"Hey."

"Hey." Astalia replied, smiling. She opened her eyes to greet the Turian lying next to her. He reached across to stroke the side of her head.

"There's my blue star..." He leaned forward and kissed her. The artificial light was shining through the windows, brightening the room.

"Good Morning." Astalia said as she leant back. A shrill beeping interrupted them.

"I'll get it." Kurreck sat on the side of the bed and stretched, while Astalia got out and walked into the bathroom, stopping to fill the sink with water. She heard the beep click off.

"Kurreck? You there?" A panicked voice came through the monitor, the face distorted through bad signal.

"I'm here. Rocam, is that you?" He was answered by a torrent of distorted words. "There's a lot of static, I can't hear you." Astalia splashed some water on her face and turned towards the door.

"Who is it?" She asked.

"I'm not sure, the signal is pretty bad wherever he is." The static from the monitor leveled out.

"Kurreck, can you hear me?" The voice came through.

"Yeah I'm here. What's up?"

"It's Rocam, have you seen the news?"

"No, we just got up. What's happening? The static is really strong, where are you?"

"I'm on a military ship in orbit around the Citadel."

"Military ship? Why?"

"Check the extranet. We're at war." Kurreck stared blankly for a moment.

"War?" He exclaimed. Astalia walked back Into the room, now wearing the casual dress she always wore when tending their shop.

"What did he just say?" She asked.

"Astalia?" Rocam said, voice crackling.

"Did you just say we are at war? Who is we?"

"Everyone." The words hung in the air. Kurreck was flicking through news on his omni-tool.

"The Reapers?" He said in disbelief.

"Reapers? Is this a joke?" Astalia laughed.

"No... It's being reported everywhere." Astalia leant over and look at the news reports being shown on Kurrecks omni-tool. She wasn't laughing anymore.

"Kurreck." Rocam said. "They already hit Khar'shan, damn near wiped the Batarians out. They're on Earth as well."

"What are we doing about it? Turians I mean. Are we helping, defending, what?"

"Recovering. They hit us too."

"You don't mean..."

"They have Palaven."

"Impossible." Kurreck leant back against the bed. He felt an arm around him as Astalia sat down to his side.

"That's what they keep telling us. No one wants to believe it but they're on Palaven. And they're doing a damn good job of peeling us off. Thessia is fine, by the way Astalia. Not a Reaper in sight in the Athena Nebula."

"Are there any evacuees?" Astalia asked quietly, her face unreadable. "Kurrecks whole family are there... We were getting a shuttle tomorrow."

"I uh... I don't know. I'm sorry."

"What's the plan? They have a plan to get it back, right?" Kurreck said.

"You need to understand, these... Things are like nothing we've seen before."

"Rocam!" Kurreck half yelled.

"We... There are plans. It's dangerous, that's why I called."

"What, so it wasn't just to deliver good news then?" Kurreck replied, a vicious edge in his voice.

"Kurreck!" Astalia exclaimed.

"I have family on Palaven too, you know." Rocam said quietly.

"I... I'm sorry." Kurreck said, looking down. "What do you need?"

"We need manpower. I thought you'd want in." Astalia looked directly at Kurreck, who kept his face locked towards the static on the screen."

"I'm in."

"Meet me at docking bay B8 in 3 hours, there's a few of us going to be there."

"Right. See you there." The screen shut down. Kurreck stood up and walked to the nearby desk, leaving a stunned Astalia still sitting against the bed.

"How could you make a decision like that without asking me?!" She yelled. "You know what you just did? You decided to go to war!" The situation felt unreal to her, but Rocam wasn't lying. Every site on the extranet was talking about it, she could see hundreds of thumbnails for recorded videos.

"That's my home. And my family." He said quietly.

"What about me? What if you go and you die?"She walked over to him and stood next to the desk.

"What do you expect me to do?!" Kurreck snapped. "I can't turn my back on my home planet, it's not as easy for some of us!" He regretted it immediately as Astalia was clearly hurt. She turned and began to walk away from him, but was stopped as he put out his arm around her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

"You know damn well why I can never go back. Don't you dare turn this around on me."

"I'm sorry. I just... My head is everywhere right now. My entire family might be dead." Astalia turned around and hugged him. "I love you, you know I do. But I have a chance to help. I have to go."

"I don't want to lose you. You are all I have." Her voice was muffled from being buried in his shoulder.

"You won't. I can take care of myself, remember how we met?"

"Remember?" She laughed. "How could I forget?" A loud metal rapping interrupted them. Astalia turned to the door, but Kurreck didn't move. She looked back to him as the knocking sounded again, and everything went black.

"Mission briefing in 10 minutes!" A Turian voice yelled from the other side of the door. The knocking continued as Astalia blinked awake. "Hello?"

"Alright..." She said groggily. The knocking echoed through the room again. "Yes, yes, I hear you!" Astalia said loudly.

"10 minutes!" The voice shouted again before fading footsteps signalled it's departure. She sat up in the chair that she'd fallen asleep in, eyes closed holding onto the last memories in her dream. Her Armour plates were on the table in front of her, along with scattered dossiers and letters. She'd been on the ship for several days, waiting for approval to join this mission. She snapped the clasps of the metal gauntlet shut over her arms, followed by an angled pair of shoulder pads, then moved onto her gloves which fitted neatly into the armoured bodysuit that she wore under the armour plates. The suit and armour were jet black, patterned with yellow. Yellow lights came to life, on her arms, legs, back and in the middle of her chest plate. As she stood up she glanced at herself in the middle. Beautiful as all Asari seemed to be, Astalia was no different. She had yellow facial markings that ran along the top of her eyes, around the side of her face and on her cheek bones coming to a rest on either side of her nose. She holstered her pistol and and snapped her assault rifle on her back, whirring as it compacted into place. The door hissed and it separated in the middle and slid open. Astalia stepped out of her cramped cabin and into the busy hallway. Doors lined the walkway, as various people hurried by, mostly Turians but one or two Krogan mixed in too. The metal grated floor clanged with every footstep, and various sirens could be heard from all over the ship. Astalia turned right and started towards the the part of the ship where she knew she was wanted. She walked through the door as it slid open, and all eyes turned to her. The room was lined with monitors, each staffed by a Turian operator, and had a large table-like computer in the centre of the room that had a small crowd gathered around it. The crew and staff were all Turian, and a couple of Krogan. Astalia stuck out like a sore thumb and she knew it.

"Ah good, Astalia." One of the Turians said, she saw a smile flicker across his face for a second. He was wearing standard body armour for a sergeant. It was blue bordered jet black. "My name is Gothis. I'm going to be your CO during this mission. Take a seat." He motioned to his side where there were two Krogan and another Turian already seated.

"What's with the Asari?" One of the Krogan asked. He had a deep set scar across the right side of his grizzled face, and several dents in the crimson plates that were visible around the back and top of his head.

"She's a volunteer. Want anymore information you can ask her yourself." He turned around and pulled up his omni-tool.

"So what's the deal?" The Krogan asked Astalia. She gave him a questioning look. "I mean I thought your people were too busy strengthening your own borders?"

"Well, I am not my people."

"Fair enough." He laughed. Further conversation was halted as the hologram on the computer sparked to life. A scaled down version of a Turian City was now floating in the centre of the room. The area it covered was quite large, spanning several blocks which were then separated by a huge lake. The other side of the city was connected by several colossal bridges that stretched across the body of water.

"Ok people. This is our objective." Gothis said, pointing to a building that had developed a red outline on the far side of the display, a block away from the end of one of the bridges. "This is a communications relay that is vital to any and all troop activity in the area. Objective is to clear out the building of any enemy occupation and reactivate it. Evac is signalled after the mission is complete." He tapped on his omni tool and the red outline faded. It reappeared about about a mile away on the other side of the city across the lake. "This is where we hit the ground. The landing zone will be hot, but it's the got the highest concentration of Our forces for miles so that's where we get off." A red line separated from the outline tracing the drop point and traced a route along the map. "This route is now being uploaded into your Omni-Tools. Secondary objective is to keep on the lookout from Delta Squad." Astalia sat up. "This was their detail, but we lost contact about a week ago. "Any questions?" His words were met with silence. "Okay good, so you know who I am, This is Chatti Vuryn, our Demolitions and Tech expertise during this mission." He motioned to the other Turian who was sat down. His armour was similar to Gothis' but had a lot more pouches around his chest and his waist. "Urdnot Thrakk." He nodded to the Krogan who had spoken to Astalia. "Urdnot Nar." He motioned to the second Krogan, he was younger with green armour plating on his head. "And lastly; Astalia Sidare. Get acquainted because we leave in five."