- Chapter 7 -

France, May, 1918

Stede Bonnet pushed forward on the stick, nosing his SPAD VII into a dive. He was separated from his squadron and miles beyond the German lines. He desperately needed to shake the enemy pilot on his six. But the forest green Fokker triplane matched the maneuver and let loose a volley of hot lead from a pair of synchronized Spandau machine guns.

A line of holes perforated the SPAD’s fuselage. The last bullet shattered the small windscreen, and a sudden sting told Bonnet he’d been grazed as well.

He pulled back hard on the stick, kicking to full throttle as the SPAD climbed high into the clouds. Maybe he could hide away from this German flier, who seemed to be able to match his every move. He banked the biplane toward the Lafayette Escadrille aerodrome just outside Verdun, squinting through the clouds for a landmark below. Stede knew the green plane and black Iron Cross insignia belonged to German ace Hans Heinrich, and he felt sick, because Heinrich was a pilot known for enforcing kills in the air. Whereas many pilots considered themselves gentlemen and would only shoot to disable enemy planes, allowing the pilots to survive, Heinrich always went for a total kill.

Stede felt wet on his neck and reached up to wipe blood onto the fingers of his gloves. His goggles were cracked on the left side, probably from the piece of windscreen which had impacted his head as it was blown apart by the German machine guns. Blood ran from a wound on his forehead and cheek, above and below the broken goggles.

Lifting the goggles to his leather flight cap, Stede strained to see ahead, but the lack of windscreen and functional eye protection already had his vision murky with tears.

He dove, deciding it best to take his chances while still able to read the landmarks below. The Fokker was immediately behind him, spraying the SPAD with another line of bullet holes. The Hispano-Suiza V8 engine sputtered and revved, sputtered and revved, and Stede knew immediately that the fuel line had been hit. He hauled left and right on the stick, jinking and weaving as Heinrich closed for the kill.

Suddenly a blue S.E.5 with British wing markings came screaming out of the sun above Heinrich, opening up with the staccato harmony of a Vickers machine gun and a top-wing-mounted Lewis gun. The Fokker erupted in smoke and fire, Heinrich struggling to maintain control of his plane as flames leaped into the cockpit. Another burst of gunfire from the S.E.5 tore through Heinrich himself, ensuring he would not feel the fire nor the impact as his plane spiraled down in smoldering wreckage.

Stede glanced to his left. Blood was seeping into his left eye, but he could just make out the pilot of the British plane. A square-jawed six-footer saluted him and drifted back to fly escort until Stede got his failing plane close to home. Then the British plane was gone.

Stede Bonnet followed up with the other Allied squadrons, asking after the blue S.E.5 and its pilot. He’d managed to get a name: Jack McGraw, the pilot they called “Captain Stratosphere” for his tactics, which sounded quite like the pilot he’d encountered. Jack had likewise found the pale yellow SPAD with the black skull markings to belong to Lieutenant Stede Bonnet with the Escadrille Américaine. The two men had come close to meeting over the next few months, but then the RAF No. 32 Squadron was reassigned back to England after the Armistice, and McGraw with it. For two pilots who had only met briefly in the skies over France, each ended the war knowing quite a bit about the other.

# # #

The tavern was like a swashbuckler movie set. Stucco outside, exposed brick within, wrought-iron candle lanterns on the walls and hanging from the ceiling beams—strong enough to swing on, Jack thought. Fishermen and pilots mixed with the local prostitutes, and a one-eyed bartender pulled frothy beers from wooden casks behind the bar. Rum bottles—of a locally-made and unmarked variety—lined the shelves above.

Doc felt as if she’d wandered into a Robert Louis Stevenson novel.

Stede, Jack and Doc sat at a quiet corner table. The trio occasionally got a discerning look from one of the patrons, but nobody messed with Stede Bonnet, pirate admiral of the skies.

A small monkey scampered among the three, taking the occasional scrap of food or nip of rum from Stede’s glass.

Stede was catching his guests up on his transition out of the French military.

“So when the war ended,” he explained, “most of us found a distinct lack of opportunity out here in the islands. There weren’t any jobs before the war, after all. I don’t know what I thought would be different.” He took a gulp from the glass, swallowing hard. “So we cobbled together this flying flotilla and made our own opportunity.”

“What about running mail or passenger service?” Jack asked.

“We do that too,” Stede nodded. “But the legal jobs are few, and they don’t pay well.”

The monkey suddenly climbed up on Doc’s shoulder and began to groom her, combing through her hair for anything edible.

Stede laughed. “It would appear you’ve become the new best friend of Jake-in-Irons.”

Doc grinned as the monkey dug into her hair. “What a jolly pirate name,” she said.

“We took him from a South African poacher who sailed into our jurisdiction,” Stede said. “It seemed appropriate.” He tipped back another sip of rum. “But enough about me. What brings you to my island, Captain?”

Jack leaned forward on his elbows. “What else,” he asked, “but the end of the world?”

They sat and talked for another hour, telling Stede the story of Aleister Crowley and the Silver Star, of the mysterious Luftpanzer, of the assassinations of Vincenzo DiMarco and Dirk Starr, and the origin of AEGIS and the airship Daedalus. When they were finished, Stede leaned back in the corner, tossing a shot of rum back and mulling over this new information.

He glanced back and forth at Jack and Doc, finally sitting forward. “That’s quite a tale,” he said.

“God’s own truth, Stede.” Jack ran a hand through his hair and noticed it was matted with sweat. The Caribbean was a region where you just accepted you were going to be wet at all times with seawater, rain, sweat, or a combination of all three.

Jake-in-Irons had passed out, belly full and distended, in Doc’s lap. She spoke softly so as not to wake him.

“We think the Luftpanzer might be on its way to Haiti,” she suggested. “Possibly to acquire the Cross of Cadiz.”

Stede leaned back again, holding the small pewter mug with three fingers. “Doc,” he said, “I might not go in for all of that occult mumbo jumbo, but the bottom line is that Jack here saved my life. So ‘end of the world’ or no, Bonnet’s Brigands will give the Daedalus crew safe passage within our skies, and we’ll help you whenever we can.”

He offered the mug to Jack, who toasted with his own. “Thank you, dear friend.”

Then the sky above West End became suddenly dark, and a behemoth descended from the clouds. The bar began to clear, and Deadeye burst into the tavern from the street outside.

“Captain!” he shouted. “Picked up a huge signal—Duke thinks it’s the Luftpanzer!”

The plaintive wail of an emergency siren rose above the confusion of patrons scattering. Stede rose from the table and headed for the front entrance. “They must be close,” he said.

Jack and Doc met Deadeye at the door.

“Take Doc back to the ship,” Jack ordered. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

The first explosion tore through the bottle glass window of the tavern, knocking the four to the ground.

Stede was up immediately, rushing outside—and taking the door off its hinges in the process. Another explosion rocked the town center, then another, then another. The old cobblestone streets were strewn with ceramic roof tiles and chunks of plaster. Parts of at least six bodies poked up through the rubble.

“They’re bombing us!” Stede bellowed, furious. He took off down the street, Jack following behind.

“Doc! Over here!” Deadeye grabbed Doc by the shoulder, hauling her toward the small electric motorcycle parked near the outside tavern door. The Dugdale had a lightweight aluminum frame and a bolt-on sidecar, which wasn’t much more than a folding baby carriage with an armor plate at the front. Deadeye jumped into the saddle, switching on the underpowered electric engine. Doc stumbled into the sidecar, finding an uncomfortable seat on a honeycombed piece of metal.

The bike pulled away with a whine, just as another bomb impacted the street, sending chunks of dirt, cobblestones and 300-year-old tar into the air in front of them. Deadeye struggled to keep the motorcycle upright, almost spilling them both as the front fork caught a pothole and flipped sideways. He readjusted in the air and the bike came down hard, rubber tires squeaking on the cobbles.

Doc grunted with the impact. “Oof! I was never thrilled with the Dugdale,” she said.

Deadeye revved the electric motor to full throttle, slaloming down the main street to the harbor, dodging bombs and debris. “It’s light, it’s fast, and it’ll get us back to the ship,” he said.

Two streets to the west, Jack caught up with Stede. The pirate was heading toward a pier that branched off from the main dock, where a couple of Sopwith Babies floated at the wharf.

“Got a spare kite you could let me fly?” Jack asked.

“Thought you’d never ask,” Stede replied. “This way—to the north dock!”

The two men scampered over a low retaining wall and down across a spit of sand to the makeshift air harbor, where Stede jumped into the Revenge gondola, casting off the dock ties immediately.

Jack undid a dock line on a Sopwith Baby, climbed into the cockpit and hit the ignition. He thrilled as the Clerget rotary engine spun to life, and he shoved a piece of Black Jack gum into his mouth as he pulled away into the water of the harbor. He did a quick visual check of the flaps and rudder as he pulled the radio headset from its cubby and taxied into the bay to take off.

The Revenge had 600 feet of altitude on him before he was off the water.

Jack put on the Resistal goggles he’d brought along, grabbing the pinch-call on the radio. “Captain McGraw to Daedalus,” he said. “Climb as high as you can. Get out of the area. Defend the ship if necessary, but do not engage. We’ll handle the Luftpanzer!”

The frequency was already abuzz with pirate chatter, wondering what kind of ship could appear out of the clouds and bomb their town. Most of the pirate seaplanes had already scrambled aloft and were racing to engage the attacker.

Jack watched in horror as two Sopwiths were blown to pieces as they approached the giant airship, shredded by heavy machine gun fire from gun emplacements amidships. Then his fuselage was dotted with bullet holes and a Fokker D.VII swooped past him. He throttled forward and climbed slightly to get some altitude on the Silver Star plane. “Come here, you dirty rat!”

Static burst into his ears, and Jack heard Stede’s voice. “Watch your tail, Jack,” he warned. “Two enemy fighters coming in fast!”

Jack ventured a quick look behind his plane to see two more Silver Star fighters drafting in on him. He banked to the left, but the Sopwith felt slower than he was used to—probably the floats. The enemy fighters easily tracked with him.

“Stede, I can’t shake ‘em!” He pulled back on the stick in a high corkscrew maneuver, his favorite evasive action. At 4,000 feet, he arched over backwards, feeling the few moments of weightlessness before gravity took hold and pulled him down with the plane. The Revenge motored almost half a mile directly below him. He used the balloon as a visual reference as the plane dove almost vertically. The Silver Star fighters stuck with him, diving in unison.

Stede was back in Jack’s ears. “When you dive, bank right and roll under the Revenge. Bring them to my guns!”

Jack aimed for the edge of the Revenge’s gondola, waiting until the last possible moment to bank sideways under the balloon, rolling as he did so. His left float brushed the gondola’s undercarriage as it flipped over with the rolling Sopwith.

Stede’s Lewis guns barked, and shredded one of the enemy planes’ upper wings clean off. The plane spiraled to the water and splashed down.

“Great shot, Stede!” Jack shouted.

He leveled out and throttled back, and the other Silver Star plane shot past him, its pilot anticipating a wholly different position. Jack opened up with the Sopwith’s Lewis gun and picked apart the enemy’s tail rudder and linkages. The fighter skidded sideways, presenting Jack with a larger target. He fired again, and the pilot was ripped into bloody pieces along with the flight controls. One of the Spandau guns popped loose and fell into the spinning propeller, sending pieces of both flying in every direction. The dead pilot immediately began to smoke and bubble, and the D.VII dropped toward the water like a falling anchor.

Jack throttled forward again and pulled back on the stick, aiming for the top side of the Luftpanzer. If he approached from dead astern, he figured he’d stand a better chance of not getting shot by those machine guns in the middle.

“Now to see what this zeppelin is made of,” Jack broadcast. “All Brigands, form up on me and we’ll take a run up its backside!” Then he added,”Use incendiaries if you have ‘em!”

The pirate squadron gathered on Jack’s wings and tail, eleven seaplanes and a powered balloon. The Daedalus brought up the rear at an altitude of 6,000 feet. Even at full speed, the Luftpanzer was no match for the Sopwiths, which could clock 100 miles per hour. It began to climb and run, and Jack prepared to strafe it.

“First wave, on me!” he shouted, pushing forward on the stick and throttling to full speed.

But as the pirate planes neared their target, the giant airship began to emit an unearthly glow, and a whistling feedback saturated their headsets. The glow became an ever brighter light, culminating in a blinding flash…

…then nothing.

The Luftpanzer was gone.

Jack tried to blink the tracers from his eyes, sure that some kind of dark magic had been at work here. As the radio chatter erupted with unsettled questions and observations from the other pilots, Jack found himself throttling down and heading back to the harbor. It’s not possible, he thought. It simply couldn’t be.

# # #

As the tropical sun set over crystal blue water, Jack tarried for a moment at the ladder from the Daedalus gondola. Stede Bonnet stood on the dock nearby, arms folded across his chest, unsure what to say.

“I don’t know how they disappeared or where they went,” Jack said, “but we’ll find them.”

Stede nodded. “I have a town to help rebuild, but we’ll be along in due time.”

“Thank you, old friend,” Jack said, waving from the ladder.

Stede called after him. “If your foe can make a zeppelin disappear, you’ll need all the help you can get.”