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followed by sadness, anger, and finally a sense of betrayal. He was the greatest cadet the Academy had ever seen. He had graduated safe in the knowledge that the early part of his career was a mere formality on the road to his eventual appointment as general. The fact that the army had been wiped out was nothing short of astounding. His future as a great Digger, as leader of the Diggers, had been taken from him, and all because the rest of the army was inconsiderate enough to have gotten themselves killed. With the Diggers gone Melbourne had been left with a single question: what was he supposed to do now? At least while he was being held captive by the pirates he knew the short-term answer. It was simple. He had to survive.
    That was what had brought him to mopping the deck, or “swabbing”, as the pirates called it. None of the crew considered swabbing the deck to be a desirable job but Melbourne thought it vast progress from being kept in a cage. It had taken him weeks of work but eventually he’d managed to convince Captain Pratt to release him in exchange for working the worst jobs on the ship.
    He wasn’t sure why the pirates had brought him aboard and hadn’t just left him to rot in the desert, but Melbourne had realized early on that befriending the crew was the most reasonable path to survival. He knew there would be no rescue coming, and escaping would be next to impossible. Even though he was now often left almost completely unattended, he was well aware that not even his exceptional hand-to-hand combat skills would be enough to defeat the entire crew. Besides, even when he thought he was alone there always seemed to be a wary eye watching him from somewhere. Often that eye was in the skull of Yellow, the Blessed Mary ’s first mate and Captain Pratt’s most loyal lackey. He wondered how that worked; loyalty among a crew of criminals. He would have assumed a crew like this would be perpetually balanced between obedience and mutiny, and yet Captain Pratt maintained tight control. Melbourne didn’t know how he did it, and that alone kept him fearful of the man. He’d heard it said somewhere, and it seemed applicable now, that if you can’t beat them, join them. And that’s what he intended to do.
    “Contact off the starboard bow!”
    It was early morning, the sky over the horizon was lit with a pink hue, and the upper deck of the dirigible was empty except for the skeleton crew who had flown the ship during the night. The shout had come from above him. It had been the lookout in the crow’s nest, a rickety wooden structure mounted atop the balloon’s highest point, reached only by a terrifying ladder that curved out and around the balloon. The crow’s nest was constantly manned with a crew member ceaselessly watching the skies for approaching dirigibles or other dangers in the distance. Melbourne hoped, not for the first time, that they would never make him climb up there.
    “Contact off the starboard bow!”
    Another voice echoed the shout from above. Melbourne looked out toward the horizon and saw the oval shape of a dirigible’s balloon hanging in the air not too far away. It was a transport dirigible, similar to what the Blessed Mary had once been, perhaps even a little bigger.
    The door to the captain’s cabin burst outward as if it had been kicked, and perhaps it had. Captain Pratt stood in the doorway in his long coat, leaning on his wooden cane. With his free hand he slipped his black hat onto his head, the brim wide but curved up at the front until it was almost vertical. His red beard was braided, as were two long lengths of red hair that hung down either side of his face. He glared off toward the dirigible in the distance.
    “Bring us around then, you flea-bitten mongrel,” Captain Pratt howled in the direction of the bridge, where one of the crew stood at the wheel.
    Melbourne watched as the crew member – he thought his name was Gideon – spun the wheel enthusiastically to the right