Huit des douze - Aurora, Régénération Alcove
Cycle de régénération terminé. Tous les systèmes fonctionnent dans des périmètres acceptables. Synchronisation des composants biologiques et technologiques terminée.
Huit lui ouvraient les yeux alors que l'ordinateur de bord de l'Aurora mettait fin à son cycle de régénération. En raison de son accident à la station de Pegasus, l'accident qui avait fusionné ses fonctions cérébrales supérieures avec celle d'un ordinateur et plusieurs de ses membres avec des implants cybernétiques Huit n'avaient plus besoin de dormir comme on l'avait pensé par la plupart des humanoïdes. Au lieu de cela, huit avaient construit une alcôve spéciale sur son navire qui, lorsqu'il a été activé, a mis son corps dans une forme de stase tandis que l'ordinateur a réaligne ses implants avec ses organiques.
Il pouvait aller jusqu'à soixante-douze heures sans elle mais pour maintenir l'efficacité maximale, il avait besoin de se régénérer pendant six heures toutes les vingt-quatre. Son cycle complète Huit handicapés son alcôve sur l'Aurora. Il avait bien sûr ses propres quartiers de Starfire sur le navire, mais étant donné qu'il devait construire une autre de ces chambres à l'intérieur pour qu'elle soit toute utilisation pour lui dans tous les quartiers restait vacante.
Huit ouvraient les portes de l'infirmerie de son embarcation au pont principal, qui était en fait une petite pièce avec deux chaises devant des consoles de pilotage qui contrôlaient les divers systèmes du navire. Derrière les deux consoles était un tube scellé assez grand pour qu'une personne se tienne debout. En raison de la physiologie unique de huit cyborgs, il pourrait utiliser cette salle pour interagir directement avec l'ordinateur des navires et utiliser son propre cerveau comme système de vol. Cependant, c'était pour de longs voyages ou des affrontements dans lesquels l'ordinateur des navires ne pouvait pas compenser adéquatement les variables que le cerveau de huit pouvait calculer.
À l'heure actuelle, le cyborg effectuait simplement un diagnostic et une maintenance de routine sur ses systèmes. L'Aurora était un navire noir élégant et unique en son genre. Quand huit avaient commencé sur elle, l'Aurora avait été l'épave d'un bombardier tactique à longue portée. Bien qu'il ait encore une ressemblance certaine avec le modèle original presque tous les systèmes ont été reconstruits à partir de zéro par huit avec tout ce qu'il pouvait mettre la main sur. En conséquence, l'Aurora était tout à fait unique dans la galaxie.
Satisfait que son vaisseau courait à son maximum d'efficacité. Huit se préparaient à partir lorsqu'un avis apparaissait sur son écran de console pour l'alerter du fait que Starfire avait trois nouveaux contrats qui étaient confiés à cette unité. Huit n'avaient aucun sentiment d'une façon ou d'une autre au sujet des contrats eux-mêmes, cependant la probabilité de succès, la compensation attendue et le capot probable des pertes ont indiqué que la protection de la Babylon IV accorderait à l'équipage le gain monétaire le plus élevé pour le risque le plus faible en supposant qu'aucun élément anormal ne se soit fait connaître.
Huit ont quitté le navire après l'avoir présenté comme son affectation préférée. Les contrats eux-mêmes signifiait aussi très peu à huit, l'argent était utile bien sûr mais la vraie raison pour laquelle huit était ici était de faire usage de la vaste influence et des ressources de Starfire, il y avait quelqu'un dans la galaxie l'attendant. Il avait juste besoin de la trouver.
Huit ont scellé l'Aurora et brouillé la commande d'entrée avec un reséquençage intuitif afin qu'elle ne puisse être ouverte que par sa signature biomécanique ou un hacker très habile. Huit n'ont fait confiance à personne, et ont donc gardé quelque chose de valeur hors de portée de personne d'autre.
Huit étaient toujours éveillés tôt parce qu'il n'avait besoin que de six heures de régénération par rapport au reste des horaires de sommeil plus exigeants de l'équipage. Malgré les premières heures, une bonne partie de l'équipage semblait déjà éveillée et habitait la cuisine du navire. Parce que huit avaient besoin de suppléments nutritionnels pour maintenir son système biologique, c'était là qu'il devait aller.
Quand Huit ouvrit la porte, plusieurs têtes regardèrent dans sa direction, puis s'éloignèrent rapidement. Huit avaient toujours eu l'impression qu'il avait dérangé le reste de l'équipage. Peut-être était-ce la façon précise dont il parlait ou les restes de l'implant oculaire courbé autour de son oeil et la diode encastrée à côté de son oreille droite. Peut-être même que de la plupart de l'équipage, il était l'un des rares qui ne portaient aucune sorte d'armement de protection. Peu importe ce que c'était, ce n'était pas important pour huit.
Il a traversé la pièce jusqu'à une station-service. Un scan de la machine à café par l'implant oculaire de huit a révélé que plusieurs des bobines de détendeur dans le dos étaient hors de synchronisation. Huit avaient réglé ce problème deux fois la semaine dernière. La conclusion logique serait que l'appareil soit remplacé ou reconstruit. Huit se sont tournés vers le réplicateur de nourriture dont la station était équipée. Huit avaient des schémas de conception pour les croiseurs de luxe qui avaient des réplicateurs qui étaient capables de créer les plats les plus exotiques dans la galaxie connue. Ce n'était pas un de ces réplicateurs. Plus le repas est complexe, plus le réplicateur est puissant et plus il doit être conçu avec précision. Cette unité semblait être pavée de pièces de rechange et, par conséquent, n'a produit que les compléments alimentaires les plus basiques. Il pouvait faire de la graisse et de la nourriture simple dans la pincée mais huit ne s'intéressait pas à ça.
"Supplément nutritionnel 46 Beta." Il a dit au système et il a matérialisé un bol de petits objets carrés verts d'un quart de pouce des deux côtés. Ils n'avaient presque aucun goût, mais fournissaient la forme la plus efficace d'assimilation des nutriments dans l'organisme. Il les avait conçus pour sa physiologie.
Il a pris place à une table qui avait un autre occupant. Ça n'a pas du tout ennuyé Huit. Celui assis en face de lui était une femelle, elle était du côté plus petit avec des cheveux bleus. Intéressantement, ses cheveux se sont ramifiés dans un ensemble supplémentaire d'oreilles. Huit l'ont scannée de haut en bas avec son implant oculaire. Il n'était pas exactement un expert sur les formes de vie biologiques comme il était avec les machines, donc la plupart des données qu'il a reçues n'avaient aucun sens pour lui. Il a supprimé une bonne partie de celle-ci la juge inutile, ne conservant qu'une idée de son apparence pour la reconnaître et une note des différences évidentes entre elle et d'autres humains avec lesquels il entrerait en contact.
Quand son scan a été terminé, il l'a regardée avec des yeux gris tempête et a dit. "Vous semblez être une forme de mutant. Veuillez préciser."
Name: Stephen Walker: Eight of Twelve
Appearance: Has brown hair that's always untidy. His skin is unnaturally white and he has freckles on his face. His eyes are a sort of storm cloud grey and around the right one are the remains of an exposed ocular implant that mark him as a cyborg. His left hand is still covered in an exoplating that protects it from electricity and heat. He's 5'10" and around a hundred thirty pounds. Normally wears brown leather clothing and a vest stuffed with spare parts. Likes to fiddle with them when nervous.
Race: Human... mostly.
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Background: When Stephen and his sister Laura were ten years old they contracted a strain of the Xenovian flu. Not deadly but highly contagious so while they're parents were travelling the siblings were put in quarantine on the Pegasus Space Station. While they were separated from the general population the Xenovian Revolutionaries hit the station, their target was a shipment of Oppenheimium being temporarily stored at Pegasus before it could be transported.
Several of the major power conduits abroad the station exploded causing massive damage to the structural integrity of the station. In the infirmary where Stephen and Laura were quarantined the walls collapsed burying the siblings in rubble. Now Pegasus Station was a layover point for much of the galaxy and often enough it was where rare materials were stored and experimental technologies developed. Such a technology was being worked on in the lab adjacent to the infirmary that day. Nanites, programmed to infiltrate a host and repair there body from within regardless of what species they might be. However while test results were promising the nanites were far from being ready to test on living subjects and certainly not on two young children.
All the repair scenarios were already programmed into the nanites but they only had a rudimentary understanding of anatomy. Without a clean DNA sample and understanding what Stephen and Laura looked like healthy they were unable to do there jobs properly. These were still prototypes and had yet to have safeguards built in. Despite only being vaguely aware of what they were supposed to do, when the nanites found Stephen and Laura's broken bodies they set to work. Unable to identify exactly what was organic and what was metal the nanites did they're best. As a result a number of synthetic aspects were built into Laura and Stephen's bodies, metal ended up grafted to parts of there skeleton and in some parts replacing there skin. An optronic data sequencer was grafted into Stephen's optic nerve replacing his damaged eye.
Both the siblings also suffered brain damage as a result of the accident but the nanites found the remains of a central computer processor that made use of bio neural circuitry. A processor design that was modeled on the human brain, able to do billions of calculations a second. Because of the similarities between the processor design and the human brain the nanites were unable to tell the difference and used pieces of the processor to effect repairs to the damaged areas of the brain, the most notable of which was the memory centers.
When Stephen and Laura were finally dug out of the rubble both of them resembled machines more than they did humans. Unknown to the two of them (they were told there parents left them) Stephen and Laura's parents were told they died in the explosion on Pegasus. Afterwards they were taken to a lab in a highly restricted section of the Pegasus station.
Laura and Stephen spent the next five years on the station in that lab being studied. The most interesting thing about the accident was that because of the way the nanites repaired Stephen and Laura's brain some of the data files from several different computers had been patched into there memories, overriding the damaged memory centers of the brain. The computer used to repair Laura had been the medical terminal from sickbay, as a result she'd retained a large portion of knowledge regarding anatomy and medical practices.
The computer the nanites had assimilated into Stephen's head was from an engineering database a floor up from the infirmary that had collapsed into the room when the conduits blew. As a result Stephen carried the schematics and design specifications of every ship ever to dock on the Pegasus station. Through some fluke of the sibling's meld with the bio neural circuitry the designations of the computers had been grafted over the sibling's identification of self. The Pegasus station was controlled by twelve main computer systems, Medical was Five of Twelve and Engineering was Eight. After the accident the siblings started answering to these designations much more readily than their own names, even if they did remember that the names belonged to them.
Over the next year as much of the implants the nanites had created in both the siblings systems was harvested by the doctors. Pieces from there arms legs, etc. The sequencer that had been grafted into Eight's eye was replaced with an artificial eyeball though an amount of circuitry around his eye couldn't be removed without making him blind. A year after they were first brought to the lab Five was taken to another section, Eight never saw her again.
When he was ten Eight was too young to understand why he was in the lab or why he wasn't allowed to leave but as he grew up Eight understood more. Ship schematics weren't the only thing in Eight's head, he also had a complete design scheme for Pegasus itself. So when he was fourteen he began to plot a way to escape. It took him a year to finalize and get to the point where he thought success was a reasonable possibility.
First he tricked the Pegasus computer into thinking there was a fire in his room. The doors opened automatically. Then he opened up a conduit access panel and crawled inside. These tubes ran throughout the station in case engineers had to make manual repairs, or turbolifts were damaged. Eight tapped into one of the computer conduits that regulated internal sensors and fed the security sweeps false data detecting himself running for the docking ring on level H. In reality he crawled through the access tubes emerging at the docking ring four floors above. Eight stowed away on a cargo freighter, hiding himself away in the smallest corner he could find. Because he had the ship's blueprint in his head he knew where to find the smuggler's hatch, and keep himself hidden inside.
When it docked at its destination, Eight escaped unnoticed and made his way to the reason he'd come to this planet. The Andorian Waste Yards. Hundreds of miles of dispossessed ships, their working parts stripped and sold, only skeletons and broken parts left over. It was the system's junk yard for anything that wasn't worth the effort of salvaging. Of course they're were laws against scavenging from it but people did it anyways and the local authorities didn't care all that much.
Eight found a decent ship, a tactical bomber, designed to be piloted by two for deep space missions. Of course any stealth technology Eight knew it once had had long been stripped but the craft itself was more or less intact even if all it's major systems were for the most part, missing.
Eight spent the next week on that planet scavenging for parts, rebuilding the ship. He build the engines up from scratch, Stole a communications array off another vessel. Eventually he managed to cobble together a ship. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't exactly comfortable but it would fly.
Eight has spent the last three years searching for any trace of what became of Five. He joined the Starfire Company the previous year on the hopes of using their resources to locate his sister.
Because of his implants and alterations Eight doesn't require sleep however, every twenty four hours so he has to go into a regenerative hibernation in a chamber on his ship which helps to keep the balance between his biological and technological systems.
Personality: Eight has a far greater understand of ships than he does people, he takes great pleasure in rebuilding and augmenting systems. With people however he is very blunt and to the point, he's almost mechanically rational and tends to accomplish tasks his own way. Doesn't follow orders very well unless they fall under what he was planning on doing anyways. Always wants to learn and understand new things but does so from a clinical standpoint, this can make relations with him trying.
Gear:

 A Distortion Field Generator - Masks the readings of his technological components so he registers as pure human on scans.
 A Tetrion Particle Weapon - An energy weapon that doesn't leave a trace signature once it's been deactivated, very good for sneaking past security sensors.
 Engineering Kit - All the tools a mechanic would need to interface with any system he encountered.

Personal Ship:


The Aurora is the same vessel as he built himself however it hardly resembles itself from it's maiden flight. Was made for two pilots, Eight retrofitted it to include weapons and removed the high yield bomb systems. The ships has three rooms, the bridge which consists of two consoles and a Cyborg integration chamber, once sealed it fills with an oxygen rich fluid which is full of bio neural interfacing solution which allows Eight's brain to function as the guidance computer. The other room houses the engine which while haphazardous is fully functional and efficient, the last room doubles between a sickbay and Eight's living quarters. This is where his regeneration chamber is.