Post by redsycorax on Nov 1, 2021 3:45:26 GMT
One of the most formidable protagonists in the Justice Guild's 'rogues gallery' was Leonard Lothaire. At first a cheap, penny ante crook, he then inherited millions of dollars from an eccentric aunt and became a corrupt, well-heeled millionaire. Lothaire founded the high-tech criminal organisation International Larceny. Using its vehicles, and a changing roster of criminal associates, Lothaire and the Justice Guild fought each other as he pillaged and plundered financial institutions with flair and flash. Until one day...
++
PROLOGUE: AUGUST 1962:
As Battleaxe Three thundered into near-Earth orbit, Green Guardsman and Catman pursued it, within a power ringed sphere:
"We've got to develop our own high atmosphere vehicles, Scott."
"No argument there, Ted. Oops, looks like flak from B3. Taking evasive action..." As they rocked above the placidity of the blue, cloud-flecked Atlantic far below, Catman reflected on the rise of their assailant. Once, Leonard Lothaire had been a petty criminal. There was even a 'modernist' magazine photocover of him being knocked out by Catman in front of a psychedelic, hypnotic vortex modern art background. But then, an eccentric relative had passed away and Lothaire had vanished for a time. Unfortunately, he returned two years later with an ensemble of advanced criminal transport and escape vehicles under his control, and rebranded as "International Larceny."
Several thousand miles above the Atlantic Ocean, Lothaire glared at the incoming Justice Guild figures, from the relative security of Battleaxe Five, the International Larceny space station. He increased the outflow of drifting aluminium pellets, designed to repel the Green Guardsman's unwelcome attentions:
"Damn you, Lothaire," Catman said into the bubble's microphone,"that could have killed us if we'd been any closer."
"You have no jurisdiction out here. I am in space, over international waters and no United Nations conventions or covenants exist to forestall Earth orbital operations."
"Only because the Russians vetoed one potential convention on space usage at the Security Council."
Lothaire laughed: "Do you really want to cause an international incident, Guardsman?"
"One day, Lothaire, we'll be back here. We'll apprehend you and bring you to justice."
"Catman, Catman, Catman. Don't make promises you may not be able to keep." The Feline Fury and Emerald Sentinel glared darkly at the space station and its occupant and then their spherical sanctuary accelerated downward and away.
NOVEMBER 12, 1962:
The videotape ended. From the bed of Battleaxe Five's command cabin, a cadaverous, shivering Leonard Lothaire decided against any further replays of his earlier triumphs against the Justice Guild. As he drew increasingly laboured, difficult breaths, Lothaire reflected on his history with his adversaries. He recollected the one time that the 'scramjet' Battleaxe One had waylaid a Fort Knox bullion train and was busily siphoning off its revenue- until Tom Turbine showed up, ripped the siphon from the vehicle and in short order, Turbine and Catman dispatched his onsite roster members.
One other time, that interfering precognitive, Cassandra, had foreseen an attack on SUN Laboratories. She, the Green Guardsman and the Streak waited to meet the Battleaxe Tunneller as it broke surface in the lab basement.
Thereafter, he had decided to switch his attentions to Europe, but fared little better. Black Siren, Cassandra and the Siren's wartime friend Lady Dorothy Crichton-Warne had foiled an attempt to abduct then-British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. And then there had been the Parisian fiasco which had resulted in the botched art theft attempt from the Louvre and Battleaxe One had narrowly evaded capture at their hands.
Memories. Not all good. At first, he had experienced some schadenfreude when he realised that he had outlived his rivals, and for the first few days, he had endlessly replayed his video recordings of his confrontations with the Justice Guild and the times that he had evaded capture.
He remembered the arrival of Doomsday on October 28, 1962. In London, Battleaxe Four, the International Larceny blue submersible had used the war panic and attention elsewhere to plunder the Bank of England vaults. However, Lady Dorothy and her chaffeuse Maclean had given chase in her wretched green Rolls Royce MINT 1. Driving it into her speedyacht MINT 2. she was probably intending to use her Interpol credentials to apprehend the sub and arrest its aquanaut. But then, as he received the in-cabin narrowcast from Battleaxe Four, its aquanaut, Gino Verdeschi, heard air raid sirens. An instant later, he screamed, the screen turned crimson- and then dark.
Unbelieving, Lothaire intercepted a satellite feed and watched aghast as a mushroom cloud arose, roiling and aflame, over the outline of London. He cut to others over the next few hours, but the story was the same. He witnessed identical carnage in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Prague, Warsaw, Moscow, Peking, Tokyo...San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York... Seaboard City...
And he could imagine what had happened below on distant Lothaire Island in the Northwest Pacific. Even though the newborn inert volcanic island was too recent to be registered on most navigation charts, no doubt Soviet and American surveillance satellites had begun to register the launches and submarine activity that marked the International Larceny headquarters, assumed that it was a covert base aligned with the 'other' superpower and targeted it. Battleaxes One and Two would have been incinerated on the spot before any of the vehicles or pilots could have escaped immolation.
He had ignored international events beyond economic transactions and it had never occurred to him that his life would end like this. Trapped, thousands of miles above a stricken, desolate Earth, slowly running out of food and oxygen. Leonard Lothaire may have been at the cutting edge of criminal technology. using his expertise and prudent investments to build his International Larceny network and despite the mishaps, there had also been times that he had managed to elude his Justice Guild pursuers and their allies. He had liked to pride himself that the Battleaxe vehicles presented a greater threat to the Guild's reputation and membership, far more so than the frankly pathetic and repetitious antics of the self-styled "Injustice Guild", or the malevolent future Cybernoid robot civilisation. Or, had once done so. The Guild had probably perished in the incineration of Seaboard City and their antithesis lacked the knowledge and expertise to avoid a similar fate. The Cybernoids must have evaporated into nothingness when the nuclear holocaust aborted the sequence of events that had led to their existence.
Lothaire started coughing again, bringing up blood in his vomit as he bent over an adjacent metal basin. He had concluded that even up this high, he'd probably still been in range of an ICBM explosion in near-Earth space, enough to provide him with a cumulative, fatal radiation dose. He had first noticed that his hair had gone grey and his sallow, sunken face three days after the war. Shortly after, his gums had started to bleed. Never mind, he thought, touching the blister pack of suicide pills alongside his bed, he had prepared for a contingency like this. At least he had the 'choice', even if it were Hobson's choice, bereft of any real alternatives. It would be self-indulgent to observe the irony in this situation. All his wealth and technical expertise had availed him nothing, at the end. Even if he had outlived his rivals and enemies, it would only be a fortnight in duration before he succumbed. And although Battleaxe Three was docked there, the ICBM explosion had blown open its control cabin, exposing it to space- and he was too weak to repair it. Had he wished, he could have conversed with the Mercury astronauts and Vostok cosmonauts caught in lower orbits when the war broke out. But one after another, amidst radio silence, he had witnessed the near-earth orbital vehicles burn up and disintegrate in Earth orbit, bereft of earthside navigational control. He might be a master criminal, but he was no inhumane, gloating ghoul.
Even if someone were still alive in the Dantean inferno below, amidst all the charcoaled skeletons, burning debris and uncontrollable citywide firestorms, it would take decades to recover spaceflight, if ever. By then, he would be nothing more than a dessicated, mummified cadaver in a darkened, abandoned orbital vehicle, either way. Or, the station would collide with an incoming meteorite and suffer shipwreck. Or, it would eventually drift into a lower orbit and disintegrate itself in uncontrolled re-entry.
No matter. With most of Western Europe, China, Japan, Korea and the United States obliterated, there would be no need for the existence of an international criminal rapid transit and larceny organisation anyway. And he was damned if he'd live out the rest of his days in one of the miserable backwaters that would inherit the Earth, even if he could. Ah well. It had been good while it lasted. He had lacked the imagination and foresight to realise the significance of the international events that would overtake them all and render his plans and strategems futile and pointless. So here he was, in a dead man's orbit, not even protected from the throes of the nuclear holocaust far below him. And even if Battleaxe Three hadn't been so badly damaged, where could he escape to?
He had started to hallucinate the presence of the Justice Guild in the cabin with him as he watched the air supply indicator drop a further tab. Enough. Thwarting another paroxysm of the dry retches, he broke the blister pack and with difficulty and a bottle of water, finally managed to swallow the required dosage. Around Len Lothaire, sound and vision began to diminish and fade into echoing darkness, unconsciousness and unintelligibility. His thoughts slowed and ceased. An instant later, he took his last breath and shortly afterward, his erratic heart stopped beating. Leonard Lothaire was dead,
Two days later, the cabin lights guttered out and the silent orbital mausoleum hung lifeless in space. Its further fate is unknown.
THE END
++
PROLOGUE: AUGUST 1962:
As Battleaxe Three thundered into near-Earth orbit, Green Guardsman and Catman pursued it, within a power ringed sphere:
"We've got to develop our own high atmosphere vehicles, Scott."
"No argument there, Ted. Oops, looks like flak from B3. Taking evasive action..." As they rocked above the placidity of the blue, cloud-flecked Atlantic far below, Catman reflected on the rise of their assailant. Once, Leonard Lothaire had been a petty criminal. There was even a 'modernist' magazine photocover of him being knocked out by Catman in front of a psychedelic, hypnotic vortex modern art background. But then, an eccentric relative had passed away and Lothaire had vanished for a time. Unfortunately, he returned two years later with an ensemble of advanced criminal transport and escape vehicles under his control, and rebranded as "International Larceny."
Several thousand miles above the Atlantic Ocean, Lothaire glared at the incoming Justice Guild figures, from the relative security of Battleaxe Five, the International Larceny space station. He increased the outflow of drifting aluminium pellets, designed to repel the Green Guardsman's unwelcome attentions:
"Damn you, Lothaire," Catman said into the bubble's microphone,"that could have killed us if we'd been any closer."
"You have no jurisdiction out here. I am in space, over international waters and no United Nations conventions or covenants exist to forestall Earth orbital operations."
"Only because the Russians vetoed one potential convention on space usage at the Security Council."
Lothaire laughed: "Do you really want to cause an international incident, Guardsman?"
"One day, Lothaire, we'll be back here. We'll apprehend you and bring you to justice."
"Catman, Catman, Catman. Don't make promises you may not be able to keep." The Feline Fury and Emerald Sentinel glared darkly at the space station and its occupant and then their spherical sanctuary accelerated downward and away.
NOVEMBER 12, 1962:
The videotape ended. From the bed of Battleaxe Five's command cabin, a cadaverous, shivering Leonard Lothaire decided against any further replays of his earlier triumphs against the Justice Guild. As he drew increasingly laboured, difficult breaths, Lothaire reflected on his history with his adversaries. He recollected the one time that the 'scramjet' Battleaxe One had waylaid a Fort Knox bullion train and was busily siphoning off its revenue- until Tom Turbine showed up, ripped the siphon from the vehicle and in short order, Turbine and Catman dispatched his onsite roster members.
One other time, that interfering precognitive, Cassandra, had foreseen an attack on SUN Laboratories. She, the Green Guardsman and the Streak waited to meet the Battleaxe Tunneller as it broke surface in the lab basement.
Thereafter, he had decided to switch his attentions to Europe, but fared little better. Black Siren, Cassandra and the Siren's wartime friend Lady Dorothy Crichton-Warne had foiled an attempt to abduct then-British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. And then there had been the Parisian fiasco which had resulted in the botched art theft attempt from the Louvre and Battleaxe One had narrowly evaded capture at their hands.
Memories. Not all good. At first, he had experienced some schadenfreude when he realised that he had outlived his rivals, and for the first few days, he had endlessly replayed his video recordings of his confrontations with the Justice Guild and the times that he had evaded capture.
He remembered the arrival of Doomsday on October 28, 1962. In London, Battleaxe Four, the International Larceny blue submersible had used the war panic and attention elsewhere to plunder the Bank of England vaults. However, Lady Dorothy and her chaffeuse Maclean had given chase in her wretched green Rolls Royce MINT 1. Driving it into her speedyacht MINT 2. she was probably intending to use her Interpol credentials to apprehend the sub and arrest its aquanaut. But then, as he received the in-cabin narrowcast from Battleaxe Four, its aquanaut, Gino Verdeschi, heard air raid sirens. An instant later, he screamed, the screen turned crimson- and then dark.
Unbelieving, Lothaire intercepted a satellite feed and watched aghast as a mushroom cloud arose, roiling and aflame, over the outline of London. He cut to others over the next few hours, but the story was the same. He witnessed identical carnage in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Prague, Warsaw, Moscow, Peking, Tokyo...San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York... Seaboard City...
And he could imagine what had happened below on distant Lothaire Island in the Northwest Pacific. Even though the newborn inert volcanic island was too recent to be registered on most navigation charts, no doubt Soviet and American surveillance satellites had begun to register the launches and submarine activity that marked the International Larceny headquarters, assumed that it was a covert base aligned with the 'other' superpower and targeted it. Battleaxes One and Two would have been incinerated on the spot before any of the vehicles or pilots could have escaped immolation.
He had ignored international events beyond economic transactions and it had never occurred to him that his life would end like this. Trapped, thousands of miles above a stricken, desolate Earth, slowly running out of food and oxygen. Leonard Lothaire may have been at the cutting edge of criminal technology. using his expertise and prudent investments to build his International Larceny network and despite the mishaps, there had also been times that he had managed to elude his Justice Guild pursuers and their allies. He had liked to pride himself that the Battleaxe vehicles presented a greater threat to the Guild's reputation and membership, far more so than the frankly pathetic and repetitious antics of the self-styled "Injustice Guild", or the malevolent future Cybernoid robot civilisation. Or, had once done so. The Guild had probably perished in the incineration of Seaboard City and their antithesis lacked the knowledge and expertise to avoid a similar fate. The Cybernoids must have evaporated into nothingness when the nuclear holocaust aborted the sequence of events that had led to their existence.
Lothaire started coughing again, bringing up blood in his vomit as he bent over an adjacent metal basin. He had concluded that even up this high, he'd probably still been in range of an ICBM explosion in near-Earth space, enough to provide him with a cumulative, fatal radiation dose. He had first noticed that his hair had gone grey and his sallow, sunken face three days after the war. Shortly after, his gums had started to bleed. Never mind, he thought, touching the blister pack of suicide pills alongside his bed, he had prepared for a contingency like this. At least he had the 'choice', even if it were Hobson's choice, bereft of any real alternatives. It would be self-indulgent to observe the irony in this situation. All his wealth and technical expertise had availed him nothing, at the end. Even if he had outlived his rivals and enemies, it would only be a fortnight in duration before he succumbed. And although Battleaxe Three was docked there, the ICBM explosion had blown open its control cabin, exposing it to space- and he was too weak to repair it. Had he wished, he could have conversed with the Mercury astronauts and Vostok cosmonauts caught in lower orbits when the war broke out. But one after another, amidst radio silence, he had witnessed the near-earth orbital vehicles burn up and disintegrate in Earth orbit, bereft of earthside navigational control. He might be a master criminal, but he was no inhumane, gloating ghoul.
Even if someone were still alive in the Dantean inferno below, amidst all the charcoaled skeletons, burning debris and uncontrollable citywide firestorms, it would take decades to recover spaceflight, if ever. By then, he would be nothing more than a dessicated, mummified cadaver in a darkened, abandoned orbital vehicle, either way. Or, the station would collide with an incoming meteorite and suffer shipwreck. Or, it would eventually drift into a lower orbit and disintegrate itself in uncontrolled re-entry.
No matter. With most of Western Europe, China, Japan, Korea and the United States obliterated, there would be no need for the existence of an international criminal rapid transit and larceny organisation anyway. And he was damned if he'd live out the rest of his days in one of the miserable backwaters that would inherit the Earth, even if he could. Ah well. It had been good while it lasted. He had lacked the imagination and foresight to realise the significance of the international events that would overtake them all and render his plans and strategems futile and pointless. So here he was, in a dead man's orbit, not even protected from the throes of the nuclear holocaust far below him. And even if Battleaxe Three hadn't been so badly damaged, where could he escape to?
He had started to hallucinate the presence of the Justice Guild in the cabin with him as he watched the air supply indicator drop a further tab. Enough. Thwarting another paroxysm of the dry retches, he broke the blister pack and with difficulty and a bottle of water, finally managed to swallow the required dosage. Around Len Lothaire, sound and vision began to diminish and fade into echoing darkness, unconsciousness and unintelligibility. His thoughts slowed and ceased. An instant later, he took his last breath and shortly afterward, his erratic heart stopped beating. Leonard Lothaire was dead,
Two days later, the cabin lights guttered out and the silent orbital mausoleum hung lifeless in space. Its further fate is unknown.
THE END