A bold new pirate gang has appeared in the criminal havens of Free Colorado, and is rapidly gaining in strength and power in the turbulent world of air piracy. The Black Hat Gang, reportedly led by mysterious pirate lord Ulysses Boothe—nicknamed the "Undertaker"—has gone from a small squadron of flying brigands to a regional threat in the Rockies and West.

Authorities in three nations, Pacifica, Arixo, and Utah, have reported Black Hat attacks on zeppelins. A clear pattern is emerging; zeppelins that defend themselves at all are either crippled and downed regardless of the cost in human lives, or crippled and boarded and the crews forced to jump off. In such cases, the passengers have been robbed, battered, and sometimes kidnapped. In one Black Hat case, the crew of a formerly-defiant zeppelin was forced to fistfight for parachutes; the losers were tossed off the zeppelin without parachutes. In another case a passenger who tried to hide money was "gear-hauled," strapped to the undercarriage of a Black Hat plane and toured around the local countryside at low altitude.

Some of the zeppelins taken by the Black Hats have not been released, and have simply vanished into the pirate-infested Rockies, including several cargo zeppelins, and at least one passenger zeppelin, probably broken up for spare parts or converted to serve the gang's nefarious purposes.