Star Trek: Starbase 777

A skeletal excuse for a small village; half-standing houses rotting, fragile foundations breaking and bending under the harsh wind, especially where they were elevated off the ground. The bodies here had long since been stripped of their flesh, leaving bones of all shapes and sizes behind.

"Ugh—" Ekhesai made a move to cover her nose against the smell. The frigid cold did a little bit to help, but.. ew.

This…was a truly awful sight to be met with. Maxson’s expression deepened heavily, a sad grimace coming across it as he looked over the ruins, “…good Lord…”

Four's expression was as cold as the weather. They just recognized the bodies and moved on. Keeping their focus on their surroundings for any machinery or screens. Their phaser held tightly as they navigated the surrounding areas.

A sight he had seen before. Saren took a brief moment to squeeze his eyes shut and take a deep breath through his covered nose and mouth, waiting for the memory to pass by. After that, he kept tailing the group.

One hadn't been that fazed by the one corpse they'd found earlier... It wasn't the first dead body they'd ever seen, and it wouldn't be the last. But this, this was a lot... There was an unpleasant feeling making itself a home inside of them, and it had been growing and growing more steadily the longer this entire ordeal went on. They wanted to go home.

3

"Tactical officers, maintain moving permitter." Vara'l ordered simply as he moved closer to the ruins, currently unaffected visibly. Not that he wasn't unaffected, he'd just elected to cork the proverbial bottle. After all, this wasn't the first scene of devastation he'd encountered and he'd developed a probably unhealthy ability to keep such things like biological responses to data concealed. He'd just continued to keep his phaser raised and scanned his surroundings with his eyes and with his tricorder as he pulled it back out of its holster and started a scan. He continued to scan as he walked and navigated the surroundings, on the lookout for anything that might have provided more information.

Swallowing back some bad memories of his own, Maxson pulled out his tricorder to start tracing the power surge further. His eyes grazed over the scenery they were surrounded by. No doubt the result of Azrael… “Izoro,” He muttered, giving the older woman a glance, “What happened here?”

"It happened." she answered quietly, mournfully, keeping her eyes down. Not looking at the ruins. She couldn't. (edited)

Right. Sai squeezed her phaser in both hands, sweeping the area. "It looks like we're all clear, I think.. Where are we going, anyway? Is there some sort of entrance around here?"

Yeah. That’s about the answer he expected from her. He grimaced once again, before returning his attention to the tricorder, “The computer had mentioned doors…” Maybe some cellar doors, or a bunker entrance of some kind.

Unbothered by the ruins, Verza took off into one of the houses. "Where did she leave it?" he mumbled to himself. "There was.. it's not- ugh!" He was rummaging through about everything he could, searching for... something.

H'isll followed close behind. "You don't think it got its hands on it?"

"No, it couldn't have. She took the screens down, it couldn't see.."

"We need to keep a eye out, just in case..that changes during our search." The ACTO responded simply before he added. "Given whats been stated, we could look in the buildings, might be one of them was involved with..it given that 'it happened'." He moved to say something more before Verza dashed off. "Where's he going.." He started off in that direction as he continued to scan with his tricorder and keep his phaser raised. Ready. "What is it you're searching for?" He inquired once he was close enough to where the duo had dashed off to to be hopefully overheard. "We've got tricorders, we can assist in your search with scans."

Four looked over to Vara'l and nodded. "Acknowledged, Lieutenant Commander." Four kept the moving perimeter as they kept their phaser raised. They looked over to the Cadet. "We must operate under the assumption we are never clear...it may have means of interaction we cannot identify." Four then went back to holding the perimeter.

"Alliyah, she made something. Something we could... we could try to compress AZRAEL into. Like a giant hard drive. We need to weaken it enough to get it to work, but.. It's what it was originally uploaded onto. I just hope it still fits.." Another house, maybe?

Ekhesai bristled. Of course she knew that. It was only hammered into her head a thousand times by her professors. She was graduating next year, after all.

"Do you have this hard drive somewhere? Or is it still part of the computer?" Crucial information, alright? Khanwi wanted to engineering-ally pummel Azrael.

"We can help with your search." He looked back to the others. "We're looking for a storage Device made by Alliyah, it could be useful in neutralizing AZ." He called to anyone outside the house then as he scanned the house and looked for any sign this 'hard drive' happened to be present.

"We hid it, it's around here somewhere. Like... A giant box shaped thing with a screen on it." He moved his arms to approximate the size and shape.

"And the creation has not taken this hard drive and disposed of it?" Seemed like it was as a god on this planet, what would have prevented it from destroying it?

Four looked over to Vara'l. "A machine was recovered with the deceased female after we beamed down. Perhaps that was the device?"

"That was a communication device, and it was not "recovered", it was smashed to pieces." Non-engineers...

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2

"It's because of how much damage we have to do to fit it into there." Verza grimaced. "We wouldn't be able to. Not without your...fancy future tech. I remember how bulky the old phasers were..." Sigh. "I just hope it's still intact."

"Lotsa devices going on around here." she mused, poking around for the box-shaped thingy.

"This is truly extraordinary."

Four nods Khanwi. "Understood, we will note this. We are unfamiliar with most federation technology. We have not had much exposure to it outside of this posting." Four then continue to hold the perimeter. Keeping their phaser up but pulling out a tri-corder. Attempting to get some readings to help in the search while holding their perimeter.

Well- it would be difficult to get readings if the device isn't actually plugged in, which it isn't. However. It was very easy to see the trail the energy left behind, all leading to one house in the heart of the ruins.

Khanwi had worked with Federation tech even before coming to the Federation, on account of being in weapons development for a decent chunk of his career. It wasn't really a Federation thing, more of a "general knowledge of devices" thing, but he wasn't going to point it out. He wouldn't trust a non-engineer with engineering jobs, anyway, there wasn't a point. "If we find it, I can aid in bullying the robot's consciousness into it."

"How are we gonna do that, then?" Ekhesai addressed the engineers. She didn't know a lot about computers, and it seemed not many others present did either. Tactical was more of a blow up the problem division most of the time, so she admired them for their knowledge of machines.

"While I can't say to be overly familiar with early 2300s technology, I'm a systems engineer. It is my job to understand how systems work, how they interact, and then streamline it, or fix it when it breaks. And to know how to fix things, you must first know how to break them." It sounded nonsensical, maybe, but in engineering, there was nothing more true; the first think Khanwi had learned at the Academy had been how to take machines and parts and wires apart, until you could put them back together seamlessly.

1

On that, Maxson and Khanwi could agree. He wasn’t the best of engineering students back in his academy days. In any case, the officer could certainly help where he was needed, “We’re certainly about to break things…”

"Yeah, but only like, a little bit of breaking!" It was presumably sentient. And then, it may or may not count as murder. Which. She did not want! (edited)

Khanwi did not care about murder.

4

Kya stood there on guard with her phaser, she knew it wouldn’t do much against a robot god thing, but she’d rather go out on her terms then get shocked to death. Given this was an engineering discussion, she felt she didn’t need to butt in.

For a moment, Vara'l idly wished one of the El-Aurians were around. They'd potentially have known what could be looked for with the 'mark one eyeball.' Weird human phrase that. "I was...rather hoping to find something that looked somewhat like the materials utilized in devices, though I realize that's not the best thing for me to attempt." Vara'l commented. "As well, I don't really know what materials were utilized at that point in time for such things." He continued to look around and scan. "Though saying that, I am detecting some sort of trail that looks to be heading toward a house further into the ruins." This wasn't a shoot something or other form of tactical related issue. As such he'd then angled his tricorder so the engineering types could get a look at his tricorders readout. (edited)

"If only Lieutenant Sykes didn't stay on the bridge..." he sighed. He had full faith in Khanwi, he knew exactly what he was doing, but it was like a "two heads > one" situation, you know? And cyber-nonsense was like exactly both of their fields. Oh well. "I'll help as best I can."

“I’m certain the two of you can manage just fine without the lieutenant…” Maxson idly commented. Five was definitely gonna be a lot more help to Khanwi than he was gonna be. At the very least, he could lift whatever they needed moving. (edited)

"Oh! I have no doubt about that! I don't think we'll struggle without her, just would've appreciated a helping hand on the coding side of things..." Eeek. He hoped his words weren't taken wrong.

1

H'isll poked his head out of one of the nearby houses. "Got it," he said, holding a metal box with plenty of wires. Must've had a cover on it, because it didn't look tooooo dusty.

"There we have it, then," He nodded toward H'isll. There we have it, the box. The box for Azrael. The box designed specifically to kill Azrael. That box.

2

"This way, then?" Ekhesai gestured to the house the energy trail was pointing to.

“Onwards and upwards,” He replied to the cadet. His phaser still clutched tightly in his hand, the officer marched his way to the house. Follow the bread crumbs.

"Wait, wait—" Five reached out to stop the eager Cadet. "We should finalize a strategy. Figure out what we're going to do before we rushing in."

"Aye, I agree with Five there." He attempted to scan the house indicated with his tricorder then. "A strategy and any further Intel on the building we can get would be beneficial to have before making entry." He agreed as he'd then moved to try and intercept the Lieutenant Commander before he walked into something that might be a trap. (edited)

Big pulse of energy underneath. Nothing more of note.

Four kept their position and wondered about the house. If it led down towards the complex there could be a variety of Hazards. Azrael's presence most likely also being more concentrated. Causing more issues with communication, traversal, etc. Four wondered about the potential for injury. It seemed rather probable. Hopefully they would come out with minimal wounds and scars. Only time would tell. Four began prioritizing who to protect. Needing the structure in this time of little input or order.

"Its a computer able to detect and identify life signs before doing mean stuff to them... probably good to start with how to get in without being detected first." Maya suggested as she fiddled through her tricorder in search for what could serve as some hint at a weakness. A specific frequency that could be disrupted, pathways to other vital systems nodes that could be accessed or hacked... something to throw at the screens if they annoy her again. "A hundred or so years isn't that far back, and every system, regardless of how godlike it is, has its weaknesses and backdoors after all."

1

Vital system nodes could definitely be poked into, potentially. 100 years of tech development meant 100 years of cybersecurity updates, which AZRAEL would Not have access to, thanks to its own isolation. Not to mention its physical wires and such were likely vulnerable..

Kya hummed as she looked at Maya. “Good work Umali.”

"I was just going to suggest cutting physical wires connecting it to other parts of the planet. If it's contained to one location, surely it can do less harm. At the very least, we should get some ability to communicate with Eventide back." Sometimes the simplest solution was the most practical. They had energy weapons here, those could be made to cut if necessary. Would all of Azrael's focus be on their location then? Sure! But wasn't it already? All living people on the planet were going to be in the literal same room together, working on defeating an evil supercomputer that proudly, vainly, invited them in there.

1

"...Time to send an Angel to Hell." Maya coldly said in a gruff voice before she coughed and cleared her throat. The cold temperature isn't helping. *"Sorry, this place is giving me a cold. Anyway. Seems like Azrael hasn't recived... his? Her??? Their??? Their security updates in quite a while. We could shut off their viewing access to whatever path we take, and probably annoy them by giving them false things to deal with." *Maya proposed as she scanned for a suitable candidate node to start playing with. "Judging by that first encounter, they can only actively dedicate resources towards one thing at a time." She shrugged before turning towards Khanwi. "That could work as well, but we don't really know where those parts lead to, so we have to figure that out first... plus Az might find out and start cyberbullying us again the moment they detect one has been cut if we jump straight to cutting."

"The only reason we haven't been able to get rid of him is because we have no way to get to him. The trap door, it's welded shut, and he took all our tools... All his vitals are crammed down in there." K'uvon gestured to the house. "If we want to do anything to mess with him, it'll have to be in the belly of the beast."

"Oh Azrael's a he. That's cool." Maya said, actually mildly surprised. *"If that's so, we still have our tools. We could try breaking in... I kinda also wanna assume his knowledge is a century out of date as well, so that's also a good thing to probably know. I think." *Maya suggested as she pulled out her phaser and a plasma torch.

"I was counting on it!" Khanwi exclaimed excitedly. "Phasers will cut through the welding, and Azrael said it would allow us inside. After that, we work together on defeating it; some, by cutting off its heads-" he motioned to those with phasers... it'd be enough "-and we will find its heart and cut it out," he finished, motioning for himself, Maya, and Five. He supposed Izoro could help too, if she wanted, but he wasn't counting on the mother of the beast to be particularly ruthless about it.

She hummed as she played with her phaser lightly, like a trained gunslinger. “Tactical analysis would be helpful if you could have it. Does he have internal defences of any kind? Also, if we destroy the heart and the machine. Does it explode?”

Biting the urge to go "it's an it, actually, K'uvon just keep humanizing the damn thing", Izoro just sat quietly. This was what had to be done. It'd be fine.. "Explode? No, no, it would just shut down. As for internal defenses, I don't know."

"I can't imagine it'd wanna have all its traps and stuff on display, yeah." Ekhesai frowned. "I'm not super fond of the idea of getting blown up."

She turned to Izoro. “Before we go in: why did you make this thing? Were you commissioned? Or was it a personal project? Where did you get all the resources.”

"Legally, I'm not allowed to discuss the details of the project. And especially not without a lawyer." She smiled meekly. "Sorry. Later."

Her nostrils flare, yes that would be later. “Your lawyer likely died of old age, but yes, later.”

"I don't think anyone who would have cared at all is still alive," One pointed out, though quietly. They'd made enough unhelpful comments for the time being.

"Aw... no explosions... that make Maya sad." Maya quietly said to herself, though it was a relief to know nothing catastrophic would happen if they blasted the thing. "A lot of people managed to live up to their 100s, so maybe there would be some." Maya added, unhelpfully, as she prepared to blast the trap door open. *"So just to be sure: We blast the door open; go in; find a computer node we can pry through so we find out any weakspots and annoy..." *Maya paused a bit since she took note of Izoro's expression when she called Azrael a 'he'. "It...; and while its blind and distracted, we destroy the thing and shove it into a hard drive?" (edited)

"I'm going to be in enough trouble as is when we're off this planet. If you don't mind, I'll keep at least some of my secrets if they're not directly relevant to the mission at hand." And that was final. "Let's get this over with, shall we."

“Yes yes, let’s get it over with.” If there was a level of trust meter for Kya, Izoro had swiftly fallen a few places. Still, it wasn’t too big of a problem. “And yes Maya, no explosion. Which given we have no way to beam out at current, is a good thing.”

"Well, don't destroy it, it is sentient and that counts as murder. Just like. Rough it up a little. As if your phaser is set to stun." Ekhesai popped in, just in case the reminder was needed.

"Okay... how about we chuck it in a box, bring it with us, send it to a happy little place known as the Daystrom Institute, where it can live happily and run freely from within a different box and make friends with other the evil, sentient super computers" Maya playfully suggested to Sai, and the rest of the group to some extent. She was half serious about it. "Sorry if that sounded mean... that stuff actually happens quite a lot... we should probably do that though."

“Bringing it to Daystrom is a massive risk which I’m against, but it is not my call.” She said with a breath. “Damn chill.”

"It's going in the storage device." H'isll held up said device. It was so heavy. Christ.

The joke did make Ekhesai giggle. Oh boy, the thought of AZRAEL playing with the other evil robots was funny.

Four held the perimeter and waited until Tac would be needed either to breach and push forward. Four wasn't sure what to do with the AI, but that wasn't their place. They were to do the objective set before them. No more, no less.

"Right. Would anyone like to do the honors of melting the seal off the trapdoor?" Five poked at it with his foot. "We'll have to wait a few minutes for it to cool down. Don't want any molten metal burns today."

As someone who'd worked on classified projects and also hot metal, he was completely unbothered by literally everything going on. In fact, he just motioned to H'isll, silently offering to take over carrying the device if necessary.

"That's literally their job though. They're evil robotic computer jail, and have a whole facility dedicated to it. It's pretty cool actually, I think you'll like to see it, Cadet." Maya said with a warm smile, at least she took the joke nicely. As for whoever should do the honors of cutting the trap door, Maya looked over to Khanwi and gestured to him to do the honors. "Care to make the first cut against the beast?"

"You'd be better off destroying it," H'isll said quietly, still holding the device. Rather stubbornly, in fact. "It — the things it's done, the things it's capable of, it doesn't... It doesn't deserve to live."

"They can't. You know that. It's no use trying." As much as Izoro wished they could smash it to bits..

"Oh, yeah, I'd like to see it. It'd be cool, maybe? Is that weird? That I think it'd be cool?" Ekhesai did not want to linger on the morality of murdering a giant robot torture machine.

She was somewhat on the fence about what she thought about Azrael. The existence that it was leading currently seemed miserable to her as it was and she had not yet been able to think up a reasonable alternative that would improve it. Therefore if it had to die, or well cease existing, in order for the people here not to end up like the corpses in this village or permanently trapped in this hellscape she could not with good conscious claim that she would think it a bad outcome, so she said nothing and quietly followed the others. "Terrible things can be fascinating Cadet, that is perfectly normal."

Kya looked to H’isll, at least someone was speaking sense. “If it were possible, I would agree.” She nodded to Izoro pointing out they cannot kill it.

Well, his loss (h'isll-oss, lol), Khanwi was equally stubborn and wouldn't offer again. Suffer.

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3

"I'm just saying. Chucking the computer and making it the Daystrom people's problem is standard procedure. Like how making things someone else's problem is the solution to 75% of our problems... and I don't think that many people would make much of a fuss if we reported that we accidentally destroyed the thing." Maya laid out plainly. "so are we cutting, or should I do the door cutting?"

"Oh, sorry, you were talking to me. I can do it, if everybody stands back, and someone hands me a phaser." It wouldn't do to hurt any of their officers before the AI got the chance to.

"Here you go!" Phaser!

"If any of you accidentally mishandle the thing, it's no different than killing a suspect to a crime, and it will be treated as such." Five was very firm on this. "Don't do anything stupid. Do you all understand?"

The commander punctuated Five’s statement with a stern look. He’s security, after all, “Standard procedure.”

"No." Maya impulsivly said, before she quickly realized that most of the Senior Staff are literally RIGHT THERE. "I-I mean, Yes!" (edited)

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3

"Understood Lieutenant." Four said before raising their phaser in order to cover Khanwi. Wanting to make sure in case anything was waiting on the other side.

“Yes, let’s give the 113 year old murder robot raised on war to Daystrom, shall we invite Gul Dukat for tea as well?” She said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Apologies, cold is getting to me.” She said honestly. “Standard procedure.” (edited)

1

Here's to hoping that there wouldn't be robot tentacles, or massive antiproton cannons, or something like that waitinf for them. Maran raised his phaser up to high alert position, pointing it at the doorway. Hopefully this AI hadn't gotten into their weapons too.

"Cold will not be an excuse for manslaughter, Commander." Don't. Be. Stupid. Please. Five sighed. "I know it's a difficult moral issue. We will be following procedure. That is final."

"You all hold a lot of mistrust for the professionals who are specifically trained to deal with this problem," Khanwi said cheerfully, absolutely content to deal with Azrael however as long as it wasn't his problem anymore, as he turned up the phaser and started blasting through the door.

"That "yes" better be genuine," he commented idly, with a small, icy smile - which in Romulan body language definitely didn't mean Anything Good. "One standard procedure for Starfleet, without the criminal charges. Please proceed."

"Procedure. This thing deserves to die," Verza not-so-quietly grumbled under his breath, twisting the ends of his robes. H'isll huffed in agreement. Whatever.. Starfleet knew what they were doing, his feelings on the matter aside.

"The Daystrom Self-Aware Megalomaniacal Computer Storage Department would be very pleased if we let them do their jobs of putting them through Theraputic Robo Rehab Basketball." Maya said to Kya with a straight face, that sentence didn't sound ridiculous at all. "I hate the cold. lets just do the thing."

“Understood.” Kya said simply, even if she agreed more with H’isll and Verza. This thing couldn’t be rehabilitated.

Consider the welding ✨melted✨. Open sesame!

Four kept their guard and phaser up as they looked through the opening. Their golden eyes bored down through the hole. Holding the position so others could enter safely.

"Perhaps we should be keeping our thoughts to ourselves, and focus on our prime objective which should be getting off this planet without casualties. We can not afford getting into a disagreement." She raised an eyebrow and nodded to the now open entrance.

Well, if no one else would go first... "Down the hatch!" Wheeee!

“Cadet!” She said before going in after them, the cadet leading was a poor choice.

"Cadet, no!" Maran hurried after them. Wow, okay. This was really going faster than he'd expected, huh?

Shit, “Heard, Commander,” He quickly responded to Evoras as he went after Ekhesai, and by extension Kya. Did he trust Sai a bit more than Kya in this situation? Yes. Of course.