Role in Skybreaker
Matt is a student of the famous Airship Academy in Paris, and is on a training tour when the book opens. Through coincidence, he becomes the sole person in possession of the famed ghost ship Hyperion's last known coordinates, which results in his near-kidnap by a hired pirate named Rath, his rescue by a gypsy girl named Nadira, and a business proposal offered by her.
Matt's scientifically-minded love interest, Kate de Vries, is also interested in the Hyperion, because the ghost ship is rumored to carry a rare assortment of zoological specimens. This common goal eventually brings them all to a young captain named Hal Slater, who pilots the Sagarmatha (Nepalese for Everest), one of the few "Skybreaker" airships in existence that could bring them to the altitude where the Hyperion is. The four team up and embark on a journey to find the Hyperion, intending on salvaging its riches. Matt and Kate's loyalty and faith in each other is also tested during the journey, with Slater making a move on Kate, while Nadira takes an interest in Matt.
The team find the Hyperion, though damages on the Sagarmatha forces them to salvage the ghost ship in mid-air instead of towing it back to a safe harbor. Rath's men, hired by a wealthy member of the Aruba Consortium (which has near monopoly on the extremely important power source, Aruba fuel) named Barton, arrives on scene later and attempts to destroy the Hyperion. Apparently the ghost ship's owner, inventor and billionaire Theodore Grunel, had made a clean energy machine that uses the sun's light to create water, energy, and hydrium (a fictional, inflammable lifting gas) from air and water. This creation, the "Prometheus Engine", threatens the Aruba Consortium's existence, and thus Barton seeks to destroy it. Matt's group also want the engine's blueprints as a possible means to make a fortune, and a chase begins between them and Barton's men, during which Matt plays several pivotal roles.
In the end, the four barely escape the burning and falling Hyperion safely, coming away with 40 gold bricks as their reward. Matt and Kate end up mending their relationship, and grows closer as a couple. The Prometheus Engine is ultimately destroyed.
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