Second to last Sonia chapter for this story! Eeeeek!

After I'd gathered enough food to finally shut up my stomach, I hunkered down at the table to eat. I investigated the table's pad, which I knew could also control the big screen overhead. Unfortunately, I had no idea how it worked. Or even what it was capable of. I sighed, bored. I went up to the control board and looked at all the knobs and switches, imagining what they did. I still had no desire to learn how to drive a ship. One look out the window told me I'd be lost in an instant. I peered around, looking for anything identifiable; a planet, asteroid, ship, something.

I was too wide awake to contemplate sleeping, even though I'm sure my body needed more rest to recuperate. I glanced over at Kraglin. He was on his stomach with his head facing away from me. It amazed me how quickly he could fall asleep. I shook my head in wonder and turned back to the pad on the table. Wasn't there a way to tell our progress back to the planet? I stared at the pad, hoping it would tell me what to do.

I sighed and pulled out some of Kraglin's charts from a drawer. Rolling them out on the table I tried my best to figure out which planet I was looking at. I looked at the scale in the corner. I knew enough numbers to realize that I was looking at a system. What I thought was a planet turned out to be a star and what I thought were moons turned out to be planets. Godammit, I was useless at this. Was there an Idiot's Guide to Reading StarCharts around here? Oh wait, I wouldn't be able to read that either. I growled in frustration at myself and swiped the charts off the table in rage. My illiteracy had never been a bigger issue. I'd have to ask Kraglin to teach me to read on the flight home.

Home? Did I really consider the Eclector my home? I gave myself a small smile. I guess I did. I had a place there, a job that I was doing great at failing. I even had friends now. I looked over at Kraglin again and felt an uncontrollable urge to reach out to him. I made sure to retrieve the charts from the floor and roll them back up in the drawer, it was no use pissing him off. Although, it wasn't as though his M-ship was the tidiest thing in the world. Charts safe, I silently crept towards the bed, but as I got closer it soon became obvious that a horde of thundering bilgesnipe wouldn't have caused him to stir. Thinking about it now, I don't think he'd been able to get any sleep since before the fight with the Badoon.

He remained in deep sleep as I took off my clothes and joined him under the blanket. The initial temperature drop soon replaced by Kraglin's comforting heat. I snuggled into him closer, letting his scent wash over me and was surprised at how relaxing the skin contact was. Maybe Terrans were more like Xandarians than I'd first thought. My mind made a hideous leap as I recalled both Kraglin and Tajuun saying almost identical things about physical contact and the comfort they got from it. I gave myself a mental headshake to rattle out a particularly disturbing mental image and concentrated on Kraglin's scent, which seemed to give me more peace of mind than anything I'd ever encountered. Still asleep, Kraglin turned his head towards me and touched his cheek to my forehead. I let out a small sigh and took a deep breath of his scent, letting it seep into my very being as I drifted into sleep.

~~~~-.-~~~~

I was awoken a few hours later by the NavCom announcing our arrival. Kraglin was still out cold, so I quickly went to the pad to try and shut it up and allow him some more time. I tapped at a random symbol. The signal went off, but then something new popped up on its small screen. It looked like it was thinking, or connecting to something. Then Yondu's face filled the big screen overhead.

"Godammit," I hissed under my breath. This was so not what I was trying to do.

"Kraglin?" Yondu asked, his eyes darted around, looking for someone. But I was standing right in front of the screen.

"Yondu, it's me," I announced stupidly. Yondu made no notion of hearing me, however, and started to look more and more impatient.

"Is this a joke?" He growled. I growled at him in response and started hitting things on the pad on the table. I must have hit the right combination of things because after a few swipes Yondu seemed to see me.

"Sonia? You're out of the hospital already," Yondu narrowed his eyes at me. I returned the look of hostility.

"Yes, we left quite a few hours ago," I explained.

"Why did it take you so long to widen the view? You called me." He was irritated about something. Was failing to immediately respond to him a capital offense?

"I wasn't trying to call you," I muttered, crossing my arms. "I was just trying to shut up the bleeding NavCom…"

A look of amusement sprawled across his face. I was so glad that he was getting some amusement out of my hopeless flaw.

"Yeah, he mentioned that you couldn't read. Not too bad figuring it out on your own. We'll get you a PerCom soon," he informed me.

I raised an eyebrow. I was getting a PerCom? Who the fuck would I talk to on it? I didn't have a clue as to how these things worked anyways, I've never come close to owning one until now. Like, why hadn't Yondu been able to see me? Or hear me?

"So, you back at Dervani, then?" Yondu asked, changing the subject back to more important matters.

I nodded, fidgeting with the end of my braid behind my back. I hated just standing here. Yondu inclined his head towards me before continuing.

"Retrieve that moss and come back. This mission wasn't supposed to take this long."

I scowled at him in return and hit a button on the pad to end the call. Ha! First try! Feeling immensely proud of myself I kept hitting buttons on the pad, sure that all of its secrets would reveal themselves to me. My newfound confidence soon squashed as I couldn't figure out the right button to hit to open the main hatch. I let out a roar of frustration much louder than I'd originally intended that echoed around the metal interior of the ship. I heard shuffling coming from the bunk and realized that I must have woken Kraglin. Oops.

"Sonia?" I heard him ask.

I shuffled my way over to him sheepishly and peered over to see him laying on his back with his hands over his face. He did that a lot, I noticed.

"I was trying to figure out the main hatch," I explained. He looked over at me, the bags under his eyes were less noticeable than before.

"Jus' hit the switch," he mumbled before rolling back onto his side.

I continued to stare after him for a couple seconds before calming myself and studying the pad carefully. I knew that the hatch had to be controlled this way, as well as with the PerCom Kraglin had. I'd seen him open it from the outside using it. I mused at the idea of a physical switch that I'd managed to remain completely oblivious to this entire time and hunted around the door. I growled before going up to check the main control panel. I needed to get outside and hunt, or at least get the moss so we could just leave already.

Among all the various switches and buttons I finally managed to locate one that could open the main hatch. I let out a quick sigh of relief and dove through it before it changed its mind. I shifted and took a whiff around. It turned out that the ship autolanded where I had pinpointed the location of the Dervish Moss, right before the attack. Smart. It didn't take me long to scale the tree and in no time at all, I was pawing under a couple fallen logs and carefully scooping the plant matter into the bag I'd brought with me for this very purpose. I kept my nose and ears at sharp attention to make sure there were no other Badoon or any hostiles in the area. My luck held and soon, my foray was complete and I scurrying back up the tree towards Kraglin's ship. Goddamn, why couldn't the initial trip had been that fucking easy. We could have been back to the Elector that same day. Only a few hours had passed since I left the ship.

When I reached the tree top I paused as I heard a screech overhead. I instantly crouched down and looked upward, feeling a low grumbling starting up in my throat. I slunk into the shadow of the ship so as to better hide my black fur, the bag slung around my neck and over my back. Upon reaching cover, I froze, waiting for the owner of the sound to show itself.

I didn't have to wait long. A huge shadow appeared on the fungal growth and lazily swooped in circles. I glanced up to see a decent-sized bird of some kind. I slowly and silently crept around and starting climbing atop the ship, positioning myself at a spot where my back claws could get a decent grip on the alloyed exterior. When the avian creature's path brought it close enough to mine, I launched through the air to crash into it head on, bringing it down.

My prey screeched in my face and opened its beak to reveal pointed teeth, which it proceeded to snap at me. All it managed to get was a few clumps of fur before I swatted its head to the side, knocking it out cold. I bent my head down and took its neck in my jaws, savagely jerking to the side and snapping its neck without spilling blood. Dinner is finally fucking served.

Bah, carnivores. (Pot calling the kettle 'black.')
Tune in next week for the final two chapters! I will have an important announcement at the end, so pay attention to it!
~F2tM