A/N: Hello everyone. I just want to drop in before the proper chapter to thank everyone who recently left a review on the last chapter and others. This really means a lot for me, since my work is a relatively niche thing within the whole catalog of Mass Effect fics.

Serpent Nebula, Boltzmann System,

Bekenstein's upper orbit, Normandy SR-2, Deck 3

1756 Local Time, July 7th, 2185 Gregorian Calendar

It's been ten days since Shepard confronted the carvins over the issue of Virox. During that time several things happened, mainly within the Carvin Empire itself. A coup attempt that turned into an open armed rebellion, which was subsequently crushed and resulted in massive purges within the carvin military and state apparatus. At least that's what the news outlets from both Council and carvin spaces claimed was happening.

But here on the Normandy came a different kind of change for its sole carvin inhabitant. Whereas the Empire became more outspoken, loud, and restless, Virox seemed to have retreated deep into his mind, regressing back into the anti-social attitude he had exhibited back when he first arrived on the ship. Except there was more than that. While back then he was cautious and hostile, now the only proper way to describe his mood was with one word - apathy.

Like before, he refused to eat with the rest of the crew and preferred to do so in the main battery instead, but every time he silently and politely returned his plate and cutlery back to the mess. Whereas before he would snarl or growl at the Cerberus crew who would often sneak glances at him from the sidelines, now he ignored them, even as his strange behavior attracted more attention than usual. Gardner told her that he wasn't sure if the past Virox had been more unnerving than the current one.

Shepard asked everyone even remotely qualified to give opinion on the matter for advice on how to proceed. Kelly, Chakwas, Mordin, and even EDI, all unanimously urged caution, since the carvin's temper was already known to be volatile. But after over a week of this behavior it had become apparent that something had to be done. And so Shepard went down to Deck 3 to try and figure something out.

When she arrived at the entrance to the main battery, she was surprised to find Garrus outside, walking back and forth in front of the door. An unusual sight to be sure.

"I know I told you I was coming down but you didn't have to leave the room preemptively." She said, walking up to the turian.

"*sigh* Can't focus with him like that. Even calibrations are harder to do, and that's saying something." Garrus replied, earning a chuckle from Shepard at the last remark. "I tried to talk to him, but it's as if he's in a coma. Totally unresponsive."

"Well, he had never ignored me yet, so whether you like it or not, I am our best chance of snapping him out." She said.

"Just... be careful. I've heard what he had almost done to you after... that standoff with Miranda." He asked her, a hint of worry evident in his voice.

Shepard couldn't help but smile at Garrus' concern. The two of them had gotten much closer in the past weeks, and to see him fret over her safety to this extent was nothing if not cute. Still, this was something that she had to do, regardless of reservations that some of her crew may have about it. And she was relatively confident that at the end of the day Virox did not wish to hurt her.

"I'll be fine. You stay outside and make sure that we're left unbothered." She requested, to which Garrus gave a silent nod before stepping aside. Taking a deep breath she opened the door and stepped through it, hearing it quietly hiss behind her as it closed.

Virox was where she expected him to be - on the left of the entrance, staring at the wall next to EDI's terminal with his back facing her. He was completely quiet, his tail was dropped. Shepard thought over many scenarios prior to this moment, many different ways to start this conversation. And it all would depend on how he would react to her presence.

"Virox." She called out calmly and slowly so as to not startle him.

The reaction was minuscule but immediate. Virox's tail rose up by tiny bit and his body as a whole twitched ever so slightly. He always reacted to her words, like some sort of instinctive reflex that prevented him from ignoring her while at the same time allowing him to block out all other presences. Nonetheless he remained silent for now.

"We need to talk." She tried once again, watching the carvin for a further reaction. But instead of a shift in posture that she expected from him, Virox responded with a question.

"Have you ever experienced... a sort of death of mind?" He asked.

Taken aback by the suddenness and strangeness of the question, Shepard answered after a good few seconds. "Uh... I have died physically if that's good enough."

"I know. But that is not what I meant." Virox said, still looking at the wall. "I mean convincing yourself that you are already dead so well that you might as well be."

"Then no, I don't believe I had the displeasure." She answered truthfully.

Virox in the meantime turned halfway towards her, allowing Shepard to see his eyes. They were tired, exhausted even. Tiny veins were visible upon the eyeballs to a much larger extent than before. The irises seemed to have lost some of their color. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn that the carvin had just finished crying, although she wasn't sure if their species even had this sort of biological response to sadness in the first place.

"I felt like I died that day. When I received that message. I was certain that no matter what I did, there would be no escape from death. From the barrel of a gun. The old me may have even embraced that fate." Virox continued, his expression unreadable. "But through all this time, a part of me that I thought was long gone pushed back. Even when I pushed it away like I always had done, it refused to be silenced."

"Why would you ever accept death like that?" Shepard asked. "I understand taking the fair share of the blame and facing punishment. But death? Execution?"

"I never said I accepted it. I never welcomed it." Virox clarified before finally turning to face her properly. "But I saw it as inevitable. Even if I ran away, hid on some backwater world, someone out there would be looking for me. And they would not stop until they've delivered my head back to the Empire. Living in constant fear of death is not something I want to come back to."

"Come back to?" Now Shepard was totally confused. "What do you mean?"

Virox took a deep breath. His arms were slouched and heavy. He looked 'smaller' for a lack of a better term, less imposing and dangerous. With mixed feelings, Shepard realized that this was the first time that she saw the carvin look 'vulnerable'.

"Everything... all of this. My anger, my distrust and hatred for aliens. The slavish sense of responsibility, even how my body outright refuses to ignore your presence solely because you are now my superior officer." He said, each word accented with audible pain and regret. His fists curled up, squeaking as the metal rubbed against metal. "All this started with The Grox War. With these damn alien fuckers who attacked us, and even after all these years we can't figure out what the fuck for."

'The Grox War'. Shepard heard it before. Virox mentioned it a few times, most recently onboard the derelict station in the Great Wound. He told her that he had served in that war, and was later put into cryosleep along some other soldiers to be awakened some 200 years ago. That was why he could recognize the dead creature they encountered onboard.

"At 2 years old... I was barely a hatchling at that point. Robbed of a future, I was made a soldier." He continued, his gaze focused on something far behind her, or perhaps on nothing at all. "Twisted and molded into a killing machine."

His right fist was shaking. Normally Shepard should have been concerned about him lashing out at her, but she sensed that his anger was not directed at her, or anyone for that matter.

"And yet now, having served on this ship for some time, I began to hear a voice of someone who I thought was long dead." He said with a barely audible shaking shaking of his voice.

"Who is it?" Shepard asked cautiously.

Virox's gaze shifted to the ceiling as he drew a deep breath.

[FLASHBACK]

Carvistorn, Continent of Veltan,

Suburbs of the imperial capital of Lexaant

? Time, ? Day, Year 1012 After Unification

A small boy crawled out of the rubble that came down onto him when the ceiling collapsed. Black smoke choked his lungs, coming from the burning walls and other surrounding debris. His ears were ringing so hard that he couldn't even hear himself breathe or the fire burning around him.

It all happened so fast. One moment he saw his caretakers talk nervously with one another, smelling fear and unease coming from them. Next the entire building seemed to explode and he only woke up under the rubble that he had just gotten himself out of. Despite his blurry vision he saw figures and shadows running seemingly in random directions, all the while someone was shouting something that he couldn't hear.

Then he noticed a large hole in the wall next to him, through which the black smoke escaped and a gust of cold wind could be felt. He crawled towards the opening, still unable to hear anything from his surroundings. His arms hurt, bleeding and bruised, but after what felt like an eternity, he was finally outside.

The evening chill shook him to the bone, sharpening his confused senses. The blurry vision cleared up partially, fresh air washed away the stench of soot, the ringing in his ears slowly started to go away, and the pain he felt became even harder to bear. His throat was sore from all the hot air and smoke to the point that breathing became difficult. Struggling to keep himself standing, he looked around to get his bearings.

He was right outside of the building where his parents left him almost every day. They brought him here to play and learn until the sun went down and then they would pick him up. But now there was no one to take him home. Only the sight of people running away to safety amidst the incessant wailing of an alarm siren. Streams of light pierced the sky in seemingly random directions and people were running about, trying to get off the street. Planes and ships of different kinds flew above, engaged in some strange and elaborate dance.

As his hearing mostly came back, the boy started to recognize the street he was on. He turned right onto the main avenue from which he hoped that the path home would simply unravel before him. He was only half right. While the wide, car-filled avenue looked familiar on the surface, the chaos and destruction made it almost unrecognizable. Still, he pressed on, guided by his faint memory and instinct.

The large imposing houses and skyscrapers were burning, abandoned by its past occupants. Glass windows were smashed, giving off impressions of ghastly empty eye sockets, staring at him as he sneaked by. Explosions in the distance shook the ground beneath his feet. Something large was whizzing above his head every few seconds.

And then, amidst the ruined cars and buildings, advancing through the smoke and dust, he saw them. Masked, almost robotic figures with glowing purple eyes. Their barely exposed skin was also of dark purplish color. In their hands were strange devices, which he only recognized as weapons when they aimed them at the fleeing pedestrians and opened fire. Instinctively he ducked behind one of the abandoned cars, trying to stay out of sight.

The creatures combed through the car wrecks and nearby houses, firing their weapons at anyone unlucky to be left exposed. Peaking out of the safety of the cover was practically a death sentence so the boy crawled through the rubble-strewn street, doing his best not to wince when shards of glass stabbed into his hands through his soft and unhardened scales.

Somehow he managed to get through undetected, and the creatures were now behind him, moving further down the road. Once he made sure that they weren't following him, he pulled himself up in spite of his aching arms and continued on towards where he believed his home would be. A stench of blood slowly filled the streets, causing itching in the boy's already irritated nostrils. He could not understand why but it made him agitated and angrier.

As seconds felt like minutes and minutes like hours, he reached a place that immediately felt all too familiar - a housing estate where he often played and where he would always return after a day in the daycare. The houses were of moderate size, each built as a two-story building with a small garden in the front. His home was just around the corner and he knew how to get there quickly. If there was a place that he would find his parents, it was there.

He ran through the park that dominated the central area of the estate. The large trees and lush greenery were all but destroyed, some of the larger trunks still being engulfed in flames. But he paid no mind to the devastation. All he cared about was seeing his parents.

Before long he stood in front of his house... or what was left of it. The roof and most of the upper floor had collapsed, while the fence that separated their small garden area from the public space was missing. Much to his horror, there was no sign of life within the building. With panic taking an ever stronger hold on his heart, he stepped inside to look for any sign of a living soul.

The interior of the building did not fare much better than the outside. Overturned chairs and tables filled the dining room, while food littered the floor of the kitchen. A simple chandelier that hung on the ceiling in the living room was shattered, occasionally emitting sparks. The stairs to the upper floor were destroyed. Here or there lay a plushie or a toy soldier that the boy used to play with on free days at home, now broken and covered in dirt and soot.

But alas, despite his greatest desires, there was nobody home. The boy tried to call out to his parents in vain hope that they would somehow hear him, but only managed to let out a faint squeak through his pained and sore throat. He tried again to no avail, the voice barely audible through the noise coming from the outside. It was as if his own body refused to listen to him.

His hearts started beating faster to the point that their rumble turned into a steady hum in his head. The painful lump in his throat seemed to balloon in size. Surely his parents were not gone, were they? They promised to be there for him. They promised, and yet when he needed them most, they were not here. The boy felt all strength leave his body. He collapsed onto his knees, wanting to scream in despair, but once again his throat betrayed him, letting out a pitiful whimper instead.

*CREEEEEEEEAAAAK*

The sudden noise made his tail stand on end. He threw himself back onto his feet and pressed his back against the wall of the kitchen, listening for the source of the sound.

*CRUNCH*

*CRUNCH*

To his surprise, the boy realized that someone entered the house, stepping over the rubble and shards of glass, ever present on the damaged floor. A thought leapt into his mind that perhaps it was his mother or father who followed him here. He was about to dart towards the source when an alien stench hit his nostrils, unlike any carvin he ever smelled. But the smell was somewhat familiar... he smelled it just a few minutes ago...

Whatever pleasant surprise still lingered in his head was immediately replaced by horror. This definitely was not a carvin - it was one of those purple-eyed creatures. It must have followed him here to kill him too, like those people out on the street. It was creeping ever closer, to the point that it was just a few steps away from where he was hiding. In a panic the boy covered his mouth with the palm of his hand, trying to stop himself from panting loudly as terror overtook him.

But then something unexpected happened. He felt his blood run hot, as if boiling. The pain in his arms was gone, but his other senses were sharpened practically by the second, to the point that he could pinpoint the strange creature's position just based off of the sounds it made. His vision went red and the fear that took hold of him just moments before was suddenly replaced by anger.

This creature, and the other ones like it, they took away his parents. They destroyed his home and were now coming to kill him too. He felt livid, furious even. A wave of unstoppable hatred washed away all remaining dread. These creatures... they would pay for what they had done.

Barely restraining the sudden surge of rage, he waited for the creature to approach his hiding spot. He clenched his bloodied fingers into fists, ready to strike the moment the creature revealed itself. And so the moment that its head poked out from the dining room, the boy lunged and rammed his whole body into the purple figure.

*WHACK*

Despite his comparatively smaller size, the element of surprise made up for that deficiency, as the creature stumbled away, hitting the opposing wall with its head. The boy then used the window of opportunity to tackle one of the beast's legs, causing it to collapse onto the floor. When it fell, he jumped on top of it and unleashed a hail of strikes against its head. He punched and slashed its metal face and glowing purple eyes, as it wriggled and squirmed in an attempt to liberate itself.

However even with this newfound advantage he wasn't out of the woods yet. Trying to regain the initiative, the creature protruded a small blade out of its right arm and made a swing at him. He tried to dodge but the sharp edge still connected with the lower part of his forearm, cutting deeply through his soft scales. Expecting a wave of pain, he closed his eyes and braced for the sensation, but the only thing he felt was some warmth.

Reacting to this unexpected attack, the boy shifted his weight to pin down the armed hand with his body, while he looked around for anything that he could use as a weapon. A large shard of glass caught his eye, probably remains of a bowl or a bottle. He grabbed hold of its less sharp edge and slammed it into the creature's head with all strength he could muster.

*STAB*

Sparks flew out of the mechanical 'face' of the alien, and blood - or something similar to it - gushed out of the point of impact. The alien twitched from the impact, the strength in its arm waned, but the boy did not relent. Even as the duller edges of the glass shard cut through the soft tissue of his palm, he kept on stabbing again and again, fully immersed in the vengeful rage that powered his strikes.

*STAB*

KILL!

*STAB*

MURDER!

*STAB*

SLAUGHTER!

*STAB* *STAB* *STAB*

At one point he threw away the glass shard and continued to claw through the creature's head with his bare hands. Any sense of time seemed to evaporate as he continued to punch and slash until it looked like a bloody mush, with wires and small plates of metal occasionally intermixed with the flesh. He kept on lashing out against the corpse relentlessly until the burning sensation of exhaustion finally caught up with him and he could not find the strength to lift his arms anymore.

His vision slowly returned to normal, and the aching in his shoulders was joined by the stinging felt from the cuts on his forearm and hands. They were both covered in mud, dirt and blood. He collapsed onto his knees, and closed his eyes, trying to not look at the mangled alien remains that he had created. Explosions and alarm sirens still echoed from outside of the building, and yet the small boy felt that his surroundings were quieter than ever. The deafening silence served as a statement, brutal in its simplicity:

He was now all alone. Abandoned in a burning city, inside of his own ruined home. At this very moment, he had no one.

The boy opened his eyes and stared at the corpse in front of him. One of the glowing purple eyes was still relatively intact, although the light inside of it had died. He grabbed hold of it and ripped it out. It came off quite easily, but it felt heavy in his tiny hands.

Summoning all remaining strength, he looked up into the ceiling and, in spite of the pain in his throat, he let out a scream of pain and despair that echoed through the ruined walls of his home and beyond.

Serpent Nebula, Boltzmann System,

Bekenstein's upper orbit, Normandy SR-2, Deck 3

1812 Local Time, July 7th, 2185 Gregorian Calendar

Shepard listened in silence as Virox finished recalling his past. Throughout the entire time he spent retelling it, she could see him drift away into the painful world of memories. The words came out of his mouth were clear and understandable, yet the rest of his body seemed... detached, absent. She had seen Thane's little slips into the past, and they were arguably more intense than what Virox was going through, yet seeing someone without the eidetic memory of a drell recalling his past so vividly and in such detail was all the more moving.

"After that... the death of that boy began. It was a slow and uneventful death. After a few years as the war progressed, he simply disappeared. I was all that remained." Virox almost whispered. "Or at least so I thought."

It was a wonder to Shepard how she was not yet desensitized to the tragic and painful backstories of her companions. After all Virox was hardly the first one with unpleasant past to join her team. But over time, having worked to earn the favor of each and every one of her squadmates, she realized that behind each and every one of their issues, their emotional barriers and distractions, there was one invisible force - The Past.

While some, like Garrus, Zaeed, Samara, or Mordin were twisted and strong-armed by it, others like Jack, Miranda, and to a large extent Thane as well, all had their lives dictated and molded by it. And it was now abundantly clear that Virox belonged to the latter group. Hearing him speak of his painful past so openly and bluntly completely re-contextualized how Shepard viewed the carvin.

"How did you survive?" She asked, making sure that he finished his story.

"I don't remember clearly. At the end, when I killed that Dronox, everything becomes hazy. I was later told that some soldiers found me, so I either fainted or was too weak to protest." Virox answered, his newly refocused gaze shifting back towards her.

"And your parents?" Shepard went a step further.

"Dead for all I know. Both of them were military and the unit they served in was apparently destroyed in the initial stages of the Grox assault." He replied, shockingly not exhibiting any signs of hostility as he spoke. "I only found out a few years later, when my training was complete and I was fully committed. Expected it to hurt... but it didn't. That's when I became convinced that the small boy I used to be was dead."

Shepard processed his reply, wondering how far the carvin was comfortable with going before asking "What were they like?"

Virox froze mid-breath. She realized that perhaps this was the point where she should have called it quits, but curiously there was no belligerence in the carvin's behavior. Instead it was something else - sadness.

"I... I don't remember..." He answered after a long moment of silence, surprising even himself with that answer. "I should remember something... but there's nothing. Their smell is gone. Their faces foggy. Their words hollow... voiceless."

Once again Shepard noticed his hands shaking, however this time they weren't clenched in a fist. Instead they were open, with his fingers twitching about as much as his arms. Never before had she seen such an 'organic' reaction from his cold synthetic implants. He grabbed one hand with the other in order to stop the shaking. This was the first time during their conversation that he seemed to genuinely lose control, instead of voluntarily giving in to his emotions.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry." She said, trying to comfort the carvin. "You really have no family left?"

"If I have, they're yet to reveal themselves." Virox dejectedly replied. "The closest thing to a family would be..." He paused, as if the words he was about to say left a disgusting taste in his mouth. "...High General Seviros."

Shepard's eyes widened in surprise. She did some reading on the Carvin Empire, and while the material available was limited, she remembered the mention of High Generals. They were like the carvin equivalents of turian Primarchs, the highest and most prestigious posts in the entire Empire. Which is why Virox's connection to one was so unexpected.

"You have contacts with a High General?" She asked, trying to suppress the disbelief in her voice.

"Contacts is a bit much." Virox scoffed. "He was apparently a friend of the family back before The Grox War. He was the one who recognized me, had me fed, clothed, and trained into a soldier. He taught me how to survive and thrive in the chaos of war. He was always horrendously strict, but I knew he did it out of genuine care."

Shepard could very clearly hear distaste in his voice. "You don't sound too pleased about that."

"I am and forever will be grateful for what he did for me back during the war. It's what came after that bothers me. " Virox elaborated, though bitterness was still evident in his voice. "After I was awoken from cryosleep... I guess he took pity on me, given that he was the only person I realistically had left. He helped me integrate, got me into a university and into both SpecOps and the Assaulter Training Program, sent me presents every now and then, even an omni-tool after the first contact with the Council. But his new post made it difficult for us to go on like that. The Ravashir would often check on me, absolutely livid that I had such a personal relationship with 'The Hero of the Grox War'. At some point I told him to stop. I didn't want to create problems for either of us because of this long-distance relationship."

"And how did he respond to that?" Shepard asked.

"He didn't. He never replied to my messages. The only thing was always either a gift package from a third party or a message from whatever institution he managed to get me accepted into." He answered. "But I always knew it was him. He's never been good at subtlety when it came to those presents."

She nodded with understanding, choosing to remain silent for now. Virox had already said much, all of it being clearly difficult to share. She did not need to burden him any more questions. The best thing to do was to simply be there for him, which is exactly what she did.

Everything started to make sense now. Why he was obsessed with military protocol and almost fanatically terrified of sharing any classified information, why he had a deep distrust for aliens, why he treated her so differently from other members of the crew. She was his commander, and even for this limited amount of time his soldierly mentality accepted her as such.

"Shepard..." Surprisingly it was Virox that broke silence this time. "What I said... all of it... I never shared it with anyone else."

"Don't mention it." While she had suspected as much, she was still happy that he had the strength to say it. "But are you sure I have clearance for that?"

"Don't know. Don't care. At this point you've done more for me than any of my previous superiors, in some ways even more than Seviros. Might as well share it with you before I wisen up." Virox admitted. "What I'm trying to say is... thank you. From here on out, no matter what happens, I will have your back. Against the Collectors and anyone else dumb enough to go after you and this ship."

"Glad to have you with us." Shepard gave him a genuine smile and extended a hand to him. He grabbed hold of it and, unlike when they first met, he shook it with strength and conviction. Perhaps his grip was a bit too hard, because once he released her hand, she briefly felt a faint pulsating around her palm. Nonetheless they both looked at each other, for the first time not as strangers but as comrades in arms.

"Now, I guess you better let Vakarian back in. He's going to hurt his head from all that time he pressed it to the door." He remarked while glancing at the entrance to the room.

Shepard turned around and reached for the holographic lock of the entrance. The device obediently reacted to her touch and the door quietly opened, revealing Garrus right in the middle of stepping away from it. He looked about as ashamed as she was disappointed.

"Garrus. What were you doing?" She asked him, trying her best to sound like a disappointed parent talking to their child.

"Uh, I... erm... the lock, you see, I thought it needed some... calibrating. You know, since you're coming by so often, I thought I'd check it just in case." The turian stumbled on his words, trying his best to feign innocence.

"Mhmm, right." She hummed, effortlessly seeing through his charade. Rather than argue about it, she instead walked up to him and touched each side of the his face. The left side seemed completely normal, but the carapace on the right was distinctly colder. "Yep, definitely eavesdropping."

Garrus stepped back, embarrassed both by the fact that he was exposed and by the sudden and unexpected touch. The whole scene was funny and cute in a way, but the real killer came when she briefly heard some strange clicking behind her. Turning back once again she saw Virox chuckle in that peculiar carvin manner, a stark contrast to how he acted just moments ago. It wasn't a full on giggle or cackle, but still the more cheerful attitude of the carvin was a good sign.

"If he behaves well from here on out, I can give him an amnesty, guaranteeing that I will NOT eat him until we deal with the Collectors." He said, glancing at the turian.

"And... what'll happen after?" Garrus timidly asked.

"Hopefully we will have figured something out by then. I will allow him to live in uncertainty for now. Besides, it saves me telling him the entire thing again." Virox answered, then once again turned to Shepard, his expression turning a bit more solemn, but still relatively pleasant. "Thank you again, Shepard. I'll try to collect my thoughts as quickly as possible. You should not see any more problems from me."

"Duly noted." Shepard said, before taking her leave. She watched as the still cautious Garrus slowly moved back into the Main Battery, trying his best to not to glance at Virox too conspicuously.

Just another day and another crisis averted.

Hourglass Nebula, Sowilo System

Hagalaz, Shadow Broker's ship

0348 Local Time, July 8th, 2185 Gregorian Calendar

Things were not going completely to Shadow Broker's plan.

When the news emerged that a rebellion sprung up within the Carvin Empire, on the surface it looked like a grand success. Carvins moved in quickly to purge their departments and gut the ranks of the Ravashir - the greatest obstacle to his efforts of establishing even a small network of informants and contacts within the borders of this newly discovered civilization. Despite colossal collateral damage they tended to cause within their own territory, he was forced to admit that their work was seriously impeding his efforts.

From what little data he could acquire, Shadow Broker knew there were rogue elements within the organization, and the moment there was any rumor of a potential rebellion, he ordered his agents and contacts to fan the fires of the schism as hard as they could without being discovered. News outlets, journalists, politicians, prominent businessmen, every contact he could call upon was subtly utilized to push a hawkish and confrontational narrative towards the Carvin Empire. They needed to feel threatened by the galactic community, so that the splinter group would gain as many followers as possible and bring about a massive internal crisis that he could exploit.

At least that was his plan originally. However, the moment he received reports that, despite fighting his efforts on the surface, carvins were actually working in parallel with his agents, he realized that something strange was going on. Shadow Broker probably correctly guessed that the carvin government wanted to integrate more deeply with the wider galaxy, in spite of the xenophobia still present within its borders. Only when he received reports of alleged troop movements into fighting positions around the suspected hot spots of rebel activity did he realize that the High Generals of the Carvin Empire actually wanted this rebellion to take place, and after seeing the aftermath he could understand why.

Since the very beginning they sought to polarize both the rebels and loyalists so strongly that once the uprising began, the majority of the population would rally behind the government in crushing the dissenters. It happened exactly so, even despite the fact that Shadow Broker ordered a quiet discontinuation of the campaign, believing it to play into the carvin hands, which it did in the end. In one fell swoop they purged the most dangerous opposition to their continued integration, won the hearts and minds of the people, and discouraged other more moderate critics from voicing their concerns over their government's policy too loudly.

A major weakness of his approach was caused by a misunderstanding of the cultural and historical nuances of the Carvin Empire. To some extent they could be modeled on the Turian Hierarchy, but one needed only to compare Taetrus and the Ravashir rebellion to see that there were many substantial differences between the two races. Whereas the former incident only just recently started to die down, after months of fighting, the latter - an Empire-wide phenomenon at that - was crushed in less than two weeks, with much more brutal and ruthless methods being employed to pacify the affected areas.

It also seems that he had underestimated just how deep the trauma from the most recent civil war, the Varsaai Insurrection, was. The prevalence of its use as a justification for the harsh reprisals against the rebels, even within civilian circles, was evidence enough that the carvin people had no intention of being plunged into an interplanetary fratricidal conflict.

However, despite complications on this particular front, this wasn't the biggest of Shadow Broker's worries. Even though the culling of the Ravashir has already opened a multitude of opportunities to establish a more robust information gathering network within the Carvin Empire, the carvins themselves became even more aggressive in their pursuit to hunt down his agents. Despite them not realizing that he was operating from the recently conquered Hourglass Nebula, right under their noses, he was not about to get complacent, even if the carvins couldn't seem to find his base of operations.

The 'Null Group', now led by the sole survivor of Tazzik's clean-up on Tortuga, were the most notorious of all units that were given orders to dismantle his network. Their recent appearances on Garvug, Korlus, and even in his own ruined outpost on Alingon, in pursuit of even the slightest trails leading to his agents, started a two-way game of whack-a-mole. Whenever the always vigilant carvin intelligence services caught wind of someone being connected to Shadow Broker or his agents, they would send the Null Group to investigate and eliminate the target. This in turn led the Broker to try and improve all operational security procedures, especially those that, if dismantled or exploited, could lead to his high profile agents and operatives being exposed.

But probably the biggest and most pressing problem was a small, yet extremely dangerous data leak. It included several sensitive files, among which were details regarding some of the recent purchases he was forced to make. Part of them were made in response to the increasing encroachment of the carvins against his operatives, others were of a more general nature. The specifics were irrelevant, what was important was the fact that there was a significant probability that the data was intercepted by Cerberus.

Shadow Broker did not view the organization by itself as a significant threat. One of its more recent recruits however, and his long lost merchandise no less, did give him a reason to be concerned. Partially because Commander Shepard was well known to be relentless, defying the odds so heavily stacked against her on numerous occasions, but partially due to her connections to Liara T'Soni.

The asari had never forgiven him for the capture of Agent Feron, and while she remained ignorant of his true fate, her actions were increasingly becoming a nuisance. Few individuals were as determined and skilled at the same time to pursue him for this long and to so much success. The recent loss of the Observer on Illium only added to the issues, and the Broker was finding himself increasingly out of soft power solutions.

What he had to prevent at all cost was cooperation between T'Soni and the carvins, because both had something that the other lacked - the latter possessed a budget and resources to scout and investigate his activities on a massive scale, while the latter had the knowledge and the skill to navigate the criminal underworld. An organized cooperation between them would be a disaster, but as of this moment they were mostly oblivious to the possibilities of that option.

And it would be preferable if things stayed that way.

A/N: A little tease here at the end. We're going back to Irill next chapters which will then lead into Lair of the Shadow Broker arc. We'll also explore his team more, hopefully give them some more personality rather than just being bland numbers with little to no identity. As for the rewrite of the first few chapters, chapter 1 is in a place that I find acceptable and I'm partly through finishing chapter 2. Should have it done within a week. Again, thanks for the support. Cheers!