The Battle of Lazzaro: The Ground Campaign (Part 2)

Posted on Thu Aug 28th, 2025 @ 2:15am by Captain Patricia Cooke & I-402 & I-400 & Boso Gane & Oko Gane & Commander Katrina Chance & Lieutenant Akira Kogami & Lieutenant Sara'draphia T'eseri & Gunnery Sergeant Roy Erbun
Edited on on Thu Aug 28th, 2025 @ 2:16am

1,204 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Impending Midnight
Location: Planetoid Lazzaro
Timeline: After Part 1

Previously, on Star Trek: Missouri:

"Ironic:" I-400 chuckled. "The galaxy wants me to save it, but they suddenly want to resist me doing it? Makes me wonder if this galaxy actually wants to be saved..."

Suddenly, a previously unseen structure burst from the ground, splitting open like a flower and slamming down, cracking the memorial as it did so.

"You're not the only one stalling for time..."

And now, the continuation:

[Elsewhere]

I-400 drones began bursting from the ground, coming up through storm drains and wherever led underground. Their sudden appearance threw a previously orderly evacuation into chaos as the drones began to open fire on anything that moved.

Boso and Oko, who had separated from the rest of the team to help with the evacuation, suddenly found themselves in the middle of a battle, as Romulans, Klingons, and Breen alike suddenly found themselves face to face with the enemy.

The twins had found themselves on a bridge as I-400 drones clambered over the sides and onto the deck of the bridge and began shooting the fleeing civilians.

"Get off the bridge!" Boso yelled as he moved to block shots from the I-400 drones, which he successfully did, urging the civilians to run until he was knocked off balance by a blast from a drone.

The squad of marines, Erbun on point, ran against the throng and toward Boso and Oko. Their weapons aimed high, barrels swinging to stay clear of the fleeing civilians, the Marines opened fire to cover the escape. Making a rapid advance, one of the Privates was face-to-face with a drone that clambered onto the bridge. The young Private tried to bring his weapon to bear, but the drone smacked the barrel away and shot the young leatherneck at point blank range.

Erbun watched on with horror, only able to raise his weapon and destroy the drone that had killed his man. With the multinational attack force already providing some suppressive fire against the attacking drones, Erbun got on coms. "Marksman teams, get clear of these civilians and setup alongside the attacking forces. Start picking off the drones. Beta team, find a way to get onto the other side of the bridge; lets lead these civilians to safety another way." The Gunny pushed past the throng, he and his team taking any clean shot they could as they got back to the twins, "Boso, Oko, I strongly suggest you pick a direction."

"This way!" Oko declared as she grabbed her injured brother. It wasn't ideal, but they needed to regroup if they had any chance of forming a counteroffensive.

Of course, Oko's objective first and foremost was to get her brother out of harm's way, and within the blink of an eye, Boso and Oko were gone, a passing breeze was the only indicator of where they might have gone.

---

[Tal Shiar Memorial]

"This is how you end:" I-400 told the away team as she looked up to spot the cubes arriving right on time. "This is peace in my time:"

Looking up at the cubes, Sara was confused for a moment before returning to I-400, “peace? You call this peace? You automatons are all the same, no matter the maker, no matter the enemy. You all think you know better than us ‘lowly organic beings’. Intelligence dose not equal wisdom”

"Why, thank you:" I-400 said sarcastically. "I'll take that as a compliment."

“Then you’re a fool. You’d wipe out all organic life on this world for what? Your ego?” Sara said, hoping to get a feel for his personality programming.

"You're one to talk, doctor:" I-400 responded. "Every second you stand here antagonizing me, I am gleefully killing everything that moves on this rock. How are you going to explain to your captain that you let innocent people die on your watch?"

While I-400 was happily chatting away, Katrina knew she had a prime opportunity. Carefully, she pulled out a phaser she had reconfigured before transporting. While phasers were great sources of destructive energy, they also had other users. Phasers could be set to heat objects, reconfigured to produce waves of less destructive energy, or... reconfigured to act as a powerful source of heat and light. It was this Kat had programmed her phaser for. She knew I-400 would likely be prepared for any kind of destructive they could throw at it. But a disruptive, blinding one?

With little fanfare, Kat raised her phaser, quickly lined it up with I-400's eyes, and fired a beam of light that was as bright as Earth's sun directly at the artificial construct's eyes. She was betting even I-400 would not be able to compensate for that much light.

"I was figuring you'd try something that stupid:" Came I-400's voice from closer to the memorial wall as the body that was just shot crumbled to the ground. "So, I came prepared:"

A newer, leaner I-400 emerged from the shadow of the memorial wall. Gone was the signature pink hair, replaced with a more ordinary-looking black hair, and the pale skin appeared to be better pigmented.

Before any of the away team could ask what was going on, I-402 decided now was the time: The away team wasn't going anywhere, so this would have to be in front of them:

"I-400!" I-402 called out.

I-400 looked in the direction of the voice and saw the incomplete body she had been working on before Izumi stole it from under her:

"I-402..." I-400 muttered. "They really did take everything from me:"

"You set the terms:" I-402 said. "You can still change them."

"Gladly!" I-400 lunged at I-402.

Anticipating the move, I-402 grabbed I-400's arms and shoved them aside, allowing I-402 to quickly grab ahold of I-400's cranium, where I-402 began the process of purging I-400's presence from the LCARS network and all other equivalent computer systems from other powers.

Anticipating that this would take some time, as I-400 was entrenched deep digitally, and knowing there were innocents under threat at this moment, I-402 turned to the away team.

"GO!" I-402 shouted. "Get out of here! You have people to protect!"

"Hate to side with that thing, but she's got a point, Commander!" Akira appealed.

Katrina watched I-400 and I-402 with a smirk. She highly doubted she could defeat the AI head on, so she was, contrary to I-400's assessment, not stupid enough to try. Instead, her plan had (mostly) worked perfectly, and she took some satisfaction in that. It had given I-402 a brief window in which to strike, and she'd taken it. Yet, now that she had, Katrina found herself wanting to leave their own AI alone even less than she had before. If something was going to go wrong, this would be the moment when it did. But what could they do? No one had the raw speed to counter an AI, physically, mentally, or logically. At I-402's urging, she just nodded. "Signal the Missouri when you're ready for transport, oh two," she said simply. "Everyone else, let's go!

To be continued...

 

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