Mass Effect: Humanity First

(Choice BA) Help Partner

Hallard leapt into the fray of gunfire and threw himself over his partner, tossing them both down on the ground.

“Hallard, what the hell are you doing?!”

“I’m saving your ass!”

 The Cerberus operatives motioned to their feet when suddenly they lost control of their own bodies. Hallard couldn’t move his arms, his hands, his legs, or even his fingers. Cavanaugh had the same problem. A blue aura lit their outline. It didn’t take long for them to piece it together.

“Shit,” cursed Cavanaugh.

The aura lifted them both into the air, then tossed them against the metal wall of the research station. It hurt. The operatives grunted as their heads hit the wall.

Towards them approached two asari, both identical in look. They each held their hands in the air, keeping their telekinetic hold on the operatives.

“We’ve got you now,” said one of them.

“Nice job, Cell,” said the other. “Now what do we do with them?”

“What we have to.”

She drew her weapon at Hallard. Despite how much he struggled to break himself free from her hold, he couldn’t. He could only budge an inch. Not more.

“Now you know how it feels.”

“Mina, stop.”

Behind the two asari with guns were five others, unarmed. One stood before the rest.

“Mina, we don’t have to kill them. Just take their ship and leave. That was the plan, right?”

Mina had a different thought.

“After everything they’ve done to us, you want to let these Cerberus freaks live?”

Hallard spoke, “I have nothing to do with what’s going on here. I know this might be hard to believe, but this place is as new to me as it is to you.”

Mina produced a mocking chuckle.

“You’re right. It is hard to believe.”

“But it’s the truth. I don’t want any part of this. No one has to get hurt. If you want our ship like your friend says, then you can have it. You can take it, and you can use it to take you wherever you want. After everything you’ve been through, I figure you deserve it.”

Cavanaugh objected, “What the hell are you…”

“Shut up, Cavanaugh. Let me do the talking.”

“I don’t think any of you will be doing the talking for much longer. Sweet words, Cerberus. But it’s easy to play nice when you’ve got a gun pointed at your face. But no matter what you say, you’d treat us all the same. The girl we sent outside to keep watch hasn’t reported in. I bet you already killed her.”

Hallard tinged with regret.

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention.”

“Monsters. Every last one of you. You all deserve to die.”

Mina inched her finger on the rifle’s trigger when suddenly, a bright flash of light erupted, shaking everyone off balance. With the asari’s attention sapped, the biotic barrier vanished, and both Hallard and Cavanaugh could finally move again.

As Hallard tried to keep up with what had just happened, he saw Cavanaugh tossing away a spent flashbang grenade. He retrieved his pistol, and in the heat of the moment he shot the two armed asari in vital organs that led to their immediate deaths.  

“Wait! We don’t want any more shooting!”

An asari from the opposite end of the room called out, hiding under cover. It was the same one who’d tried to get the other two not to shoot them. The peaceful one.

“Please, stop firing.”

But from the way he was waving his gun, it was quite obvious that Cavanaugh had no intention of stopping. Hallard immediately rose to his feet.

Cavanaugh and Hallard counted five remaining asari, two armed with assault rifles that they’d obviously never held before in their entire lives. It sagged in their hands like dead weight. These asari weren’t combat trained. They could barely hold a weapon. The other two that Cavanaugh had shot were lying dead behind. They must have been the ones that fired. They must have been the ones that planned the ambush.

Hallard considered to himself that if Cavanaugh hadn’t killed them, then the remaining asari wouldn’t have surrendered so easily. Now, without a leader, they were directionless, with no move to make.

“We surrender,” spoke the one asari for the rest of her group. “We just want to get out of here.”

That had been their plan. To take Hallard’s craft and leave the planet. A clever idea, but it wasn’t going to happen now.

Or was it?

The one thing that Hallard was certain of was that she didn’t deserve what Cerberus had done to her, or the rest of the people they’d kidnapped. It wasn’t right.

But that was where the facts ended, and everything else became a grey area.

Was he going to take innocent lives in the name of protecting Cerberus’ secrets, its research, and its mission? The advancement of human biotics would undoubtedly prove invaluable in securing humanity’s future. But was it worth the lives of innocents?

No. Free them all (Choice BAA)

Yes. Kill them all (Choice BAB)