Nadira (Skybreaker character)

Nadira is a character in the 2005 novel Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel.

Background

Nadira is a gypsy, though has an English accent and states to Matt Cruse that she has come from London to find Matt in Paris. Her mother is still alive, and believed to be in London, but her father is dead. We find out later that her father is an infamous pirate, Vikram Szpirglas, whom Matt battled and eventually killed on the tail fin of the airship Aurora, on which Matt was a cabin boy.

Role in Skybreaker

Nadira is first introduced when Matt is going to meet billionaire Theodore Grunel's grandson who wants the coordinates to the legendary ship Hyperion, on which Grunel piled his riches. Nadira warns Matt that it is unsafe to go, but Matt ignores her and meets Grunel's relative anyway. The relative is revealed to be dangerous pirate, John Rath, who wishes to salvage the ship.

Nadira helps Matt escape Rath, then tries to convince Matt that she can help him salvage the Hyperion, as she has the key to the cargo hold. Matt dismisses her. The next day, after deciding to go salvage the ship, Matt comes to find her, but she is out searching for a ship that can reach the Hyperion. The ship she finds is the one that Matt's friend, Kate de Vries, has hired to search for the Hyperion. Matt, Nadira, Kate, and Hal Slater, the ship's captain, decide to voyage together, splitting the ship's contents. Traumatic events take place aboard the ship (see Skybreaker).

Nadira reveals that she is betrothed, and that she ran away to escape a dreaded marriage. She then kisses Matt (against his will) in the ship's crow's nest. When Hal discovers a mysterious tracking signal coming from inside the ship, he suspects Nadira of treachery, and searches her room. It is revealed that Szpirglas (who Matt defeated and killed in Airborn, the previous book) is Nadira's father. Hal locks her up, but after Matt convinces Hal that it was not her sending the signal as it was coming from a tracking device planted by Rath in Matt's bag, he lets her go. Matt also defends Nadira saying that she did not choose her father, and her heritage is no reason to lock her up. Hal sets a false trail for Rath before disposing of the tracking device. The trail doesn't work though because a member of the Aruba Consortium has an echolocator and uses it to find Hal's ship.

A few nights later, Matt spots the Hyperion heading directly towards them, however, collision is inevitable, and Hal's ship is damaged. The crew realizes that they will not be able to bring the Hyperion to land to salvage it, so they will have to do so in mid air. This limits the amount of time they have to plunder the ship, therefore preventing them from taking all of the ship's contents. Once the group is on the ship, they realize that Grunel was mad, and that he planned to stay aloft until "it is finished". Nadira's key proved to be useful, allowing them to enter Grunel's taxidermy room, containing extinct species, and his workshop, filled with all manner of odd machines. The group spends days searching the ship to no avail. A gale separates Hal's ship from the Hyperion, and Nadira, Matt, Hal, and Kate are forced to spend the night. Nadira's key helps once again. It turns on a machine that provides light and heat to the workshop, but also waters a vivarium enclosing aerozoans that Grunel kept in the workshop. The aerozoans escape through a crack in the glass.

Eventually, John Rath finds the Hyperion and boards it with his pirate crew. The group has the new task of evading them as well as the aerozoans. The ship becomes damaged, and everyone must escape. Once they are safely back on the Sagarmatha, Hal's ship, Matt discovers gold in the ornithopter Kate flew to the ship. It is split between Hal, Nadira, and Matt, and each receives a sufficient amount.

See also

Children's literature portal

• Airborn
• Skybreaker
• Kenneth Oppel