I only remember bits and pieces of this book, but I'd really like to reread it. Basically, this teenager has been a prisoner his whole life and he's forced to explore spaceships (for boobytraps and stuff), and he somehow ends up connecting with this one ship. Like, it hooks up to his brain and he's the only one who can pilot and stuff. He ends up picking a few other people up and they go around and destroy the prisons and help out other planets. And there are space pirates! Any help would be so appreciated. The ship is automated basically and does like everything for them and one night as he's preparing dinner (asking the ship to make favorite dishes of past captains), it's discovered that some of the food is deadly to people, so presumably, aliens exist. They do end up finding a little weird vegetarian alien creature. That's pretty much all i remember though.