I don't even know if anyone is still reading this, since I haven't heard anything from those few readers who did read it before, but whatever.

Have a new chapter and I hope you enoy it, should you still read this story of mine.

Chapter 5

In the next few days, Yondu didn't have much time for the boy, so he decided to give him in Kraglin's hands, knowing how well Peter got along with his first mate.

Even today, the boy was walking through the dark corridors of the ship together with him. In his arms he held all sorts of tools that Kraglin needed to fix something on the ship. A trifle, as he called it and therefore he had decided to take Peter with him, so that the Terran could learn how to wade a spaceship. If he was old enough, he would fly his own ship, he was sure of that and therefore it wouldn't hurt to teach him how to replace certain parts and which cables to rebuild if there was a short power failure somewhere or some system failures.

And Peter wasn't even too bad with fixing the problem, because when they arrived a little later in the engine room, Kraglin showed him everything and the boy did it almost too perfect.

"Now look at that. There is a little mechanic inside of you, huh Pete?" he had said and his words of praise made the boy blush, which the first mate commented with a big grin.

"If you have your own ship, then I'm sure you'll take good care of it."

Even more praise and Peter tried to hide his fire-red cheeks from Kraglin, but he had already seen more than enough, which confirmed his soft chuckle.

"When do I get my own ship?" the boy asked and he tried to steer the subject to something else. He didn't look at the first mate and instead collected the tools they had just used to repair the parts.

"Then, when yer old enough, kiddo."

Peter turned to him and looked him straight in the eyes.

"I am old enough, Kraglin."

The other laughed softly, walked over to him and ruffled his hair.

"No you are not. Yondu will decide when the time comes."

"But why not you? You're like the captain too, aren't you?"

"No, Pete, I'm not. I am the first mate of the captain. That's a big difference. I am only the captain when Yondu is not aboard the Eclector. And even if he's not here for a few days, I have no right to decide this over his head. Besides, I think ya ain't old enough to fly one of our M-ships yet."

Peter craned his chest forward to look braver.

"Yondu let me fly the Eclector a few weeks ago."

The first mate raised an eyebrow in question as these words came to his ears.

The boy was kidding, right?

Judging by his gaze, he seemed to be serious with what he said.

"Oh really? Surely everyone would have noticed it, if ya had controlled the Eclector, kid."

"I did it!"

"Couldn't have been for too long, though."

Oh man, it was almost as if Kraglin could read his mind.

Again, Peter's cheeks flushed slightly as he turned his head away from him.

"Well, he let me steer the ship in a certain direction and then I was allowed to turn on the autopilot," he admitted meekly and without looking at the other.

Kraglin didn't say a word for a few moments, collecting his tools and stowing them in a metal suitcase, before kneeling down to face Peter, as he turned his eyes back to him. A small smile graced the lips of the first mate, as he looked at him.

"Each of us started small, Pete. If Yondu let you steer the Eclector, then he has great trust in you, and that's good, isn't it? "

The boy nodded his head and his face brightened again and a wave of pride rushed through his body.

Yondu trusted him...

"You're sure to become a good pilot, but ya have to give it time. Small steps, not big ones. When the time comes, we will teach ya how to fly a spaceship. But until then, you will learn from me how to wade a ship, because that is very important. Just imagine, you're in space and the drive of your ship breaks down. If ya don't know how to fix it, then you're damned to die."

A shiver crept over Peter's back as he imagined it.

Floating helplessly in space, always with the certainty in the neck, that either the oxygen runs out or the pressure inside the ship becomes so strong that the windows would shatter and he gets pulled out into the universe.

Not a nice way to die...

"Say Kraglin...what would happen if the drive of the Eclector breaks down? Or anything else happens to the ship, which is hard to repair? Do we all have to die then?"

The first mate laughed softly and sat down next to the boy, who had made himself comfortable on one of the many large metal pipes.

"This is highly unlikely, but it can happen. If it really happens, then there are two possibilities: If the ship still has enough fuel and if we can still control it, then we would fly to the next planet and land there. If that doesn't work, we still have enough M-ships to get the whole crew out of the ship."

"And what if the M-ships can't be decoupled because of a defect?"

Clever boy…

"Not bad, kid. For such a thing we have made provision. If the technology fails on the ship, the M-ships can be decoupled by hand despite everything. That's not easy, but it's possible."

"And what if we land on a planet so cold that we freeze to death immediately when we go out?"

"We wouldn't head for such a planet."

"But, what if the ship doesn't make it to the next planet and we have to land there?"

"Then there's Ravagers on a stick, kid."

Peter and Kraglin turned their heads almost synchronously, as that voice came to their ears, and as they turned their eyes toward the engine room entrance, they saw Tullk standing in the doorway, grinning broadly at them. He was leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and seemed to be watching them for quite some time already.

"How long have you been standing there?" Kraglin asked and you could clearly hear from his voice how uncomfortable this situation was for him. Normally no one was able to sneak up on him without him noticing it. And he didn't like being watched when he was fooling around with Peter.

Although...luckily they hadn't done that. At least not today...

"Long enough, I think."

The Ravager broke away from the doorframe and entered the engine room. As he came to a halt in front of Peter, he reached his hand out to the boy and ruffled his hair like Kraglin had done it before, making Peter giggle and he tried to force his hand from his head, but he was not strong enough for that.

Tullk was one of the few Ravagers, except for Yondu and Kraglin, with whom Peter got along well. He liked Tullk and he had already spent some time with him. He had had a good time conversing with him and it was fun to explore the ship with him, because he still hadn't seen everything of the Eclector yet and Tullk liked to show him a few new things every now and then.

"What are you doing down here? I thought you were with the others?" Kraglin interrupted the playful scene and Tullk pulled his hand away from Peter's head again and instead turned his eyes to the first mate.

"I was with the others, but the Captain gave me the order to go check on you and make sure everything was fine with you. Have you fixed the problem?"

"Yes, we did and Peter helped me with that."

Tullk turned his eyes back to the boy, who grinned at him sheepishly.

"Oh, so you fixed it, huh? Well, look at that. I thought you wanted to be a pilot and not a mechanic?"

"I want to be a pilot, but Kraglin said it's better to learn how to wade a ship beforehand."

"Hmm, Kraglin said something clever for once."

Tullk only wanted to tease him with that, Kraglin could see this in his eyes and the big grin on his face and he only commented his words with an eye roll.

"But not that Kraglin tells you horror stories."

The first mate grinned.

"I tell him horror stories? He is the one who tells me horror stories."

"Oh really?"

"Yes. Horror stories of an ice planet on which we would all freeze to death."

"That was not a story. I just asked you what would happen if we would be forced to do an emergency landing on a planet like that."

Again Tullk grinned and he sat down next to Peter so the boy was sitting in the middle of the two Ravagers.

"Simple, kid: We'll give Kraglin some warm clothes and let him go out to fix the ship. An ice planet is not bad. Just imagine a planet full of cyborgs."

"What's a cyborg?"

"An organic being, made half of machine parts," Kraglin answered the question.

"Something like Vorker?"

The two Ravagers couldn't help but laugh at Peter's words and the boy didn't quite understand what was so funny about his question.

"No, Pete. Vorker is not a cyborg. How do you come up with something like that?"

"He has an eye that consists of a machine part."

"But that doesn't make him a cyborg. The eye must already be built into his skull to make him to one. Instead, it's just a prosthesis he takes out every time he wants to go sleeping," Tullk grinned at him.

Kraglin got up and pulled the boy to his feet and quickly gave him the tools that had found no place in his metal suitcase.

"We'd rather stop talking about that. Not that Pete gets nightmares in the end."

He didn't even wait for an answer, ignoring Peter's nagging and his words that he was old enough for such stories and pushed him out of the engine room.

Tullk grinned after them and shook his head, when he could hear Peter start telling Kraglin about pirates and why Vorker wasn't wearing an eyepatch instead of his "weird eye" because then he would look like a real pirate. After all, they were space pirates.

Kraglin's murmuring was the only thing that could be heard a little later when the two disappeared around the next corner and Tullk was left alone in the engine room, who couldn't get this grin off of his face anymore.

Yes, the kid was alright and since he lived on the Eclector, it wasn't so boring up here anymore...