CAPTAIN MORS THE AIR PIRATE (1908-1911) STORIES THIRTY-SIX TO FORTY

For Balladeer’s Blog’s overview of the entire Kapitan Mors der Luftpirat series click HERE.

JOURNEY WITH DEATH – Talimbo, one of the Indian members of the Luftschiff’s crew, has died. His widow Siva is devastated and asks to travel on the spaceship Meteor‘s next journey. Kapitan Mors okays the request little dreaming that the widow blames Machinist Mate Schrecken for stopping her from immolating herself in mourning and wants to kill him for revenge.

Mors pilots the Meteor toward the Northern Lights to observe them from space. Siva makes her move, endangering the entire crew and forcing desperate maneuvering of the spaceship to avoid being sucked through a gauntlet of vortices and destruction at the hands of what may be living organisms in space.

WHEELS OF THE DESERT RAILWAY – Above the deserts of Libya flies the Luftschiff. After surviving their latest dangerous space mission, the masked Kapitan Mors has led his crew to an ancient step pyramid mostly buried beneath the sands. Mors and his Away Team enter the pyramid in search of ancient scientific secrets rumored to lie inside.

Meanwhile, a British Agent spots the air ship and wants to collect the reward on the Luftpirat and his crew. For help in capturing our heroes the agent calls in the army and works up his Muslim allies into a war party against Kapitan Mors by claiming he has threatened to profane Mecca by dropping swine feces on it from the air.

ENEMIES IN SPACE – Preparations are complete for the next voyage of Kapitan Mors’ spaceship. Ship’s Astronomer Van Halen has plotted a course to the planet Venus since it and the Earth happen to be at their closest right now.

The Meteor flies off on the long journey and as the vessel draws near to Venus a spaceship under obvious intelligent control approaches our heroes. The mysterious spacecraft opens fire with energy beams and, adding additional peril, the Meteor‘s antigravity is malfunctioning against Venus’ pull. Mors and company hurl toward a crash landing on the planet.

THE MYSTERIOUS DESTRUCTION MACHINE – The Meteor is undergoing extensive repairs on Kapitan Mors’ secret island lair after limping its way back to Earth from its Venus adventure. Because those repairs will take a great deal of time the Air Pirate plans to fill the time by taking several crew members on a humanitarian mission in the air ship instead.

Mors, Stern, Schrecken, the Long Sisters and Executive Officer Lindo of India lead that crew in a flight to deliver food to a starving portion of India near the Pamir Mountains. Rasimbo, an Indian crewman who loathes the British, plots to use the Luftschiff’s futuristic weaponry to massacre Brits in India. This lands our heroes in a trap by English authorities.

MUTINY IN SPACE – Much time has passed. Preparations are nearly complete for the Meteor‘s next voyage – an exploratory mission to the moon. After a horrific storm at sea, a primitive submarine and its European crew crash into the island on which stands Mors’ lair.

Our heroes rescue the crew before they run out of air and learn they killed all their officers in a mutiny. They claim inhumane treatment and our compassionate kapitan allows them to come along to the moon as passengers. It turns out the submariners lied about the treatment they received when they launch a second mutiny aboard the Meteor on its lunar journey.

*** I’ll examine the next several tales in the near future. FOR THE NYCTALOPE, A NEGLECTED FRENCH HERO SIMILAR TO CAPTAIN MORS, CLICK HERE.