Wow, been a long time since an update, eh?

What can we say? We are busy people... and we also lack inspiration a lot... and we have other stories (that you should totally check out) to work on to.

Anyway... Enjoy, you guys!

So how does a young boy become the magnificent captain we know today?

To take a look at how James P. Hawkins did this we go back to his childhood, from his mother to how he developed his ingeniously as a spacer. We will take a look at the recipe of raising a star.

"Jim was always so talented," his mother, Sarah Hawkins, tells us, "even as a toddler; he would constantly be building various things… Ships were his favorite. Leland – his father – brought home a kit to build a toy sailboat when he was four… After that, he built ships out of anything he could get his hands on. Within a few years, he was making miniature ships that actually flew."

Four years old? So his interest in spacing started at quite an early age.

"Well… yes, but that started even before the ships," she continued. "For his third birthday, he got The Legend of Treasure Planet. It told all about Captain Flint and his secret trove, and Jim loved it. You couldn't get that book away from him. I can't tell you how many nights I heard the narrator reading that book long after I thought Jim had fallen asleep."

"Of course I remember that book," Jim laughs when asked about it. "As a kid, growing up on the mining planet Montressor, I lived and breathed those legends. Many a night I drifted to sleep with images of galleons, far away planets, and Flint's gleaming trove dancing through my head... and then I turned 15."

There you have it – the image of young Captain Hawkins. Adventurous and imaginative, he seemed to be a born spacer. Pirates and treasure were more than just legends - they were real.

So how did he go from the creative little boy to the troubled teen? Was he a trouble maker as a child as well?

"Well Jim wasn't as much as a troublemaker when he was a young boy," Sarah admits slowly, "that didn't happen until he was a teenager."

Some have speculated – perhaps jokingly - that Jim rebelled particularly against his mother because of his middle name – Pleiades. When we inquired Hawkins about this he laughed.

"No," he told us adamantly through his chuckles, "the blame of my embarrassing middle name is entirely on Leland, my father, and his father, who is where the name – Pleiades – came from."

Apparently after Sarah Hawkins gave birth and was resting, Jim's father and paternal grandfather were in a debate of discussing boy's names. Since the young parents, Sarah and Leland, were so in shock that a child was about to enter their lives the idea of picking out baby names slipped their minds. So when the boy was born, there was a name needed to put down on the birth certificate.

"Oh I remember being so mad when I woke up to discover my son had already been named," Sarah confesses. "And to name him Pleiades," she shakes her head, "did you know that the old man that my son was named after wanted Pleiades to be his first name?"

According to Sarah Hawkins, Leland and the grandfather had made a compromise in the debate over the child's name. Leland had later told Sarah that he had no choice in putting the name Pleiades in their son's name. Leland's family has always upheld the tradition of passing names down to the males and James Pleiades Hawkins was no exception.

So if it wasn't the unfortunate naming that led Jim to trouble… what was it?

Sarah sighs, shaking her head. "I'd have to blame that solar surfer contraption of his. Remember I told you he built those ships that could actually fly? Well, it didn't take long for him to figure out that taking all those little solar cell sheets his dad brought back could be combined to make a giant sail – one large enough to support a small boat. Seeing as he didn't have enough scrap metal to make a skiff, he ingeniously came up with the idea of a surfer." She shakes her head, letting out a short laugh. "It was clever, I'll give him that… but you can imagine my surprise when I walk out one day to call him into supper and see him soaring a few dozen feet in the air."

"Oh, yeah…" Jim sighs lamely, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'd kind of forgotten about that. Mom was never to keen on the idea of me solar surfing. She was right, I guess – it was dangerous, but… that's what was so great about it."

So it was the solar surfer that led you astray?

"I guess it was, yeah. I was only eight when I built my first one, but…" He gulps, avoiding looking at us and staring out the window. "When my dad was less than impressed with it, I tried to improve it. By the time he left when I was 10, it was pretty much as good as it ever got. I-I knew how to handle it, how fast, how high… it was all too easy to use it as an escape, and… that got me into trouble."

Thank you so much to 23jk, EventHorizon6, and amalimrock for the reviews on the last chapter!

We appreciate them so much and we'd love to see more!

Thanks!

-Lauren and Emily-