Together, they leapt into the pirate plane. Baloo picked up startled Hal - a rotund orange feline pirate - by the scruff of his neck and tossed him overboard with a cheery, “Thanks for the loaner, pal.”

Hal’s parachute deployed. He drifted, and then disappeared, into the fog.

The CT-37 with Baloo and Kit followed the rest of the pirate airplanes to the Iron Vulture’s landing strip located on top of the huge mother-ship. They watched in stunned silence as the Sea Duck, operated by remote control, also landed on top of the Iron Vulture.

“Look, Baloo. Karnage has a joystick. I bet that’s how he’s controlling the Sea Duck.”

Baloo’s face screwed up into a black scowl. “That dirty skunk! He’s got some kinda remote control device planted on my baby.” He pushed up his sleeves, ready to pummel Karnage into the ground.

“No, this way!” Kit hissed, tugging on Baloo’s shirt. While Don Karnage and his gang were inspecting the Sea Duck, they slipped from the CT-37 and snuck into the Iron Vulture through a trapdoor in the floor.

Don Karnage, twirling the joystick in his hands, swaggered up to the Sea Duckand knocked on the cockpit door. Confident of his capture, he sang out, “All right, Bahloo. I have got you now. Come out with the two hands up.” In an aside to his cronies, he said, “Hee-hee. It is just like the cops-and-robbers radio show, yes-no?”

No answer from the seaplane.

“Do not play sneak-and-hide with me! I know you are in there, Bahloo!” Karnage flung open the door, drew his sword from his scabbard, and looked in. Empty. He climbed inside and searched that plane from the rudder to the fuzzy dice. It was absolutely devoid of any living soul.

“I am not believing what my eyes do not see!” Karnage ranted, seething with outraged fury. He didn’t like being outsmarted. After hopping from the plane, he kicked the nearest air pirate. “Where is that fat pilot?”

The fat pilot was at that moment crawling through the air ducts of the Iron Vulture behind Kit. “Oof! Shouldn’t have had that fourth slice of pizza for lunch.”

“Shh!” Kit warned, finger to his lips. “I thought I heard something.”

“Yeah, Kid, the sound of me bein’ stuck.” Baloo tugged on the hem of his shirt, which was caught on a rivet.

Kit gazed down through a vent into a room where a smallish bird with googly eyes in a vest and bow tie was pacing and mumbling fretfully to himself. “Buzz!” Kit whispered.

“Buzz?” Baloo squeezed his ample backside past a protruding beam with difficulty. “Buzz is here? I shoulda known Karny kidnaped Buzz, too.”

Meanwhile...
Down the Hall in the Iron Vulture’s Brig

Rebecca awoke. She wished that she hadn’t; her head was throbbing. She blinked a few times to accustom herself to her surroundings. Bare metal walls, a heavy, metal door crisscrossed with bars, and a low, far-away sound like steadily beating wings. With a groan, she realized that she was on the Iron Vulture. Now she knew what was wrong with that sheep. The mouth wasn’t synchronized with the voice, because it was a costume. She had fallen for the ‘bait’ trick hook, line, and sinker.

An orangish, brawny canine (Hacksaw) with the brains of a walnut paced outside her cell, muttering, “One, two, five, one, two, five...” Seeing Rebecca dizzily sit up on the edge of her dingy cot, he shouted at the top of his voice, a voice unexpectedly high-pitched, “Captain! Captain, the prisoner’s awake!”

Don Karnage leered through the bars into the dim cell. “Ah, my bait has awoke-ed. Get enough beauty sleep, my dear? Good. I want you to look your best to catch the big prize fish.”

Rebecca shuffled to the door. “What big prize fish? What am I doing here? What’s going on here, Karnage?”

“Enough with the interrogative-point questions!” Karnage snapped impatiently. He seized Rebecca’s chin in his hand, running one finger down her cheek none too gently.

Shuddering with revulsion, she shoved his paws away with a disdainful, “Don’t touch me, you...you pirate!”

“Ooo! Feisty.” The pirate captain’s haughty smirk transformed into a haughtier sneer. “I hate that! Start counting down the last tick-tocks of the clock, because you don’t have many left, Ree-beck-ka.” With a triumphant, evil laugh, he spun on his heel, commanding, “Keep watch over her, Hacksaw. I must be off,” he declared with a flourish of his hand, “to make my glorious presence known to Cape Suzette so that they can give me oodles of presents. I make a joke. Hee-hee!”

Hacksaw laughed stupidly even though his dim-witted wits didn’t comprehend the joke. He knew enough that when the captain laughed, everyone laughed. It was the smart thing to do if you wanted to stay alive.

Rebecca scowled at Karnage defiantly until he was out of sight. After he rounded the corner, her courage faltered, leaving a very scared bearess. She wondered who she was to be the bait for, and what was going to become of her after she had served her purpose. Knowing Karnage, she surmised that it couldn’t be anything good. She huddled up on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest. Tears pricked her eyes, but she hastily blinked them away. She resolved to be brave, because she had to figure out a way to escape; but, try as she might, not one plausible idea came to mind. “Oh, Baloo, where are you when I need you?” she whispered to herself.

The Iron Vulture’s Cockpit

“At last, my men, it is the moment you have been waiting for all your pathetic, insignificant lives.” Karnage picked up the microphone and strode to the big window so that he could see the city that he had captured. Of course, he couldn’t due to the thick fog. “Attention, denizens of Cape Suzette! I am back, that fantabulous, plundering wonder, Don Karnage.” He listened for a second. “I do not hear a round of applause. Are you not happy, people of Cape Suzette, of my coming? But perhaps you cannot be happy because you cannot see my glorious self. But, I can assure you, we are here!”

Over the intercom, he said, “Get your goody sacks ready, men, for tonight we begin seven days and seven nights of plunder! Ear protection on!”

All of the pirates donned a pair of earmuffs in the color of their choice.

Gibber lifted one of Karnage’s earmuffs to whisper into his ear.

“Of course, I remember!” Karnage snapped, even though he had completely forgotten their previous mistake. “We don’t want to repeat the Aridia fiasco. Set engines to full power!”

Karnage walked two rooms down the hall to where a curious little object stood. Canister upon canister of Frigid-Air lined the walls. Rubbing his hands together in anticipation, he turned a knob. Then, he turned another knob up to ‘high speed’. “Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!” Karnage sang with a triumphant chuckle.

Karnage’s smile grew in proportion to the horrific noise that the machine made, and then...

It stopped.

“Ah!” Karnage cried, becoming panicked. “No!” He took the machine between his two hands and gave it a fierce shake. In halted tones, he hissed between clenched teeth, “Work! Work! I...am...so...close...and...a...piece... of...metal...is...
not...going...to...mess...my...glorious...plans...up! Not...now! Not...ever!”

A clunk and a cough and the machine hummed to life with a deafening, persistent squeal. Karnage’s sinister smile returned to his face.

One turn of a knob and a blizzard accompanied by violent winds ripped across Cape Suzette. The tropical city that had rarely seen snow was now seeing it with a vengeance. Cape Suzette was in the grip of a blinding, raging snowstorm, the first ever in its history. In a matter of a few minutes, the metropolis was blanketed with heavy, wet snow, the type of snow that’s hard to shovel because it’s so dense. Tree limbs cracked under the weight as did roofs. Cars slid off the road, crashing into each other, into the river, and into buildings. The snow weighted down power lines, causing much of Cape Suzette to be without power.

The only ones who were thrilled about the blizzard were the ones who started it - the air pirates. In fact, they weren’t even affected by the snow. Where they were, hovering over the city, the sun was shining and it was fairly warm. How was this possible? Well, the weather machine (which what the machine was) had a little pipe running out of it. This pipe increased in diameter as it went from the machine, out the window of the Iron Vulture, down nearly an eighth of a mile towards the city. At the bottom, the pipe was big enough for a good-sized man to pass through. The pirates had to reverse the props and set the engines to full throttle so that the downward thrust of the wind wouldn’t propel the Iron Vulture upward. There was a lot of pressure as well as snow and wind coming out of that little pipe.

Earmuffs over their ears, Gibber and Ratchet could still hear the high-pitched, nerve-racking, teeth-grinding squeal that emanated from the weather machine even though it was down the hall with several walls between it and them. Gibber muttered something into Karnage’s ear after the pirate captain sauntered confidently into the cockpit.

“No, it’s not too loud. It is music to mine eardrums.” Over the microphone, Karnage said in a voice as harsh and cold as the wind, “Are you liking the weather, Cape Suzette? Hee-hee! If you want the snow to freeze up, here’s what you must do: give up the keys to the city and give us all of your valuables, money, and precious knickity-knacks. I will give you precisely ten minuets to make up your frost-bit, little minds.”

Khan Towers

Shere Khan watched the entire scene unfold from his penthouse office. During the brief moment before the blizzard began, the fog cleared, revealing the Iron Vulture as