Huit ont regardé le carnage se dérouler derrière lui sur l'écran. Ce n'était pas une belle vue. Sur les deux navires, des corps s'étaient empilés et dans l'espace un certain nombre d'embarcations de chasse étaient mortes dans l'espace, leurs pilotes exposés au vide. Depuis le début de la rencontre, huit avaient effectué une analyse récursive du bateau pirate. Il n'avait pas reconnu la configuration de celle-ci qui l'ennuyait, mais la conception extérieure devait être complètement unique. Il était possible qu'il s'agisse d'un navire plus uniformisé sous toutes ces décorations.
Au milieu du carnage, le scan était enfin terminé. Sous le crâne et les os croisés il semblait que le navire envahissant était un cruiser d'attaque de classe Thorium modifié. Les ancres d'embarquement provenaient d'un autre type de navire, mais selon les scans de huit, les défenses primaires du navire principal semblaient intactes et intactes. C'était très dangereux. Huit ont ouvert frénétiquement un lien de communication avec les combattants à l'extérieur du navire. "Attention, ne visez pas le navire principal avec des armes énergétiques." Les vaisseaux Thorium ont été conçus à une époque où le système Xenovian était en guerre. C'était une antiquité selon les normes d'aujourd'hui, mais les principes de base sur lesquels il était fondé étaient encore appliqués aux technologies modernes. Les navires de la classe Thorium ont personnifié le mantra "une bonne défense fait le meilleur délit". La coque extérieure a été conçue avec un type de revêtement composite qui redirige et canalise de grandes quantités d'énergie. Les navires de Thorium avaient été conçus pour absorber les armes à énergie, puis inverser leur polarité avant de tirer la même énergie à ses attaquants. Il avait disparu parce que les condensateurs du navire ne pouvaient pas maintenir l'énergie qu'ils avaient absorbée. Au moment où l'ennemi refusa le feu sur eux, les armes de Thorium devinrent inopérantes.
"Cy, l'énergie étant. Le navire principal est capable d'inverser la charge des attaques qui lui sont dirigées. Si vous le ciblez et que vous êtes touché en retour, l'énergie pourrait réagir violemment à votre physiologie unique. » Huit n'étaient pas experts de l'anatomie extraterrestre, mais la physique simple dictait que les positifs et les négatifs s'annulaient mutuellement et quand le plasma à haut rendement craignait que la réaction puisse être désastreuse. Non seulement pour Cy, mais pour tout ce qui se trouve dans le voisinage immédiat.
C'est ainsi que huit personnes ont une fois de plus vérifié la version IV de Ballyon. Johanna Hawkins et Krull faisaient un travail décent en gardant les pirates à l'écart. C'était jusqu'à ce qu'ils envoient un drone de combat mécanisé. Huit se sont servis des censeurs internes pour l'identifier. D'après ses dossiers, c'était une Mech de combat de type 40 CFR. Il a été conçu pour toutes les batailles de terrain mais où jamais les pirates l'avaient volé à elle n'a pas été conçu pour être utilisé sur un navire ou dans des quartiers si exigus. Mais c'était la seule bonne nouvelle. Le Type 40 a été conçu pour être impitoyable. Il déchirerait le navire avant de laisser l'une de ses cibles programmées échapper à l'élimination et huit devaient supposer que l'équipage de la Babylone plus leur escorte Starfire où sur cette liste.
Huit ont jeté un coup d'œil sur son kit d'outils. Un plan avait commencé à se former dans son esprit. Un qu'il savait qu'il regretterait le moment où il l'a mis en mouvement. Huit ont obtenu quelques pièces d'espar de l'équipe d'ingénieurs de Babylone avant de mettre en place un petit appareil. Il était d'environ six pouces de long, cylindrique et d'environ un pouce de travers. Il y avait une bande lumineuse dans le centre. Avec cet appareil et son kit d'outils à la main Huit a quitté son poste à l'ingénierie et est allé rejoindre ses camarades. Heureusement, il avait encore une route vers eux bien que ce n'était pas exactement tout droit en avant. Il a fallu utiliser largement les tubes d'entretien du navire avant que huit n'éclatent dans le couloir où Johanna Hawkins et Krull faisaient la guerre. Les tubes sur un navire jetable où pas grand, même pour huit, il avait été une pression serrée. Il n'y avait aucun moyen qu'un de ces pirates bruissants puisse s'intégrer dans un seul.
Johanna Hawkins avait mis en place les caisses pour la couverture comme l'avait ordonné huit. Le Type 40 avait écrasé la plupart des pirates dans le couloir, maintenant ce n'était que la bête métallique que Johanna Hawkins et Krull affrontaient. "Je suis là pour aider." Huit ont dit qu'il s'était installé derrière une caisse près de Johanna Hawkins. Le T-40 se rapprochait. Huit ont pris une profonde respiration pour se préparer à ce qui allait se passer. Puis il a pris son petit appareil en main un jeté comme une grenade visant la section entre les jambes des robots. Les pinces magnétiques se sont verrouillées à mesure que l'appareil touchait le métal. La lumière sur l'appareil est passée du rouge au bleu et une vague d'énergie en a explosé. Alors que l'énergie touchait huit, il s'est effondré au sol. Il n'a pas crié ou crié, mais la douleur s'est écrasée de haut en bas de son corps. Il était allongé sur le sol tremblant, un doux froid éclatant sur son dos.
Heureusement, il n'était pas le seul à s'être effondré. De l'autre côté des caisses, le T-40 s'était arrêté. Le petit appareil avait été une bombe EMP improvisée. Il a désactivé l'équipement électronique qui a malheureusement également inclus le propre huit. Sa composition technologique était si unique qu'il fonctionnait encore si, douloureusement cependant, huit devaient retourner dans sa chambre de régénération dans l'heure suivante ou son état s'aggraverait considérablement. L'électronique du navire a été protégée contre les EMP. Il avait été une pratique populaire de raid pour désactiver les systèmes d'un navire avec des ondes EMP avant de prendre environ cinquante ans auparavant. Maintenant, il a été mandaté que tous les systèmes du navire soient correctement protégés.
"Johanna Hawkins." Huit ont dit, sa voix a travaillé mais stable. "J'ai fait exploser un EMP. Il a perturbé les signaux électriques sur lesquels le droïde de combat fonctionnait. Cependant, il a un système de redondance qui va le redémarrer en six minutes et trente-huit secondes. Utilisez les outils de mon sac. Vous devez ouvrir la couverture de maintenance sur son dos et désactiver ses stabilisateurs de puissance primaires. Je vais vous guider, mais vous devez vous dépêcher. S'il revient en ligne, il détectera l'altération et déclenchera une séquence d'autodestruction qui décompressera cette zone du navire.
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.