I'm not as happy with this one as I was with the Grunt and Jack ones- but it'll do.
If you'd like to read the others they are here :)
s/11041948/1/The-thing-about-Grunt
s/11049326/1/Explaining-Jack
I had a pretty clear read on Zaeed Madsani right from the start. Our first port of call on the SR2 was Omega. I would have rather headed straight to the Citadel to see Anderson, but we were already in the Terminus Systems and Miranda was causing trouble, so we docked there first. Good thing too; Archangel wouldn't have lasted long enough for us to get to the Citadel and back. But anyway, I was talking about Zaeed wasn't I?
About 30 seconds after I and my Cerberus guard dogs left the ship, we ran straight into Massani— kicking seven shades of shit out of a Batarian he'd been hired to find. Zaeed was quite obviously not one to be fucked around. Mercenary, bounty hunter, everything between and maybe beyond. In truth, I didn't want to know. I didn't want to face the reality of my new 'allies'. The ice queen and the Cerberus puppy were enough to worry about, without the added grief of Zaeed's, no doubt questionable, history. He was clearly a tough son of a bitch and he'd fight with us— that had to do.
Of course it turned out that he wanted something in return. Big surprise. Everyone always bloody does. But he didn't bullshit about it, to his credit. He told me straight up what he wanted and never pretended he was with us out of nobility. You've got to respect that level of blunt sincerity.
Zaeed's... aha, 'request', was that we hunt down an old friend of his— a Blue Suns Commander named Vido Santiago. Taking down mercs was nothing new— but Zaeed got this look when he talked about Santiago... He only had one good eye, but there was enough hate in it for two and spare. Some time later, we tracked the target to a refinery on Zorya in the Ismar Frontier. Zaeed was on edge; he was normally pretty calm— I mean, angry yeah, but he always had his shit together, y'know? But not that day. So I pushed for details and boy, did I get them.
Santiago and Massani— now there's a name for a double act... heh, 'S&M'... Nevermind. Anyway, the two of them were the founding members of The Blue Suns, way back when. Way, waay, back when. Never figured out quite how old the craggy bastard was… Where was I? Oh yeah. So Vido got sick of sharing control and decided to take care of his partner. He had six goons hold Zaeed down so he could shoot him in the head at point blank range.
And Zaeed survived.
Survived a fucking bullet to the fucking head.
Who does that? Mad bastard.
He said "rage is a hell of an anaesthetic"... Which is true I guess. But damn.
Zaeed then went on to prove that rage is also one hell of an incendiary— he set the whole damn refinery on fire. And that meant there were a dozen or so trapped workers to worry about as well as Zaeed's revenge—lust. He made it very clear, in various colourful ways, that his only concern was Vido. He was happy to let the workers burn— wouldn't have bothered him at all. But I knew I couldn't do that. Thane backed me up and that didn't leave Massani much choice but to wait; he couldn't have taken Vido alone. He was not happy about it though.
Saving the workers took just that little bit too long. We watched Vido escape— Zaeed was screaming after him, firing into the air... I saw him do a lot of crazy shit, but I never saw him like that again— and I'm glad.
And then he turned on me, roaring about me having cost him his revenge. He was fucking furious... Fortunately for me, a beam conveniently collapsed and pinned him to the ground— well, a girl's gotta catch a break sooner or later.
Zaeed was angry, but so was I— and I'm reliably informed that my anger is a sight to behold.
After the shit he'd just pulled, I could have happily left him there to burn. Poetic justice... And I told him as much. I had no use for someone who couldn't work in a team, who'd put their needs before the mission. He could shape up and get the fuck in line to work for something bigger than his own ego, or he could burn in his own flames.
Zaeed picked the first option.
Smart guy.
After that, we got on just fine. Maybe if I'd threatened to kill him right at the start there wouldn't have been a problem.
Once we got past that mess, it was easier to get to know him; he had some incredible stories... Unfortunately he'd tell them over and over again, and a lot of them were about his favourite rifle. He hung out in the cargo hold with Grunt, they had one of those weird guy friendships based on nods and grunts. He got on well with Jack too; swapping stories, comparing ink, drinking... trying to outdo each other at being surly brooding badasses…. There was almost a messed up father/daughter vibe by the end; I mean, in a terrifying sort of way that you absolutely could not comment on if you valued your limbs.
I didn't push for details of his plans for after the SR2. He just said he had some things to sort out before the galaxy really went to hell. I don't think I'd like to feature on that to do list.