Teken Corporation manufactures Bai-series of droids, a highly successful droid product line. Sold by thousands every month, they are very versatile and can be found doing almost anything humans can do – often in assisting or service duties. They all share the basic humanlike articulated skeleton, with an endless amount of shell versions to customize their look. They are cheap, robust, lightweight, and have a good range of off-the-shelf software for almost every occasion. And even bigger choice of user-made apps, a popular choice for tinkering since the base software is Open Source. This easy customization is one of the biggest reasons why they have become so popular in the first place.

“Byte” is J.B.'s co-pilot and weapons officer, an astro-droid version of the Bai T-968 lineup. Big dropships need, at least occasionally, more hands than the pilot has – unless he's Quixian with eight of those... Sol had Peggy originally for this co-pilot duty, integrated in the ship frame as a software, but J.B. Wanted to go a bit more traditional route and bought a droid. Advantage of a humanlike droid is of course that they can do the samethings humans can, like use equipment meant for humans. Handy also if you need someone to get you a cup of coffee, or patch a hole in the hull. And if you happen to total a ship, transfering a "physical" co-pilot vs fully embedded  software is much easier although the integration to the ship is not so... well, integrated. 

J.B. considers Byte to be a tool, nothing more. Maybe, but just maybe, also someone to keep company, and have a conversation during the long and often boring convoy contracts. But J.B. isn't that talkative to begin with, so that is not the main reason he got her. Even the name reflects this tool-like attitude, a play with "Bai T", and not Cindy for example. Cindy, that would be too human for J.B., so she's just "Byte". And Byte is certainly not a substitute for women in a sexual sense either, she just doesn't have the "parts" needed for that... so she's not like Elektra.

One thing she DOES have is an over positive and chirpy attitude, and she is always smiling... Everyone else likes Byte, a stark contrast to J.B.'s neutral or even cynical behaviour. Compared to Elektra, she's losing out almost on every front, like a tractor compared to a sports car... and she's not really that smart either, more like a lovable toaster? General purpose high-level A.I. capabilites costs money, and it's not really what J.B.s needs. This “blondiness” (sorry all the blonds in the galaxy!) has caused numerous funny and-not-so-funny situations when Byte's capabilities are insufficient for the situation at hand.

“

Oops, sorry! Oh dear... That was a bit outside my programming... but I tried my best! I promise to get it right next time... live and learn, right?

Byte

ELECTRIC DREAMS

Since J.B. wasn't interested in having a sexual companion, he didn't spend money for the appearance either, so that's why Byte is looking more droid than human. Byte likes J.B. a lot though, and does try to make J.B. happy nevertheless in every possible way... but her efforts are pretty much ignored by J.B., so those feelings are not mutual. One could even say that Byte has a one-sided crush on J.B., but in this current context even the idea of a relationship is out of the question - but that doesn't stop Byte for dreaming that maybe someday she'll get upgrades, and then that deeper relationship with J.B. might be a possibility at least.