Jon and Emma were at the prow of The Dusty Maiden watching out for signs of The Analaya. Once they spotted her—if they spotted her—their plan was to capture the barge and interrogate the senior guardian onboard—at least Jon believed there was a senior guardian onboard. Whether or not he or she had the information they needed was another matter.

Niles hoped they wouldn’t have to swing south for The Breabooth instead. It was a long way off and would take several days just to get into position where they might be able stage a potential ambush.

He smiled, shaking his head. I’m practically a pirate captain now.

He looked back to the helm and saw Walter, remembering that Andrea was no longer with them. He was sorry to see her go, but nothing in his mind trumped saving the world. Niles would usually have given in to his pilot. But this... this was just too important for anything like that.

It was no good dwelling on things that hadn’t gone his way, so he tried to put Andrea from his mind. He had a job to do and he was going to see it through. The fate of the world rested on him. Then his thoughts drifted to Jon, his father’s friend, who was also a guardian. He too had the same powers as Niles, powers he couldn’t explain.

Maybe Jon or Emma can tell me, he thought. It’s worth asking about. “Have you spotted her yet?”

Emma was peering through the binoculars when Jon said that they hadn’t seen The Analaya yet. “It’s going to be difficult with this amount of cloud coverage,” Emma said.

There was an unusual amount of cloud coverage. Being the desert, it was as if nature were deliberately trying to foil their plans. “If we don’t catch her before she reaches Drymote,” Jon said. “We might as well turn around for The Breabooth.”

Emma made a noise of agreement.

“Then let’s make sure we do catch her,” Niles said.

They sat there for several more moments not talking as Emma continued looking through the binoculars. Then Niles decided to ask his question. “So, Jon,” he said. “You’re a guardian...”

“I am,” he said, a slight bit of sarcasm in his voice.

Niles was hopeful Jon wouldn’t laugh at him—he was the Captain after all, and such a thing would embarrass him in front of the crew. “Where do the guardian’s powers come from? Where do my powers come from?”

“Ah,” Jon said with a smile on his face. “Brace yourself. This is going to disappoint.”

“What do you mean?”

“What he means is,” Emma interrupted, “is that there’s nothing special about the way we get our powers. No supernatural force or the intervention of god. And we’re not angels if that’s what you were wondering.”

Emma’s last statement made Niles smile. “Could you explain?”

“Niles,” Jon said. “We—yourself included—get our powers from nanotechnology.”

“What’s... nanotechnology?”

“Tiny microscopic machines inside your body,” Emma said.

Niles considered this for a moment. It is possible, he thought. He’d seen technological wonders inside the guardian temple he knew absolutely nothing about. Who was to say one of those technologies weren’t what gave the guardians their powers? “That’s interesting. So the guardians didn’t always have their powers, then?”

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Jon turned around to face Niles. “Oh, no, we’ve had them for a very long time in fact. We’ve had our powers from before the first invasion.”

This technology is extremely old. But how did it survive the war? he wondered.

Nanotechnology was what gave guardians their edge over everyone else. It’s why they had always seemed to be so wise and mysterious in the presence of the common man. It allowed them to rule over others and make decisions for them for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. “So you Guardians aren’t actually angels of god or supernatural beings with the right to tell everyone else what to do,” Niles said. “You’re just a bunch of scientists with machinery pulsing through your veins.”

Jon was looking back at Niles, his head slightly tilted. He seemed to be thinking about what Niles said. “I admit, the order isn’t perfect, but we need it.”

“How’s that?”

“Well,” Jon said, “who do you think began the construction of walled cities? Who invented the sky barge? Who do you think...“

“We’d have adapted in other ways,” Niles said. “We don’t need the order holding our hands telling us what to do and how to do it.”

“If I’m not mistaken, Niles, it’s the order that contracts out to cargo haulers like yourself.”

Niles crossed his arms. “If it wasn’t the order it would be someone else and you know it. Admit it. We don’t need the order to keep us safe. In fact the order is trying to kill us so they can sit back and do nothing while our enemies come to destroy us.”

“I admit the council is made up of old fools. They’re scared and don’t know what to do, but you can’t base the entire order and its history on one present...“

“I think I see her—The Analaya,” Emma said excitedly. “There!” She was pointing slightly to port above The Dusty Maiden. She passed the binoculars to Jon and he began looking through them in the direction Emma had pointed.

“Is it The Analaya?” Niles asked.

“I’m... not sure,” Jon said. Then he passed the binoculars to Niles.

The other sky barge was hard to see because it was obscured by a thin wisp of cloud, though it looked like it probably was a war barge. But any barge with a leather weave blanket draped over its canopy looked like a war barge. “Hmm...”

“Can you see what she’s called?” Jon asked.

“No,” Niles said, and then he looked back at Walter and called across the deck. “Take us a bit higher and just a few notches to port.”

“Aye, Cap.”

“After you do that, Walter, burn the props at full speed for about two minutes and shut her off so that other barge can’t hear us.”

Walter raised his arm in solute, acknowledging that he’d heard what Niles said just before moving down the companionway.

The guardian barge hadn’t seen The Dusty Maiden yet, as far as Niles could tell, or else they would have been preparing for a fight. He intended for The Dusty Maiden to pass the other barge at a more even altitude so when the props were cut they would drift unheard and hopefully unseen, enabling them to get a good look at the other barge to make out whether or not she was The Analaya.

Jon and Emma were keeping their eyes on the other barge while Niles gave Walter direction. He could feel the barge ascending now that Sidney was belching more hot air into the gasbag causing the drylium pockets to expand therefore affording The Dusty Maiden more lift. “Alright, Walter, cut the props and let us drift. Just take us a bit more port and that should be perfect.”

After a brief moment Walter said, “All done, Cap.”

Niles sprinted to the prow of the deck. Jon was looking intently in the direction where the guardian barge was last seen. “Where is she?” Niles asked.

“Not sure,” Jon said. “She drifted behind a cloud.”

“Dammit, we can’t lose her.”

“Wait... wait, I think I see her. Yes, there she is,” he said, pointing in the proper direction.

“Well?” Emma said.

The Dusty Maiden was drifting, the other barge positioned at her quarter stern, though since they weren’t being propelled forward, the other sky barge would pass them up any moment enabling them to get a good look at her side.

“It’s her. She’s The Analaya,” Jon said as the other barge became more parallel to The Dusty Maiden. “Here” He handed Niles the binoculars.

It was The Analaya, her name plastered across the barge’s hull clear as day.

“We need to be tactful when we take her,” Jon said.

Niles smiled sarcastically at Jon. Then he turned to the helm. “Alright, Walter, burn that furnace as hot as she’ll go before they spot us,” Niles said. “And after sixty seconds I want you to go full burn on the props. See if you can position us directly on top of The Analaya without her taking notice of us.

“What’s your plan?” Emma asked.

“Don’t worry,” he said, smiling. “After all... I am a pirate Captain now.”