Air Pirates of Krakatoa

by Dave Robinson

  Van Houten took another draught. “Yes, Dr. Vandal, I know quite a bit about you.” He set the glass down on the table beside his chair. “You have a reputation to live up to, and that reputation has nothing to do with agricultural investments.”

  Doc nodded. “I suppose I have developed something of a reputation.”

  Van Houten snapped his fingers, and a familiar-seeming man poured him another drink before retreating back to the bar.

  “Now as I see it, a great deal of that reputation is for putting your nose where it doesn't belong.” He sniffed. “I imagine that's a result of youth and lack of purpose, but quite frankly I don't care, and it's none of my business. However, Java is my business, and I don't need your interference.”

  Doc took a small sniff of his own brandy, and then placed the drink on his own side table. “Go on.”

  “You can go back to Batavia, and I will not only ensure your aircraft is released from impound, but expedite your repairs so you can be on your way. I'm sure I can get engine parts from Japan more rapidly than you can from the United States.” The older man paused, and took a drink, the snifter looking surprisingly small in his hands.

  “Should you not take my offer, not only will your aircraft remain impounded, but you may find the difficulties involved in obtaining replacement parts to be insurmountable. Especially for someone fighting charges of air piracy. The public prosecution service is only a phone call away.”

  “And what about my cousin's murder?”

  Van Houten stroked his chin. “Once you leave, the killer will be found, and after brief trial, executed. I will of course buy out your inheritance so you no longer have to concern yourself with the consortium. Perhaps a hundred thousand guilders? I know it's not market value, but it's a nice round figure and that way I won't have to burden you with a bill for my services as caretaker these last few weeks.” He paused and looked over Doc's shoulder. “Nor will I bring up what appears to be the use of a false passport by one of your party.”

  “I see.” Doc looked around to see Vic deep in conversation with Beatrice Van Houten. “It sounds like you have everything all figured out.”

  “Why yes, I do.” Van Houten inclined his head. “Shall we go to dinner? I'll have the papers for you in the morning.”

  “After you.” Doc rose and let his host lead him towards the table.

  #

  Vic was glad to get away from Van Houten. There was something about the way he had looked at her that just put her on edge. At least she wasn't his wife. It hadn't taken long to tell that he viewed women as some three-way cross between children, pets, and possessions that made her skin crawl. The meal had been good, and Beatrice seemed nice, though Vic wasn't sure she had two thoughts in her head to rub together. Raising her eyes to the heavens she once again thanked her grandmother’s memory for not trying to marry Vic off before the money ran out.

  Ming sulked in the corner, just like she had ever since they had picked up Doc on the road her. She still insisted on getting Vic up in the mornings, and picking out her clothes, but the experience was totally different than it had been before. Now Ming was sulky and silent, glaring at Vic like one of her poorly trained Russian maids trapped in England after the revolution. The big difference was that her eyes didn’t naturally

  “Ming?”

  “What?” Ming met Vic's eyes with fire. “Do you want me to plump your pillows while you and Doc go for a walk in the moonlight?”

  “Ha ha. Very funny. No, I want you to take me out among the workers.” Vic reached for a pair of khakis and her favorite boots. “No one in their right mind would believe Van Houten, so I want to head out and see how things match up with what he's saying.”

  “All right.” Ming reached for her own clothes. “But why don't you go with Doc?”

  “Van Houten's got his eye on Doc, but he doesn't seem to think much of women. He's less likely to be suspicious if we go for a walk than if Doc was sneaking around.”

  “Hmph.” Ming didn't look happy, but she was quick enough getting ready. Vic didn't know why the whole marriage thing was at her so much, but there was no point worrying about it now, not when they had a major job to do. She'd have to talk to Ming tomorrow. In the meantime, they were going for a walk.

  Vic slipped her pistol and a flashlight into her purse, and grabbed her hat. She'd heard stories about squirrels killing deer on one of the islands, and while that sounded far-fetched, it was no more so did a city of Nazi gorillas, and she’d been there.

  Luckily, they were staying in a bungalow rather than the main house, so it was easy to slip out. Ming led the way towards the plantation cottages. Much of the plantation was on a slope, with the main house at the top, and the bungalows and cottages below. Vic followed quietly behind Ming, avoiding the urge to use her flashlight. There wasn't any moon, but the stars were out and in conjunction with the lights from the main house they gave Vic just enough light to see by.

  After a few minutes, they reached a cluster of cottages. There was a small fire outside one of the cottages, with a man sitting quietly looking at the flames. Ming walked up to him and started speaking quietly in a language Vic didn't understand. He was short and dark, wearing a brown top over a pair of shorts. He smiled at Vic and pointed to a wooden stool.

  She nodded her thanks, and took the seat. The top was smooth, and she swiveled easily to keep both of them in view. He was speaking quickly, pointing to the other cottages, as Ming nodded her head.

  Finally, they paused their conversation and Ming turned to Vic. “This is Slamet, he's been a coffee picker here all his life. His family has worked for the Van Houtens for generations.”

  Vic began to extend a hand, but Ming shook her head minutely, so she dropped it onto her knee. “Thank you for being willing to talk to us.” She looked around the cluster of cottages. “Is it always so dark here?”

  Ming exchanged a few words with him. “Now it is, he says. Most of the pickers are gone.”

  “What do you mean? Is this recent?”

  There was another exchange of words, this time Slamet was more expressive, pointing at the various cottages. Ming questioned him a few times before turning back to Vic.

  “It's been the last few months more than anything. They've picked less than a quarter of the crop the last two seasons. Almost all the pickers have been sent to work on Van Houten’s machines instead.”

  “Machines? Ask him what kind of machines?”

  Slamet bent over and pantomimed something moving up and down like a giant seesaw or water bird. It took a moment for Vic to make sense of it at first, but finally it clicked. An oil pump.

  “Oil. Ming, is he saying they're working on oil fields rather than growing coffee?”

  “I think so.” Ming turned back to Slamet. This time the conversation lasted much longer before Ming finally turned her attention back to Vic. “There's one only a couple of miles away. He says he can take us there if we want.”

  Vic looked at the time; it was barely after midnight, plenty of time to get there and back while still giving them a few hours to sleep. It's not like Van Houten would be surprised if a woman slept in, and he probably didn't think Ming existed. As long as they were back before the servants came in to clean up, they should be good.

  “Let's go.”

  Ming said a few words to Slamet, and he grinned widely, revealing missing teeth. He turned towards Vic and bowed once, then set off further down the hill. There were plenty of coffee trees, and even in the darkness they looked heavily laden. Ming and Slamet were shadows ahead of her, darker splotches on the hillside. The ground was rough, making Vic thankful for the ankle support from her boots. Ming's shoes looked more like slippers, and Vic made a mental note to get her some proper boots if she ever loosened up enough to take a gift in the spirit it was offered. Slamet was barefoot, and Vic had no clue how he was making it through these hills, but from the pace he was setting the ground was the least of his worries. The path he was taking led away from the main ho
use, and the road they had taken to get here.

  It was a good hour before they got out of the hills. Vic heard it first, the barking sound of an engine up ahead. Other mechanical noises joined the background, squeaking and rattling. As the terrain opened up, Vic got a better look at her surroundings. There were oil wells everywhere, at least half a dozen visible through the undergrowth. She had come up behind the central power, which was still running into the night.

  Slamet pointed at the building and leaned close to Ming, talking rapidly. From what he was saying there was more to things than just this collection of oil pumps. A closer look showed Vic that they weren't alone. Even in the middle of the night there were people tending the machinery. Most looked like younger versions of Slamet. Barefoot Javanese moved with purpose from one pump jack to another, checking and oiling the machinery.

  Vic watched for a few minutes, trying to understand why what she was seeing was important. There was plenty of oil in the Indies, so why did it matter that they were drilling for oil instead of growing coffee? It didn't make sense.

  She shook her head, and got up to go, but Ming was pointing toward the central power. With a silent sigh, she turned back towards the central power. At first glance, the building looked like any other, but then she wasn't an expert. It looked like any other oil field she'd seen. The guards looked a bit odd, especially this late at night, but both oil and coffee were worth enough for guards. She took a step back, and then something clicked in her head. Why were the guards in Japanese uniforms? Vic turned away from Ming, and then got ready to move forward for a better look.

  “Stop right there,” a man said softly from behind her.

  She spun her her head to see a man standing about five feet from Ming, with a pistol pointed straight at her midsection. From his height and body language, Vic thought he was Chinese, but it was hard to tell.

  “I want you to come over here and stand beside her.” He made a small gesture with the barrel of his pistol. “If you don't I'll have to put a bullet in her stomach so she stays put while I chase you down.”

  Vic rose slowly, trying to draw the gunman's attention away from Ming. His eyes flickered from one to the other, but his gun remained pointed straight at the smaller woman. With each step, she measured the distance again, looking for the perfect moment to spring. One step, then two.

  “Don't do anything stupid.” The man flicked the barrel of his pistol toward Vic and then back to Ming.

  “Let her go,” Vic muttered through clenched teeth. “I'll come peacefully if you just let her go.”

  The man shook his head, his teeth white against his bronzed skin. “No, I'm afraid I can't let this little one go.”

  One more step, Vic figured, one more step and she should be able to get between them faster than he could fire.

  She raised her foot, shuffled forward, and pain exploded from the back of her skull. The last thing she saw was Ming’s face, and then blackness.

  #

  Doc reached under his pillow as he heard someone start rapping on his door, closing a hand around his stopper pistol. Light filtered under the door, giving him enough illumination to see what was going on. Closing his eyes, he listened carefully to try and get a bit more detail. There were at least eight or ten people moving around outside the door, most of them barefoot.

  “Just a moment,” he called. The rapping paused for a moment, but then picked up. By the clock on the wall it was just after 3 AM, but the house felt alive with movement. For a second, Doc wondered if he should have taken a bungalow, but Van Houten had insisted he stay in the main house instead, even though the others were all given bungalows. Normally Doc insisted they stay together, but Van Houten hadn't taken no for an answer when he'd split them up.

  Still, it had been fascinating to see the expression on the Dutchman's face when he described Kehla as Gus's wife.

  Doc had just started to sit up when the door burst open, and Van Houten strode in, followed by half a dozen armed guards.

  “No, don't bother to get up yet.” He waved a hand dismissively in Doc's general direction.

  Doc leaned back slowly, his right hand with the pistol below the covers, watching as Van Houten's guards filtered into the room, forming a semicircle around him, staying outside his reach. The numbers didn't look good. He could drop Van Houten easily enough, but the guards would drop him shortly afterwards and they probably didn't have rubber bullets.

  “It seems some of your friends couldn't leave well enough alone,” Van Houten said. “My men caught two of your women poking their noses where they didn't belong, and it appears they may have seen some things they shouldn't have. I’m afraid I'm going to have to extend a rather different sort of hospitality to you and your associates.”

  Doc raised an eyebrow, measuring angles as he tried to figure out exactly what Van Houten was and wasn't saying. It didn't sound good for Vic and Ming, especially as Doc was fairly sure that Van Houten wouldn't dignify Kehla by calling her a woman.

  “So if you could leave the pistol behind when you get of the bed, I would appreciate it.” Van Houten's words were punctuated with the sound of rifle bolts slamming home.

  #

  It wasn't long before Doc found himself outside the mansion, under the watchful eye of Van Houten's guards. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and from the number of guards Van Houten wasn't taking any chances. All they had left him was a pair of pajama pants. One thing about the Indies, at least it wasn't too cold even at night. He could handle cold weather, but that didn't mean he particularly liked it.

  They had taken him out behind the building this time, and he was surprised to see how much clear space there was available. The mansion was on top of a small hill, that descended to an airfield. It was at least half a mile wide and a mile and a half long, with a wind sock at the far end. As Doc watched, a series of lights rose along the sides of the field, marking out a runway.

  One of the guards pushed him with a rifle butt, forcing him towards a path that led down towards the runway. The path was smooth, packed dirt under his bare feet, so he sped up just enough to stay out of reach of their rifle butts.

  As he reached the bottom, he saw Gilly, Gus, and Kehla standing off to the side. All three were bound and wearing nightclothes, with guards standing just far enough away to keep stay out of reach. The slope behind them had become a cliff, and as his eyes adjusted, Doc saw that it was a large door, perhaps a hundred feet high and wider than he could see.

  A few moments later, a small door opened in the larger one and Van Houten stepped out, still wearing his white linen suit. “Ah, there you are.” He waved towards Doc and his friends. “I'd like you to direct your eyes to the south if you would.”

  Doc heard it before he saw it, the drone of propellers on the wind. At first it was just a splotch of blackness against the slowly lightening sky. Then as it got closer, he was able to pull out more details, revealing the flying wing they had fought on the way in. From the ground it appeared much bigger than it had from the air, like a behemoth of the skies. Though smaller than a Zeppelin, it had an almost brutish presence, forcing itself through the air by sheer power. It circled the airfield once, then sideslipped in line with the runway.

  Huge flaps dropped down from the wing as the forward engine pods on the upper wing began to rise above the wing surface. Doors opened at the base of the pontoons, releasing six wheels on each side. At the same time, the wingtips began to fold down, revealing another set of wheels. Meanwhile, the ten engine pods in the leading edge of the upper wing slowly extended forwards until they projected past the leading edge of the main wing.

  Even from this distance Doc could see it shudder as it passed into ground effect. Moments later it touched down, thudding onto the grass field with sufficient force that Doc felt it from a mile away. Dust and clippings rushed towards them as whoever was piloting threw ten engines into full reverse while feathering the other ten props. The brakes screamed as the massive plane fought inertia to a standstill.


  Doc took a moment to glance at Van Houten, who was puffing on a cheroot, almost as if he needed something to do to cover his impatience. This was clearly part of the man's plan, even if Doc thought he might have preferred to wait a little longer.

  Doc took an involuntary step back as the fury of the wing washed over them. It had stopped less than a hundred feet away, all twenty engines still running. Whoever was at the controls knew exactly what they were doing, feathering the props with an expert hand. Now that he was closer, Doc could get a better sense of scale for the flying wing. It was huge, almost as impressive as a dirigible.

  The main wing had a span of over five hundred feet, and was almost ten feet thick at the wing tips. Portholes in the center section showed four distinct levels between the pontoons. The pontoons themselves were over two hundred feet long, twenty feet wide, and thirty feet high. A pair of turrets with rapid-firing cannon topped the pontoons, one each fore and aft. Now that he had a better look at it, the design looked familiar. The armament was new, but the rest of it looked a lot like the hypothetical airliner in a book he had read a few years ago.

  A door opened in the side of the nearer pontoon, and Van Houten's guards started hustling Dock and the other prisoners toward the opening. Doc glanced over his shoulder and saw Van Houten sauntering towards the wing, before a rifle butt to the back made him pick up his feet.

  They crossed the gap quickly, and the guards herded them up the ramp. Doc had to blink as his eyes adjusted to the bright light inside the wing. It was surprisingly spacious, with gray floors and off-white walls. The guards kept pushing them across the floor toward the back of the pontoon, as Doc tried to garner as much detail as he could about their new prison. From the corner of his eye he saw Van Houten and a handful of guards walk over to an elevator near the middle of the craft.

  Just as Doc reached a hatchway he saw the elevator door open and Tigress step out between a pair of Ligers. Then two of the guards stepped forwards, and shoved him through the hatch.