Editorial Note: This personnel report was written shortly after his recruitment drive on Omega, and examines Shepard's thoughts on Zaeed Massani in general and one mission in particular.

Personnel Report—Zaeed Massani

Zaeed's a living example of why that ol' chestnut "don't judge a book by its cover" is still relevant. There was more to him than your run-of-the-mill, brutally efficient bounty hunter.

Kelly was one of the first people to notice that, and made a point of mentioning it while telling me that I'd received new e-mail.

"By the way, I bumped into Zaeed recently," she said.

Must have been real recent, given that we'd just recruited him and Mordin. "And?" I prompted.

"Quite the character. Given how much violence and destruction that man's seen, he's surprisingly well-adjusted. Still... I wouldn't want to be alone with him."

Apparently the feeling was mutual, because he did a real good job of hiding himself. That's quite the feat, given how thoroughly I scour every nook and cranny for crew to harass. It was near the end of my daily rounds that I found him. He'd set up shop in the Starboard Cargo Area, which was something of a misnomer since most of our cargo was either in the Port Cargo Area or the Hangar. The only things worth noting in the Starboard Cargo Area—before Zaeed moved in—was a video surveillance monitor and a trash compactor. I couldn't tell you why that room had that peculiar combination of items. No one else on the Normandy could either. (1)

Anyways, back to Zaeed. He was quite willing to "wax goddamn nostalgic" about past bounties, old missions, or the stories behind the various knick-knacks that he'd scattered around the room. He kept his stories short, telling them in a soft voice with a slight rasp. Like the time when he and a buddy got lured into a trap and he almost got choked to death by a hanar. Or the delights of a batarian prison.

He got particularly choked up about this old assault rifle of his. "Hey, don't touch," he said when I moved to pick it up. "That rifle's older than you are. I call her Jessie."

"Jessie?" I echoed.

"Yeah. That's my lucky charm. More men have been killed with that gun than died during the Skyllian Blitz."

Given that I unwillingly got a front-row seat to the Blitz, that's saying something.

"The day I laid her to rest was the saddest day of my life," he muttered despondently. "I'd give up every weapon I own for one more mission with that shitty old rifle." (2)

Yeah, Zaeed had a lot of war stories to tell. But there was one tale that he kept to himself. Naturally I learned about it when we went to Zorya.

Zorya's a nice place, I guess. Lots of sun, warm tropical climate, and lush vegetation as far as the eye can see. Of course, you have to be careful not to choke to death on all the fungal spores. Or get shot by Blue Suns. The mercs apparently ran enough security contracts on Zorya to own a freakin' monopoly on the 'industry,' if you can call it that. Not to mention that they had politicians and judges were in their pocket, plus recruitment and training camps on every colony.

So Zaeed just had to accept a contract to liberate some refinery from the Blue Suns on a planet that aforementioned mercs basically owned.

Zaeed immediately pulled out his assault rifle when the shuttle dropped us off. The rest of us followed suit. We'd only gone a couple paces when he paused and started fiddling with his omni-tool. "Tapping into Blue Suns communications," he explained. "Stay tight, and watch for ambushes."

We kept our eyes peeled while he fumbled around. After a minute, he cracked their encryption codes. Just in time for us to hear the following: "—mmand to Squad Bravo—a shuttle landed near your location. Check it out."

"So much for the element of surprise," Garrus said dryly.

"Keep close," Zaeed warned again.

Miranda was paying more attention to what was up ahead. "Is that what I think it is?"

If she was thinking of a trio of bodies sprawled on the ground, then the answer was yes.

Zaeed bent down and quickly assessed the bodies with an efficiency that could only come from lots of practise. "Shot in the back and left to rot," he spat. "That's definitely Vido's style. Let's push ahead."

It took me a moment to dredge up the name. Vido Santiago, head honcho of the Blue Suns. Apparently he'd taken a personal interest in taking over one of Eldfell-Ashland's refineries. Naturally the company wasn't too pleased with that, and hired Zaeed to correct matters.

While I was taking a stroll down memory lane, we were walking down a well-trodden path that meandered around granite boulders, gnarled tree roots and more leaves than I cared to count. I came back to reality after stumbling over one particularly tricky root, barely catching myself in time. That'd be real heroic—thwarted by a stupid piece of fauna.

The Blue Suns we heard earlier spoke again over the comm frequency Zaeed hacked into. "Command to Bravo. Take a position. Likely these people are not runaways."

I think everyone tightened their grips on their weapons at that point. As far as missions go, this wasn't going so well. First they detected our shuttle. Then they figured out that we weren't a bunch of civvies who were trying to play hooky. Now they suspected that we could cause some trouble and were lying in wait for us. It was hard to imagine how things could get any worse.

Then we rounded the corner and entered a clearing. One with a bunch of large crates scattered in strategically placed positions, a catwalk protruding out from a rock face on the far end—supported by a stack of criss-crossing girders—and a lot of Blue Suns mercs.

"Report to base! Armed intruders incoming at the southern checkpoint!"

Aw, crap. You'd think that I would have learned to stop tempting Fate by now.

I led the squad to the nearest bit of cover, where I promptly discovered two things. One, it was only big enough to shelter half of us. Two, Garrus had been taking point, so his squad got there first. That meant Miranda, Zaeed and I had to find cover behind a tall pillar, about ten metres closer to all the bad guys who were enthusiastically trying to kill us.

Swell.

One of the Blue Suns ran out, his shields disabled and his hardsuit heavily damaged. I absently set him on fire without a second thought, pulled out my sniper rifle and started scanning for targets. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Miranda point off in the distance and Zaeed nodding. A second later, she dropped an EMP, which Zaeed quickly followed up with a concussive round. The shocked cry, followed by an indecipherable gurgle, told me we wouldn't have to deal with that guy any time soon.

I spared a moment to glance behind us. Garrus seemed to have things under control. From what I could tell, he and Kasumi were taking turns in knocking out enemy shields, leaving them open for Mordin to set them on fire or Jacob levitating them up in the air. That made it much easier for them to riddle the mercs with holes.

Well, it would've if my team wasn't so greedy and kept beating them to the punch.

I leaned out to see if there were any other mercs, only to hastily duck back as a rocket whistled past my face. Looking up, I saw a Blue Suns toting a rocket launcher. I kept an eye on her over the next minute, getting a feel for her firing patterns. She seemed to like firing rockets off in pairs, then waiting a moment to gauge the impact of her shots. I waited until she sent off another volley, then cloaked, popped up and steadied myself. One squeeze of the trigger, and she went down.

"Scoped and dropped," Garrus crowed.

Everyone seemed to have relaxed. Everyone except Zaeed, that is.

"This ain't right," he muttered. "There should've been more of them stationed here. If not, then they must have a way of getting reinforcements here in a jiffy."

Made sense. "Everyone stay where they are," I ordered over the comm. "I'm going to go scout around, make sure nobody's coming."

I'd just stepped out from my little hidey-hole when we intercepted another communications from the Blue Suns. "Reinforcements incoming," a woman said. "We got your backs!"

"Scratch that," I grunted, crouching back down and peering around. My HUD said there were bad guys en route, but I couldn't see them. Team Two didn't have that problem, because I saw an EMP blow out some merc shields in a storm of sparks.

It was as if someone had turned the light on. Now that I knew where to focus, I could glimpse a couple Blue Suns troopers hiding behind some crates in the distance. I waited until one of them moved a bit more to the left before incinerating his ass with a nice little ball of plasma.

I still couldn't see anything from my vantage point, so I moved to another location. Ducking a rocket from yet another Blue Suns heavy support guy, I saw a Blue Suns slowly creeping towards us. No doubt he was trying to avoid attracting any attention. Or spill the contents of his flamethrower prematurely. Without saying a word, I sent an order for Kasumi to overload the flamethrower containment systems. The poor sap didn't even have a chance to cry out in shock before his flamethrower exploded in a nice cheery fireball.

"Enemies in front!" Miranda warned suddenly.

Good thing, too. One of those FENRIS mechs was trotting around, trying to get the jump on us. Miranda, Zaeed and I leaned out and unleashed a full volley at it. Didn't quite kill the mechanical mutt, but it bought us enough time for Zaeed to load another concussive round and finish it off.

"We're getting torn to shreds out here!" someone yelled.

That guy was onto something, I had to admit. Even if he didn't live long enough to reap the benefits of his observation. By this point, most of the Blue Suns were dead. There was just that one lone heavy support guy—or gal—keeping us pinned down with rocket fire.

Well, most of us. I sneaked around to her flank, cloaked and charged. A couple quick punches and a single shot from my pistol, and it was all over.

After consulting my HUD to make sure we were clear, I started my typical round of scrounging. It didn't take too long, since I'd automatically noted the goodies that the Blue Suns had carelessly left behind while running around like the proverbial headless chicken. As I scooped up a PDA containing a nice supply of creds and a med-kit, I absent-mindedly noted some Blue Suns frantically yelling at all the other squads to fall back.

Without anything else to find, I led the squad out of the clearing and down a walkway that ran alongside a cliff. It looked like the refinery was on the other side. Thankfully, there was a retractable bridge nearby, complete with an accompanying set of controls. It didn't take long for me to figure out how it worked and start extending the bridge.

As it noisily started rumbling out, we heard someone snapping orders over the Blue Suns frequency Zaeed had tapped. Sounded like one of the guys we'd heard over the comm earlier. "This is Commander Santiago," he identified himself. "If any of you retreat while the intruders are still alive, I'll kill you myself."

Nice guy.

Zaeed motioned for me to stop the controls so we could hear more clearly, and I complied. Not that it mattered—as it turned out, Vido didn't have much more to say other than "Now get the hell back out there."

"Vido," Zaeed growled. "Sounds like he hasn't changed."

"Why do I get the feeling you know this Vido?" I asked.

"I knew he was a sadistic bastard back when we started the Blue Suns," he admitted.

"Wait a sec," I held up a hand, wondering if I had misheard things. "You and Vido founded the Blue Suns?"

"And the Suns only got meaner after he staged his little coup twenty years ago," he confirmed. "Guess you could say we have a past."

"I didn't know that," I said. "About you and the Blue Suns. Why didn't anyone ever mention it?"

"Because it's not common knowledge. Vido wiped me out of the records," Zaeed spat in frustration. "He ran the books, I led the men. Worked real well for a while. Then Vido decided to start hiring batarians. Cheaper labour, he said. Goddamn terrorists, I said."

"And you've been looking to get back for twenty years," I asked without thinking. "Isn't that a bit long to hold a grudge?"

Zaeed's eyes widened and his entire body seemed to tremble.

Oops.

"A grudge?" he blazed. "Vido turned my men against me." He emphasized his point by stabbing a finger into my chest. "He paid six of them to restrain me while he put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger! For twenty years, I've seen that bastard every time I closed my eyes. Every time I sighted down on a target. Every time I heard a gunshot. Don't you call that a goddamned 'grudge.'"

Some people would be apologetic about offending him. Some people would be worried that he'd take out his anger on them.

Because my curiosity outweighed my etiquette or common sense, I just asked him "You survived a gunshot to the head?"

Zaeed didn't seem to see why that was so surprising. "Yeah. And you survived your ship getting disintegrated. A stubborn enough person can survive just about anything."

Fair enough.

"Rage is a hell of an anaesthetic," he concluded.

"We'd better get moving," I said after a while, hitting the bridge controls again. Zaeed nodded silently.

As the bridge finished extending, Vido spammed the comm frequencies again: "They're at the southern access. All squads mass at the gatehouse! Now!"

"They know we're here," Zaeed said softly before raising his voice. "Bring it on, you son of a bitch!" he yelled out to the jungle.

The path to the gatehouse was quite tranquil, going up and curving back and forth and all amongst all the jungle fauna. Not that I could appreciate it, as I was keeping my eyes out for any nasty predators or mercs or loot—oh! Free palladium? Don't mind if I do.

As cautious as we were, we still got to the gatehouse in good time. No one was there to greet us. Guess the party was inside.

"Garrus, lead Team Two past the gatehouse, around to the other side of the refinery," I ordered. "See if there's another way in. If there is, we'll wait until you're ready, then we'll hit them from both sides."

"Understood," he said crisply. Jacob, Kasumi and Mordin fell in line behind him as they jogged off.

Alone now, Miranda, Zaeed and I settled in to wait. A minute passed. Two. Three—

"That's it," Zaeed said abruptly.

Before we knew it, he was marching off to the gatehouse doors. "Zaeed," I whispered. "Get back here!"

He ignored me.

"Zaeed!"

I glanced at Miranda, barely stifling a curse in time. She shook her silently and tilted her head towards Zaeed. Motioning for her to follow me, I jogged towards Zaeed, activating the comm in the process. "Garrus, you read me?"

"Loud and clear."

I double-checked to see that we were on a private frequency before spilling the beans. No sense having everyone else get the whole story just yet and eroding squad cohesion even more. "Zaeed's decided that we're heading in now. Have your team hit the refinery whenever you find another access point."

"Understood."

Miranda and I caught up to Zaeed just as he was entering the gatehouse. Basically a glorified set of walls with a ceiling, a ton of pipes snaking everywhere and a catwalk full of Blue Suns.

One of them stood in the centre, arms crossed. He scowled down on us, his dusky features full of contempt. "Zaeed Massani," he smirked. "You finally tracked me down."

"Vido," Zaeed growled, his finger tightening on his assault rifle.

"Don't be stupid, Zaeed. I have a whole company of bloodthirsty bastards behind me, ready to kill or be killed on my command."

As Vido went about boasting, I noticed Zaeed's eyes shift to the left. Too quick for me to track what he had spotted. All I could see, without drawing too much attention, was a bunch of pipes and an open side door in the gatehouse.

At some point, Vido apparently changed his mind. "Actually, take your shot," he said, a confident grin slowly spreading over his swarthy face. "Give my men a reason to put you down like the mad dog you are. Again."

Zaeed complied, running off to the left while firing up at the catwalk, and missing all the mercs in the process. I frowned thoughtfully. It wasn't surprising that Zaeed missed while firing on the run. Firing a weapon isn't as easy as it looks, even when standing still. However, Zaeed seemed to have gripped his rifle to compensate for any loss in accuracy. So why did he miss?

"What was that?" Vido laughed. "Gone nearsighted, old friend?"

I took a closer look. Zaeed's shots hadn't accomplished anything beyond punching a couple holes in the pipes behind the mercs...

Aw, crap. He didn't miss.

Zaeed offered a cold grin to his former colleague. "Burn, you son of a bitch," he hissed before firing a short round.

His shots ricocheted off the pipes, bringing up a bunch of sparks. Only one of them was needed to ignite the gas escaping from the pipes. The whole gatehouse shook as a torrent of flame gushed out from the pipes, knocking Vido and the mercs off their feet.

Miranda and I hastily took cover behind a set of crates. I glared at Zaeed, who just looked at us with that damn grin on his face.

Vido clambered back to his feet, his face twisted with fury. "You just signed your death warrant, Massani!" he said bleakly. With that, he ran off, leaving the other mercs to open fire. Miranda and I ducked, making room for Zaeed to join us.

Instead, he remained standing, out in the open. Reversing his grip on the assault rifle, he started banging on a valve with the butt. "What the hell are you doing?" I yelled.

Zaeed ignored me and all the gunfire rattling about, intent on whacking the heck out of the valve. It abruptly turned after the next whack, and we could all hear a loud hiss as more gas started gushing through the pipes. A second later, a series of explosions rang out, one by one. The mercs were flung over the catwalk, crying helplessly. The sounds they made when they hit the pavement below were completely masked by the roar of distant flames, the percussion of explosions and the shaking and trembling that were now going on constantly.

"Opening the gate," Zaeed said, answering my earlier question.

There was no denying that it worked, but he'd just made things a hell of a lot more complicated. I marched up to him angrily. "We're here to free these people," I said. "Why the hell would you blow up the refinery?"

"What? You deaf now, Shepard?" the bounty hunter snorted. "We needed a way in. Now we got one."

"You could have waited for Garrus and the others," I pointed out.

"While they could wander around in the jungle for hours?" he scoffed. "You want to waste time out here, go ahead. I'm going to kill Vido."

My fist clenched. This guy was gonna get me killed. Again. Of all the stupid, short-sighted, idiotic...

Zaeed saw what I was doing. "You really want to do this, Shepard?" he warned.

"I ought to beat the crap out of you," I told him. "But thanks to you, we have a burning refinery to save."

"Let these people burn!" Zaeed cried out. "Vido dies, whatever the cost!"

With my luck, that cost would be another two years and four billion credits.

The three of us made our way through the gatehouse, scooping up some palladium in the process. We bumped into a pair of Blue Suns—turians, by the look of it—but they didn't present much of a problem. Once we were out, we followed the walkway towards the refinery, which snaked around a particularly thick section of piping. I glanced back behind me to make sure Miranda and Zaeed were keeping up...

...and almost fell as a section of the walkway collapsed, just to my left. I righted myself just in time and kept going, keeping my eyes peeled. For once, I didn't find any more trouble. Just some more palladium. Lucky me.

We were about to enter the refinery when someone called out behind us. Looking back and up, we saw a man stumble out from the side of the refinery onto a catwalk above us.

"Help!" he yelled hoarsely. "We're trapped! We can't get to the gas valves to shut them off. The whole place is gonna blow!" He flinched as another explosion sent a plate of metal clanging down to the catwalk beside him.

"No time," Zaeed said. "Vido's probably halfway to the shuttle docks by now."

Zaeed was right in that Vido had a head start and knew the terrain. If we were ever gonna catch up to him, we had to start now. Still, I had to ask him "You're willing to watch these people die?"

"Damn right I am," he scowled. "We stop to help these people, and Vido gets away. And if he does, I'm blaming you," he warned softly.

"Garrus," I stalled, contacting him on the comm. "The Blue Suns leader, Vido Santiago, is on the run. Probably heading to the shuttle docks. You see anything like that?"

"Shepard," Garrus called out over a hail of gunfire. "Can't see anything except mercs firing at us. We'll try to make our way over there, but it won't be easy."

"Understood," I replied.

"Well?" Zaeed raised an eyebrow. "What's it gonna be?"

It would be really bad for my rep to leave all these workers to cook. Besides, the more time I spent rescuing them, the less likely I'd be to run into mercs. That's what I told myself, anyways.

Miranda probably would be fine with either decision. Zaeed, however, would need a little more convincing. So I reached out to Zaeed, grabbed the collar of his hardsuit and pulled him towards me. "We're here to free these people," I told him. "We're going in. Understood?"

Zaeed brushed an imaginary piece of soot off his hardsuit. "I knew this was a mistake," he shook his head. "Fine. If we're gonna do this, we'd better get to it."

After consulting my hardsuit scans of the area, I vaulted over the railing to another catwalk below us. It headed away from the refinery and down some stairs before taking a right towards a locked side entrance. I made a move for the door panel, only to get knocked to the side as some piece of equipment to my left exploded. Recovering my equilibrium, I tried again. This time, I made it to the door, bypassed the lock and got us inside.

The interior of the refinery was stark and industrial, with metal grating for floors and masses of pipes lining the walls. We headed for a nearby set of stairs, dodging a control panel that exploded into flame. Looking around, the only way to go was through a door at the top of the stairs.

So that's where we went. Another explosion right in front of us punctuated just how close this place was to blowing sky-high. Still, we were making good progress so far

Then we opened the door.

Yet another explosion blew out, sending a billowing wave of flame in our direction. Hastily, the three of us ducked back. Waving away the smoke, I could see a gust of fire billowing in front of the entrance, with a wall of smoke beyond it. Holding my breath, I braced an arm in front of my face and charged through.

When I lowered my arm, I saw we were in another room full of large pipes. The only difference was this one was on fire. All those flames were the only source of illumination in the damn place—guess all those explosions had knocked out the lights.

"There," Miranda said over the flames, pointing with her finger.

Following her lead, I found one of the fuel valves, next to a set of stairs that went up and over a particularly large pipe. As I moved to turn it off, Zaeed went by me. I studied the controls long enough to figure out how to turn it off, did so and followed Zaeed before his quest for vengeance led him too far.

Surprisingly, he hadn't gone too far. He was behind a stack of crates, turning off another fuel valve. While I was waiting for him, I climbed over another pipe and scouted around for the next fuel valve. I couldn't find it from my vantage point, but I did find the next best thing.

Miranda and Zaeed caught up with me as I was prying it loose.

"Seriously?" Miranda asked.

Zaeed was a little more verbose: "First you waste my time rescuing these refinery workers. Then you waste my time grabbing some goddamn salvage?"

With a grunt, I finally pulled the generator pipe free. "Don't knock it," I protested. "According to these readings, this baby's worth 6000 credits." (3)

"Whatever," Zaeed said abruptly. "Can we get a move-on already?"

"Fine," I replied, consulting my scanners. Looked like there was one more fuel valve, which we could access by climbing yet another flight of stairs. Seriously, it was like someone let the pipes run rampant and then decided to install ways to get around as an afterthought.

"Upstairs! The fire extinguisher controls are upstairs!"

Looking around, I saw a bunch of workers frantically waving at me from a window about two floors up. "Why are you still here?" I called out.

"The doors won't open until the fire's out," one of them yelled back.

Right. They were trapped and couldn't get out. How did I forget that?

I blame the explosions.

Adjusting my scanners, I quickly IDed the last fuel valves and ran to shut it off, ignoring another refinery worker who'd convinced himself that they were all going to die. Now that the valves were off, all we had to do was activate the fire extinguishers. Naturally, that meant we had to go up and down and up more sets of stairs, with explosions and smoke all around us.

It turned out that the fire extinguisher controls were at the top level of this snake pit of pipes. All we had to do was jog across the floor and enter the control room—

A shudder ran through the building, almost knocking us to our knees, as yet another explosion rang out. This time, it dropped a flaming pipe right in front of us, cutting off our intended route. Thankfully, there was a catwalk that ran along the wall, which neatly detoured around this obstacle.

Once we got to the other side, I was about to make a bee-line for the control room when I spotted a small stack of palladium from the corner of my eye. Naturally I had to go pick it up first. Then, once we entered the control room, I spotted a heavy weapons upgrade. Naturally I had to pick that up, too. Finally, we made it to the controls and activated the fire extinguishers.

We heard a gushing sound as water and fire retardants poured from overhead sprinklers onto the fires below. The fires sizzled and steamed in defiance, making me a bit worried that all our efforts were for naught. In the end, however, the fires dwindled and died away.

Leaving the room, we could see the refinery workers below, stumbling out from a room coughing and choking. One by one, they headed for a door, presumably towards fresh air and freedom.

"Great," Zaeed said sarcastically. "Look at us playing big goddamn heroes. Can we go kill Vido now?"

"Sure," I shrugged nonchalantly.

"Ooh, what's that?"

It had been a couple minutes since we'd resumed our search for Vido. So far, all we had to show for our efforts was another stack of palladium. No Vido. No mechs. No Blue Suns.

Well, not unless you count the guy whose chest got crushed by a falling pipe.

What caught my eye was the weapon he'd dropped. Looked like some kind of flamethrower. I picked it up and pulled the trigger. A spray of flame gushed out from the nozzle, extending about a couple metres in front of me. Could make for a nasty short-range weapon. Personally, I'd prefer something that could reach out a little farther.

Since all the weapon slots on my hardsuit were already taken, I jury-rigged a sling to carry it along. Not the most secure thing, but it felt like it would hold the potentially volatile weapon. It was then that I detected two more hostiles in the adjoining room.

From the look of things, the room had two entrances. Silently, I motioned for Miranda and Zaeed to move ahead and enter through the far entrance. I'd tackle the other one. I waited for them to get into position before giving the signal.

In unison, we burst into the room. As soon as we confirmed they were hostiles, we opened fire. The suckers never stood a chance.

I spared a moment to scour the room for goodies, and came up with some servos and power cells for my trouble. Zaeed spent the time scowling at me, tapping his fingers against the barrel of his assault rifle. Miranda busied herself poking through a datapad one of the mercs had dropped.

"Found anything?" I asked.

"The shuttle bay," Miranda confirmed. "There's a gunship there, fuelled and ready for lift-off."

"Where?" Zaeed asked impatiently.

"Over there," she replied, pointing to a door at the far end of the room, "through the refinery core."

"Well what are we waiting for?" Zaeed demanded. "A bloody invitation?"

"Nah," I grinned. "I'm more of a party-crasher myself."

On the count of three, we burst into the refinery core. As one might imagine, there were lots of pipes snaking around the place. This time, though, there weren't too many stairs in the way, mostly because there were several spots that were devoid of pipes—namely the centre of the room and the various entrances to the core.

Miranda, Zaeed and I found cover behind one of the pipes, which came up to our waist. We all knew that the Blue Suns were liable to come charging in any moment.

They did not disappoint.

As the first wave of mercs streamed in, Vido's voice rang out over some hidden loudspeakers. "First person to bring me Massani's head gets something special in their pay check!"

"Miranda, overload their shields whenever you can," I ordered. "Zaeed and I will cover you. Then you can join us in taking down some mercs."

"Right," she said crisply. She paused a moment, and then another, before firing off an EMP. She'd timed it perfectly—no less than three Blue Suns got their shields zapped when the pulse detonated. I promptly sent a fireball their way to keep them occupied, and then the three of us took them down while they were slapping the fires out.

I wish I could say that was it. Unfortunately, it was just the beginning. Six more Blue Suns had charged in while we were occupied, with more coming right behind them.

"Hey, Zaeed. I took your Blue Suns," Vido taunted. "I took your life. And now I'm taking it again."

Zaeed gritted his teeth, but the only thing he did was take out a merc's shields with clinical precision. Then he fiddled with his assault rifle, squinted through the scope and fired off a high-yield concussive round that exploded the guy's head like a melon. Well, a melon covered by a helmet. Not to be outdone, I took a couple headshots of my own with my sniper rifle.

"Let that loser die, Shepard," Vido urged. "You can walk outta here alive."

I guess while he was letting his minions do his fighting for him, he'd made use of his free time to look me up. I responded by sending a bolt of flame towards a Blue Suns who was trying to sneak up on us with a flamethrower. Watching the guy go up in flames as the fuel pack on his back exploded, I made a mental note to drop my own flamethrower off in the armoury as soon as possible.

Vido tried speaking to Zaeed again. "You never should've come here, Zaeed. Did you forget who you were dealing with?"

"Just you wait until I get my hands on you," Zaeed yelled back. "I wanna see if you can survive a bullet to the head!"

I wasn't sure whether his retort was aimed at him or at the merc who'd scored a couple hits on him. Judging by the way they ricocheted off his helmet, I figured that his shields had been drained. "Zaeed," I called out. "Get down! You won't be able to catch Vido if his guys kill you first."

Zaeed glared at me, but grudgingly ducked behind the pipes. A rumble ran beneath our feet. At first I thought it was another explosion. Then I saw a stream of fire pouring down.

Looking up, I saw a fuel tank hanging from a conveyor belt or something on the ceiling, running back and forth along the length of the core. Something inside must've been jarred loose and ignited, as it was spraying its contents down. And it was heading our way.

Aw, crap.

I quickly sighted down on it and fired off a few shots. Then another. And another. Finally, it came tumbling down, exploding as it hit the floor. The Blue Suns who were trying to get close automatically flinched back. By the time they'd recovered, we were already filling them full of holes.

"That other fuel tank's coming loose!" Zaeed yelled at me. "Shoot it! Bring it down on top of 'em!"

Whirling around, I saw the fuel tank Zaeed was talking about, running on a parallel course to the tank I'd just taken out. I aimed my pistol and fired off the rest of the clip. This time, I managed to drop it right on top on one of the Blue Suns.

Spying another Blue Sun that was hiding behind a pipe, I grabbed my sniper rifle and took her out. Then I frowned. Something had caught my eye while I was centering my aim. Ignoring the firefight going on around me, I took another peek.

And my blood chilled. It was a YMIR heavy mech. Powered down and on the other end of the refinery core, thankfully, but we'd have to deal with it before we could get to Vido. I passed on the information to Miranda and Zaeed. Thankfully, they were professional enough to continue tag-teaming the remaining Blue Suns with only a muffled curse to signify that they'd heard me.

I launched a ball of plasma to light up another Blue Sun. The guy went up in flames, ran around for a second and then dropped to the ground...

...while the YMIR I'd spotted earlier stood up, turned around and started to clank our way.

One more time, everybody: Aw. Crap.

Making sure the disruptor mod was active on my sniper rifle, I cloaked, sighted on the mech's head and fired. Then I ducked, waited for my cloak to recover and fired again. I managed to squeeze off two more shots before the mech got close enough for my hardsuit scanners to assess its defences. I'd only whittled its shields down to half-strength. And it still had an intact set of armour plating to punch through before we could start damaging its innards.

The YMIR mech aimed in my direction, paused, and launched a rocket my way. I ducked behind the pipe and prayed for two things: that the pipe was sturdy and thick enough to withstand a rocket, and that nothing volatile was flowing through it right now.

For once, my prayers were answered. While the pipes took the brunt of the blast, Miranda launched an EMP at the mech, taking a sizeable dent out of its shields. Zaeed stuck with his assault rifle, sending a steady stream of bullets at its head.

The YMIR mech paused again, as if cogitating on who was the greater threat. Apparently Zaeed won out, as the YMIR started marching towards him. I pointed my sniper rifle at it, then cursed as I realized that a large floor-to-ceiling tank was blocking my line-of-sight.

By the time I moved to a better position, I was pleased to see that its shields were barely holding together. Then I saw Miranda moving to fire off another EMP.

"Miranda, hold off on the pulse," I called out. "Let Zaeed take out its shields, then start warping its armour."

Miranda glanced at me, nodded and lowered her arm. Instead, her fingers started twitching, going through the motions that she'd linked to generating biotic fields through countless hours of practise. For my part, I readied another burst of plasma from my omni-tool. We just had to hold out a little longer...

...and with a flash of sparks, the YMIR's shields collapsed. A second later, twin explosions of biotic energy and superheated plasma detonated against its armour. The YMIR actually staggered back a step before recovering. It lifted its arm, the one with the mass accelerator cannons and fired at Miranda. The bullets moved with such velocity, it sounded like one long, dull roar.

Her shields blinked out in a flash under the onslaught. Frantically, she dove for cover behind a curving section of pipes. Not knowing what else to do, I fired another shot from my sniper rifle, and then checked my omni-tool. Yep, enough time had passed to charge up another plasma round, which I promptly launched at the heavy mech.

The YMIR turned in my direction and aimed its rocket launcher at me. I quickly ran to the side, placing the tank that had blocked my aim earlier between us. I heard a dim roar, which I presumed came from the rocket detonating harmlessly against my chosen piece of cover.

I took a peek just in time to see Miranda surround the mech in another halo of biotics. Its armour split wide open with a loud crack. Encouraged, the three of us opened fire with everything we had at our disposal. We were almost there!

To my surprise, the YMIR came under more fire from another position. Glancing over, I was delighted to see Garrus and his fire-team taking cover behind a set of pipes in the distance. With that much firepower coming from so many angles, the YMIR didn't know where to aim first.

Time ran out for the mech before it could make a decision. After several minutes of onslaught, it dropped to its knees, slumped over and exploded. I reminded myself not to slump in relief. Bad for my rep to reveal that I was worried, right?

Instead, I scanned the room for any other threats, synthetic or otherwise. Seeing that we were clear, I stood up, motioning for Miranda and Zaeed to follow. The squad joined up again in the centre of the room.

"Good timing," I greeted Garrus.

"Well, we could have held back a little longer, I suppose," he replied. "More dramatic that way."

"Very funny," I said sourly.

"Yeah, yeah, good to see you," Zaeed interrupted. "You ready to do some more killing, Shepard?"

"Vido?" I asked.

"Vido," Zaeed confirmed grimly.

We double-timed it to the shuttle bay, hoping we could get there in time.

Alas, by the time we got there, the gunship Miranda had discovered earlier was in the midst of taking off. The gunship's doors were closing as we stormed out of the building.

"Not this time, Zaeed, you son of a bitch," Vido spat over the gunship's speakers. "See you in another twenty years!"

With that, the gunship took off, knocking us back several steps with its thruster exhaust. As I recovered my footing, Zaeed ran past me.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" he howled, firing helplessly after the rapidly retreating gunship. (4) He almost depleted a full clip before his weapon jammed. As I watched the gunship vanish, Zaeed bent over. A stream of curses flew out of his mouth as he started slamming the barrel of his assault rifle with his hand. After three or four whacks, a slug fell out, glowing with all the heat generated from the recent round of weapons fire.

Zaeed stood up and looked at me. His eyes narrowed.

Uh oh.

Zaeed whirled towards me, assault rifle at the ready. I pulled out my pistol on reflex, bringing the two of us into a nice little stand-off.

"You just cost me twenty years of my life!" he roared.

"Yeah," I said slowly, stalling for time while I could think of something to say. "About that..."

I broke off when I heard a hissing sound. It sounded like it was coming...

...beneath us?

Zaeed and I looked down simultaneously, just in time to see the stream of fuel that Zaeed's slug had landed in light up. A flash of flames raced back towards a nearby fuel tank built into the wall, which immediately exploded.

The explosion knocked everyone on their ass. Rolling on my back, I saw a long pillar of metal pop out of the tank like a rocket, arc through the air, and land right on Zaeed.

"Gah! Son of a bitch!" he cursed.

"Zaeed!" I said, getting to my feet. "You all right?"

"What the hell do you care?" he sneered. "I'm fine. Now come on. Get me out of this shithole."

I walked over to him and knelt beside him. Zaeed waited for me to lift the pillar off of him. Too bad. He'd have to wait for a couple minutes while we had a long overdue chat. "You put your revenge ahead of the mission," I told him bluntly. And almost got me—and everyone else—killed, I silently added. "How can I trust that you'll be there when we need you?"

"I'll do what I was goddamn paid to do, Shepard," he spat. "Just don't expect any more than that." He glanced back at the flames from the latest explosion. They were starting to get a bit too close for comfort. "Now stop screwing around! Let's go!"

I stood up and crossed my arms. "We could have helped you if you'd levelled with us," I told him. "We could have saved the workers and takenVido down. Instead, we had to run in without any semblance of a plan, we almost got ourselves killed, the refinery's going up in smoke and Vido got away. Why? Because you put your own goals ahead of the mission. That's not the way this works," I concluded.

Zaeed suddenly found the floor very interesting. "I've survived this long watching my own back," Zaeed said after a moment. "No time to worry about anyone else's."

He looked up to see me point a pistol at his face. Must've been like déjà vu for him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the others tense up. No one stepped in to intervene, though. This was between me and Zaeed.

"You're part of a team now, Zaeed," I said. "There's no way we can do this unless we're all working together. Unless we're all watching each other's backs and keeping an eye on everyone else. We'll bump into him again and when we do, we'll take him down. Together. Until then, we need you to help finish our mission."

To emphasize my point, I reversed my grip on the pistol. And then I waited for him to respond.

"You... you have a point," he said at last. "I'm not done with Vido, but I can put that behind me long enough to get your mission done."

"Good," I said, offering the pistol to him. "Now why don't you take your pistol back while I lift this thing off of you?"

Zaeed looked up at me in confusion, then down at the empty holster that used to hold his pistol. He gave a brief chuckle, then took the proffered weapon from me.

While we were waiting for our shuttle to arrive and pick us up, we found another route back into the refinery core—one that wasn't on fire yet. Before the heat and the smoke drove us out, we managed to recover a few pieces of equipment that I could sell for credits, plus a nice handful of thermal clips.

Eventually the shuttle arrived. As we boarded one by one, Zaeed stared out in the direction of Vido's gunship. He stood there for a minute before shaking his head. "Let's get the hell out of here," he growled.

He didn't say a single word for the duration of the trip back, staring at the floor moodily. It wasn't until we were three minutes from the Normandy that he stirred. "This reminds me of a mission I did a while back," he said.

"Uh huh?" I prompted.

"Cops on Ilium hired me and bunch of other guys to retrieve some money launderer. He was all bunkered up in a safe house, protected by more mechs and mercs than you'd find in a colony garrison. So my group attacked them with two shuttles: one that held all of us, the other rigged with explosives. We steered the other shuttle on a collision run with the safe house, let it crash and burn, then landed ourselves while everyone was runnin' around shitting their pants."

"And then you strolled in, scooped up the criminal and returned him to the cops," Garrus guessed.

"That was the plan," Zaeed said. "Everything was goin' just fine until we docked at the local precinct and tried to get out. Goddamn shuttle door was jammed. So my group, plus the bounty, spent the next five hours stuck in the shuttle like sardines in a friggin' can, until the cops managed to cut through the hull and free us."

"Nice story," Jacob replied politely.

"Yeah." With the timing that only a skilled storyteller could possess, Zaeed waited until the shuttle landed inside the hangar bay before adding "That Gardner sure made a nice three-bean casserole didn't he?"

I kinda lost track of Zaeed after that, caught up with the rest of the squad in the mad rush to get out of the shuttle. Rather than chase after him, I left him to his own devices for a few hours. There were other things to do, like research that heavy weapon upgrade I'd found or harass everyone else. Didn't get a chance to drop by and see him until the next day.

"Credit for your thoughts, Zaeed?" I greeted him.

"Just thinking 'bout Zorya," he replied. "Hell of a mission down there."

"You could say that," I agreed.

"Can't believe Vido got away," he spat. "Twenty years of tracking, gone, just like that." Then he shook his head. "But I gotta let that go."

"You sure you can do that?" I asked.

"You were right," Zaeed admitted. "I had my shot and I screwed it up. No one else to blame. There'll be other chances to take that bastard down. Until then, we have more important things to do."

I hoped so. I didn't really want to spend the rest of this mission with someone who might put a bullet in my back because he was seriously pissed at me. But it looked like our last conversation had struck home. If nothing else, he was ready to focus on completing his contract with TIMmy. That was good enough for me.

We chatted for a few minutes about random things like the Blood Pack helmet he had sitting next to him before I got up to make a nuisance of myself in Engineering. As I turned to leave, the hack I inserted into the ship's internal comm systems activated—right on time. I left the Starboard Cargo Area with a smile on my face as the song rang out over the loudspeakers:

"Living easy, living free,
Season ticket on a one-way ride.
Asking nothing, leave me be,
Taking everything in my stride.

"Don't need reason, don't need rhyme,
Ain't nothing I'd rather do.
Going down, party time,
My friends are gonna be there too, yeah.

"I'm on the highway to hell,
on the highway to hell..." (5)

(1): Shepard doesn't mention it, but he later ordered the surveillance feeds to that monitor disabled.

(2): I am reminded of something Shepard's mother said about how Shepard kept the telescopic sight from his very first sniper rifle as a way to literally and symbolically see where he came from, where he was and where he was going.

(3): The price Shepard quoted was correct, but only because it was used. The replacement part that the refinery ordered to replace it cost almost 10 000 credits.

(4): Forensic investigations recovered another Blue Sun mercenary several hundred metres from the refinery. Judging by the impact velocity and the weapons rounds, it probably came from Zaeed Massani's weapon, which meant that he came remarkably close to taking out his nemesis. Vido Santiago was likely shaken by how closely his former partner came to killing him, which explains why he put out a substantial bounty for Zaeed's head shortly after.

(5): "Highway to Hell," released by the human hard rock group AC/DC in 1979. It occurs to me that "Epiphany" from the musical Sweeney Todd might be more appropriate, but I'm sure Shepard didn't want to give Zaeed any more encouragement.