parts. Asha moved quickly to the foot locker where she had last seen some components. After inserting the missing circuit boards, she rewired the droid for optimum shields and weaponry, then set it loose on sentry mode.

Asha listened for gun fire as it entered the adjacent room and when she heard no retaliatory blaster fire, she followed suit after the droid. Using the pass card that she found earlier she opened the doors to the room with the escape pods.

"YOU?!" came the shocked voice of the Endar Spire's CAG. Carth remembered her from the card game the night before and their encounter at the Hanger Bay.

"Good to see you too Sir…" Asha smirked, "Thanks for nearly getting me killed with that broadcast warning by the way."

Of all the people to be stuck on an escape pod with, the Force decides it has to be her, Carth thought to himself. "If I hadn't warned you about that squad you wouldn't be here right now Recruit."

"I would have found a way."

"Sure you would." Carth replied unconvinced. "Look there's only one escape pod left-"

"Does that mean you're going down with the ship?" Asha interjected hopefully.

"That's historically the Captain's job and I'm not the Captain." Carth answered.

"Too bad." Asha quipped.

"Get in there!" Carth pushed Asha forward into the shuttle.

"Ouch!" Asha protested as the edge of the frame caught her forehead and she looked back at Carth indignantly.

"We can hide out on the planet below." Carth said ignoring her indignant glower and shut the hatch and buckled up.

"You bled me!" Asha glared as she touched her forehead and found blood. "I'm requesting a transfer when I get back."

"Good." Carth replied, "I'll sign off on it." With that he pulled the release lever and the escape pod shot out into orbit.