Army In House To House Search (comic story)

Army In House To House Search was a Fireball XL5 comic printed in TV Century 21 in 1965. It was the eighth instalment of a multi-series crossover "Space War" story arc in the pages of TV21 (and the seventh to belong to the Fireball XL5 series). The arc focused on a war between 2060s humanity and the inhabitants of the planet Astra, first mentioned in The Rescue.

This instalment saw the characters dealing with the last traps laid by the villainous Count Lugosti, an antagonist created especially for the crossover event, and who had been killed off in the previous "chapter" of the multi-series arc.

Summary
Now certain that the gang of assassins who hired Lugosti to murder the Astran Kaplan are still within the police cordon around Unity City, Steve Zodiac and Wilbur Zero organise a house-to-house search of the area. While the search goes on, they visit the President's office to give him and the Astran ambassador to make their report.

The meeting is interrupted by a video call from a Major to the President, announcing that something has been found in the same casino where Penelope Creighton-Ward had originally tracked down Lugosti. They drive to the casino with a police escort. There, the Major explains that they have found a secret underground chamber beneath the gaming room, which they believe to be Lugosti's hideout. However, an anti-intruder system, in the form of a machine gun triggered by a motion sensor, prevents entry.

Zodiac suggests that a shower of silver-paper shreds be lowered in front of the sensor to confuse its aim and discharge its magazine, while Zodiac himself takes his chance climbing down, clinging to a sprinkler pipe. The plan is executed without issue, until the frail pipe to which Zodiac is hanging on for dear life begins breaking...

Characters

 * Steve Zodiac
 * Commander Zero
 * Nikita Bandranaik
 * Astran ambassador
 * Major

Story notes
to be added

Continuity

 * Dialogue establishes that the attempted escape, and subsequent death, of Count Lugosti happened the same morning. (COMIC: Zodiac Makes An Arrest)
 * Lugosti's underground lair is discovered below the very casino where he had first been encountered by Penelope Creighton-Ward and Parker. (COMIC: On the Trail of the Kaplan's Killer...)