Chapter 36: Zylon, Krylon, Whatever

POOF. Just like the last time you fought these invaders, suddenly everything goes white, and they are gone. And… the stars are different. Melvin is pretty exhausted from repeatedly being launched into digital aliens, and as he follows you back inside, he staggers through the air, drunkenly mumbling “shield….. field…..” to himself.

The Mothership has taken some more damage. The unstable orange concrete shields are almost entirely destroyed, and their fragments drift back and forth through space, unsteadily. There are cracks in the glass, and some smoke in the main chamber. The Administrator, as usual, sits at his thirty-foot high desk. He glances down at you and says, “Thank you for staving them off. It took some doing, but I was able to recalibrate everything and take us to this new dimension. I can’t imagine how they have been tracking us. It is very disconcerting.”

Melvin seems to snap out of it. “I don’t get this whole dimension thing. One second the aliens are there, the next they are gone. It doesn’t make sense!”

The Administrator sighs. “You see, missile,” he looks at you uncertainly, “He’s a missile, right?” You nod. “You see, there are many different universes, all right next to each other. This was first discovered by the Advanced Technology And Research Institute, who created a ship called the Scanner One to explore them. That’s another story, but today, the League of Civilized Planets takes advantage of this situation to help keep everyone safe. The Mothership lives outside the normal universe, safe from attack by evil forces. It has been a safe place for our defense forces to prepare for battle, and from which to launch surprise attacks. Never before have our enemies found a way to get here. We did not believe they had the technology to do it. None of our intelligence can even figure out what those strange aliens are.” He shakes his head. “Moving the Mothership from one universe to another is not something we’ve had to do before, and it is perilous, especially to have to do it so quickly. There’s no telling what strange things we might encounter jumping from universe to universe like this.”

You suddenly become concerned. “Will we still be able to get back to Earth?”

The Administrator waves off the question. “Oh, of course. The transport platforms will allow you to jump back to Earth whenever you need to.” He adjusts his glasses and peers down at you. “Is… that what you plan to do now?”

“No way!” shouts Melvin. “We need to go to Solaris!”

The Administrator rolls his eyes. “Oh, yes, that,” he says with some disgust. He picks up the commendation you got from the Terrans. “Despite your heroism in the laser cannon, there is no way I can assign you to a mission with the Solaris Starcruisers. But, given that you have somehow earned the rank of Admiral with the Terrans…”

Melvin breaks in. “Hey, can I ask a question about that? I always thought ‘Terrans’ meant ‘earth people.’ So… were we defending Earth when we were in that crate? There was no window, it was hard to tell.”

You hiss, “Not now, Melvin!”

The Administrator rolls his eyes and continues. “As I was saying, given that you have somehow earned the rank of Admiral with the Terrans, I do believe I can…” his tail holds up a very long scroll of paper, the ends of which disappear behind his desk, and he peers at it. “Yes… apparently, I can give you the rank of… level 5 Scout in the Star Raiders.”

“That sounds pretty good… Is that good?” asks Melvin excitedly.

“The only rank lower than ‘scout’ is ‘cook,’” he explains disdainfully. “But it is enough of a rank that we can assign you a mission. Do well enough there, and you may become eligible for one of the more elite branches of space defense.”

“We’ll take it!” cries Melvin. “What do we do?”

The Administrator pushes a button. One of the many doors that exit the large hall suddenly opens. A man wearing a blue and yellow space pilot uniform, complete with helmet steps in, hands on hips. “Player? Missile? Follow me.” He turns and strides down the hallway.

You follow him down the long hallway, a blue and yellow rubber line leading the way on the floor. He stops at a side door, waves his hand, and the door opens with a hiss. He gestures for you to enter, and you step into a brightly lit spaceport launch chamber, where sits a gorgeous blue and yellow spaceship. It has huge engines, and what appear to be twin photon torpedo launchers, and most exciting of all…

“A window!” shouts Melvin. “Player, do you see that! A window!”

You laugh. “Yeah, Melvin, I see it!” You turn to the pilot. “So… we get to fly… this?”

“Yes sir,” says the pilot. “This is a class one Star Fighter, powered by nucleonic batteries. You can see it is armed with twin photon torpedoes, and it is equipped with an ATARI FORCE™ attack computer.”

“And a window!” shouts Melvin. “Our last ship… didn’t have a window,” he says sadly. “But this ship… has a window!”

“Two windows, actually,” the pilot points out.

“YAHOO!” shouts Melvin, doing cartwheels in the air.

“Wow,” you say. “This is much more advanced than the Space Shuttle we used to fly.”

“Well, sir, it is the future here.”

What? “The future… what do you mean?”

“On Earth,” he says, “it’s always 1984. Here we’re in the future.”

“We are?” you say, confused. “What… year is it?”

He smiles. “It is 2005 A.D.” he says proudly.

You look at Melvin. “Melvin, does this make sense to you?”

Melvin shakes his head, not that he has a head. “Time is not a fixed construct in the Atariverse. Better not to think about it.”

The pilot looks at you. “Did you really fly that Terran warship?”

You think back on that strange adventure. “Uh, yeah… we… did.”

He looks concerned. “I’ve heard it doesn’t even have oxygen tanks.”

“Yeah,” you say. “We found that out.”

“Wow,” he says, impressed. “You’ll find this ship a lot more… comfortable.”

Melvin stops his cartwheels, and looks serious. “Say… our last ship had nine photon torpedoes. I only see two here. Is that all we get?”

The pilot smiles. “You can launch as many as you want.” He corrects himself. “Well… until your battery runs out. Each shot uses one unit of energy.”

“How many units does the battery hold?” you ask.

“Max of 900,” he says.

“Wow!” says Melvin. “And does it have phasors? We had phasors on the Terran ship, so we could blast multiple enemies at once.”

The pilot looks alarmed. “No… no phasors on this ship.” He looks at both of you with concern and takes a step back. “Do you know how much radiation phasors give off?”

You change the subject. “I guess with this high-tech ship, our mission should be a piece of cake, huh?”

He eyes you skeptically. “I… doubt it. Let’s go inside, and I’ll show you the controls.” He waves his hand, and a pneumatic door hisses open, and a little ladder extends down. The pilot climbs up and you follow him in. Inside the spare but comfortable cockpit, also painted blue and yellow, you see a familiar joystick control, but also a white panel of buttons. “You can see that these controls are clearly labeled,” he says. He pushes the one marked “SHIELDS ON/OFF”, and suddenly the whole ship is encased in a blue energy shield.

“Wow!” says Melvin. “That shield will give us extra protection?”

The pilot looks alarmed at your ignorance. “That shield will give you your only protection. Without that shield, a single hit from a Krylon torpedo and you’re done for. You can turn it off to save energy… but, I wouldn’t.”

Melvin gulps. “But… with this shield, and hundreds of photon torpedoes, this should be easy. We defeated an entire enemy fleet with just nine at a time.”

“I don’t know what kind of enemy you were dealing with, but Zylons don’t sit still. They constantly whip around in evasive maneuvers, and are incredibly hard to hit, and all the while they hit you with torpedo after torpedo. The cruisers and fighters are bad enough, but the Krylon basestars can only be destroyed at close range.”

“The what basestars?” you ask.

“The Zylon Basestars, what did you think I said?”

“You said ‘Krylon.’”

“Yes, that’s what I said, Zylon.”

You and Melvin look at each other. You try again. “So… is it Zylon, or Krylon?”

He stares at you as if you are insane. “What do you mean? Those are the same word.”

“Zylon and Krylon are the same word?”

He is exasperated now. “They sound the same, don’t they? But we don’t have time for this. Our people are in a massive war with the Krylons. We are fighting them all over the galaxy. A fleet of forty Zylon ships is right now converging on one of our starbases. You must destroy those Krylons, and save the starbase if you can. If the Zylons cause you too much damage, you can hyperwarp to the starbase for repairs and more energy, but don’t dawdle. Warp back to the Krylons as soon as you can. And don’t visit the Space Station more than seven times.”

“Why not?” asks Melvin.

“It’ll explode.” He says grimly.

You want to ask a question, but you’re too hung up on the Zylon / Krylon thing.

Melvin asks, “How many quadrants on the galactic map? Please say four.”

The pilot furrows his brow. “There are sixteen sectors on the galactic map.” He stands up. “We don’t have time for more questions. We need you out there.” He points to a slim volume on a shelf labeled SURVIVAL INFORMATION and says “You can read that if there’s anything else you can’t figure out.” He turns to leave, but stops. “Oh, one more tip. You can take that white overlay off of the buttons. They won’t be labeled, but they’ll be easier to push. When you are trying to hyperwarp, it can save your life.”

You pop the overlay off, and poke at the SHIELDS ON/OFF button. The blue shield disappears. “Hey, you’re right, thanks.”

He snaps to attention and puts his fist to his chest. “I salute your bravery, and so do the ghosts of the doomed planet.” You wonder what he’s talking about. He goes on. “Remember, the only good Zylon is a dead Krylon. Oh, and watch out for the asteroid belt.” He exits the ship, and the door closes with a hiss. Out the window, you see him push a button. Everything flashes white, and suddenly you are hurtling through space.

You look at Melvin. “Do you understand the whole Zylon / Krylon thing?”

Melvin stares at something advancing at you through blackest space. “Uh… you might want to turn on those shields.”

Place the Star Raiders cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select to choose mission T40. Set both difficulty switches to a. Play until you are able to succeed at the mission. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 35: Space Invaders II

Your screen flashes violently as the final alien ship explodes. But are you really done? Suddenly the screen turns green and says:

STARFLEET TO STATION COMMANDER, WELL DONE!!
THE ALIENS ARE NOW RETREATING!!
NEW RANK IS ADMIRAL

You and Melvin hug each other and shout for joy.

“We did it!” shouts Melvin.

“Yeah..!” you say woozily.

“Wow, you’re so excited, you’re hyperventilating!” says Melvin.

“Yeah…” you say. It’s becoming hard to think straight. You start gasping for air. “Melvin… is… there… oxygen?”

Melvin looks around. “Uh… warp engines, photon launcher, phasor weapon, scanners… um… no…”

“Then… we… might… suffocate…” You are seeing spots now, and think you are going to pass out. “Tell… the Queen… I’m sorry…” you gasp as your vision starts to blur.

Just then, you feel a whoosh, and your “warship” bangs down hard on something, and you bang down too, as you feel the familiar pull of gravity reappear. With a clang and bang, the rear panel of the crate comes off, and with it comes dank, but breathable air. You crawl out of the crate, so glad to be in a place where you can breathe.

Once your vision stops blurring, you look up to see the rolling robot looking down at you. He hits presses a button on his chest with one of his robot arms, and slowly, a piece of curly gray fax paper grinds out of a slot in his belly. He tears it off, and hands it to you. It just reads “NEW RANK IS ADMIRAL.” You take it, still panting, and say, “…Thanks.”

You stand up on wobbly legs, and he leads you over to the teleportation platform. You and Melvin climb up, and as you reach for the red button, you read:

GOODBYE ADMIRAL

YOU SAVED US

You look at the dank spaceport garage room, and the beleaguered “warship,” and shake your head. Not knowing what to do, you and Melvin each salute the robot, not that Melvin has hands, and you push the button, and everything turns white.

When the whiteness fades again, you are back in the grandeur of the Mothership, and again, there is the Administrator, scribbling away at his high desk. There seem to have been some repairs in your absence. Most notably, you see out the massive windows that the huge concrete orange shields above the laser cannon appear to have been replaced.

You call over to the Administrator. “Hey! We did it!” and start to jog across the marble floor to his desk.

He adjusts his glasses with his tail and glances at you briefly, and then returns to his work. But then he does a double take. “Wait! You survived? In the Terran Warship?”

“We sure did!” shouts Melvin. “We blew up every alien in thirty-six quadrants!” He gets a puzzled look on his face, not that he has a face. “You’d think, with quadrants, there’d be four of them, cuz, you know, ‘quad’, but somehow there were thirty-six.” 

You thought that was strange too, but it was hardly the strangest thing you’ve seen today.

“Do you have any documentation?” the Administrator asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Sure!” says Melvin, and you hold up the curly piece of fax paper that declares you are an admiral. He sends down his little dumbwaiter tray. When it returns to the top, he snatches it up with his tail, and peers at it through his pince-nez. “Admiral?!” he shouts, incredulous. “Why… their ship doesn’t even have an oxygen tank!”

Just then, you notice something disconcerting through the massive glass wall of the Mothership. The giant orange shields that float above the station… are drifting. Maybe they are being moved for… maintenance? But suddenly you hear a familiar and terrifying sound – laser bombs hitting the space station. The whole place shakes and rumbles, as it did when you first arrived.

“In the name of Martin Champion,” the Administrator shouts, “they’ve found us again! How is it possible that they are following us across dimensions?” He looks up at the shields, and his face becomes a mask of terror. “And somehow they’ve destabilized the shield fields!” He starts madly scrambling with both hands and his tail at various knobs and switches at a control panel by his desk.

“Shield field shield field shield field…” says Melvin. “Hey, that’s fun! Try it!”

“Not now, Melvin, come on!” you shout, sprinting towards the airlock door that leads to the Laser Cannon. Melvin tags a long behind, giggling and singing “shield field shield field shield field shield field…”

Place the Space Invaders cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select 2, and set both difficulty switches to b. Play until you get 8000 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 34: Back on Track

There are SO MANY invaders – and they keep coming, lower and lower! And the more you shoot them, the faster they get! You’ve blasted through dozens of armadas, and it seems like the onslaught will never stop. Suddenly, you feel those weird electrical pulses again, and everything flashes white, and the invaders are… gone.

Melvin sits, panting in the loading chamber. “Where (pant) did (pant) they (pant) go?”

“I… don’t know.” You look out the window and see that man at the high desk waving you back inside. “I guess we go back in?” You and Melvin look at each other and shrug. You slide the cannon back to the left side, so its door lines up with the space station airlock. The door opens, and you head back into the vast chamber, which seems to be faring better. There are some cracks and damage from the assault, but nothing is smoking anymore.

The man in metallic green at the high desk is shuffling some papers… with his… tail?

“Where did they go?” shouts Melvin.

“Where did what go?” he asks in a condescending tone, not looking up.

“Where did those invaders go? One second they were there, and the next they were gone… where did they go?”

The man rolls his eyes. “You mean, where did WE go.”

“What?” asks Melvin, confused.

The man sighs. He has lizard skin, and wears shiny green metallic clothes. He seems to have a long prehensile tail, which currently holds a light green handkerchief with which it dabs his forehead. “The Primary Defense Station, or as we call it, the Mothership, is not in normal space, of course. We hide it in a parallel dimension in the multiverse, so that opponents to the League of Civilized Planets cannot find us. This gives us the element of surprise when we need to attack.”

Melvin raises an eyebrow, not that he has eyebrows. “Seems to me you were pretty surprised by those invaders.”

The man harrumphs. “Yes… very troubling. We’ve never been attacked here before. Our enemies have never had the ability to jump dimensions in the multiverse before.” The tail keeps dabbing his forehead. “Honestly, I’m not even sure what those were. Very troubling.” He takes a drink from a glass of… water? You aren’t sure of anything at this point. “Regardless, when they arrived, I executed emergency protocol 567Z, which transports the Mothership to a different dimension. It uses a tremendous amount of energy, but here we are.”

Melvin is irritated. “You wouldn’t be anywhere if we hadn’t shown up and blasted them with the laser cannon! You think it’s easy flying through space into alien guts?”

The man seems embarrassed. “Yes… well, thank you for your service.” He taps his stack of papers on the desk a few times, straightening them into a neat stack. “So, I presume you are here for an assignment? Which division are you with?” He eyes you critically. “You don’t seem to be in uniform.”

“Solaris Starcruisers!” shouts Melvin excitedly. “That’s the assignment we need!” The man’s eyes grow wide. “The Starcruisers? Surely I would…” he looks over a list, and shakes his head. “The Starcruisers are the galaxy’s most elite fighting force. It takes years of training, and even then, only one out of a thousand are accepted. They recruit exclusively from the Phaser Patrol.” Looking down from his ridiculously high desk, he shakes his head again, frustrated. “What credentials do you have?”

You look at Melvin for help, but suddenly remember the patches that Christa gave you. You pull out the case with the AASA logo. “Uh, right here,” you say, holding it up. A tiny tray slides down the front of his desk like a little elevator, and stops in front of you. You put the case on it, and it slides back up to him. He opens it and squints. “Space Shuttle Pilot?” he scoffs. “What system are you from?”

“Earth, sir,” you say. He puts his face in his hand, and his tail starts wiping his brow again. He takes a deep breath, and speaks deliberately, one word at a time. “Earth is no longer part of the League of Civilized Planets. It does not even have a Space Defense Station.”

Melvin speaks up. “Yes it does! We built it ourselves! How do you think we got here?”

“You… built it… yourselves,” he says, thinking that over. He shakes his head again. “Well, however you got here, I can’t help you. The entire point of this station is to send pilots on dangerous missions, and you do not have the proper qualifications. The multiverse transport is right that way,” he gestures to the platform on which you arrived, and looks back down at his papers.

“Hold on a second,” says Melvin. “What qualifications do we need?”

He rolls his eyes again, and speaks tiredly. “This station gives out assignments for Star Raiders, Star Masters, Phaser Patrol, and very, very occasionally, Star Cruisers. At a minimum, you would need to be a Scout in the Star Raiders for me to assign you to any kind of ship. But you do not have any kind of qualification, other than, apparently, license to drive shuttle buses on…” and he spits the word out as he says it, “Earth.” He slides your patch case off of his desk, and you catch it just before it hits the floor. “Now,” he says absently, “I must solve the problem of how those invaders found us, so I will bid you good day.” His tail hands him a pencil, and he starts scribbling down notes and murmuring to himself.

Just then, you hear the flash noise of the transporter, followed by a clattering. You turn to see a strange sort of robot, really more of a computer on wheels, heading from the transport platform toward you. The computer on wheels rattles as it moves. It has an ancient computer keyboard and a primitive looking screen no more than a foot across. Text appears on the screen, which it reads out loud in its primitive digitized voice. It rolls shakily up to the desk and says “GREETINGS ADMINISTRATOR.”

The man at the desk looks down and sees it, and puts his head in his hands. “Why me? Why today?”

More text appears on the rolling computer’s screen, which it again reads aloud. “TERRAN SYSTEM REQUESTS STARSHIP COMMANDER.”

The man thumps the desk with his tail. “How many times do I have to tell you? We cannot assign you a commander until your ships pass inspection!”

The computer beeps. The screen refreshes and it repeats “TERRAN SYSTEM REQUESTS STARSHIP COMMANDER.”

The Administrator pulls at his hair. “REQUEST DENIED!” he shouts.

The computer beeps again. “I WILL RETURN IN 1 STARDATE,” it says and starts a sort of K turn to begin its return to the platform.

“Wait a minute!” shouts Melvin. “Hey, Administrator! Can we do this Terran thing?”

The Administrator starts turning from green to red. “No!”

“Why not,” asks Melvin. “Aren’t they part of the league?”

The Administrator lets out a long, exasperated sigh. “Yes, the Terrans are technically part of the League. After all, they have the richest Zenbar mines in the known universe. But our pilots are valuable, and the Terran ships have never passed our safety inspections. As a result, I cannot assign anyone, not even lowly Star Raiders, to Terran missions.”

“Because it’s too dangerous,” says Melvin.

“Yes, exactly,” says the Administrator. “I’m glad SOMEONE understands the rules around here.”

“Since it’s so dangerous,” says Melvin, “anyone who survived a Terran mission would have to be qualified for less dangerous missions, isn’t that right?”

You speak up, “Melvin, I don’t like where this is going…”

The Administrator thinks it over, “Well…” he says, “I suppose that’s right…”

Melvin continues, “So, if we complete this mission, we should be at least at the level of a Star Raiders Scout, isn’t that right?”

The Administrator scoffs. “Yes, definitely. A Scout Raider would not be safe in the Terran ‘Warship.’ But all that is irrelevant. I can’t assign any of the pilots on my list to a ship that hasn’t been inspected.”

“I know,” says Melvin, “but we aren’t on your list.”

He looks over the list. “Say… you’re right.”

“But, if we help the Terrans, and come back alive, you’ll have to put us on your list, isn’t that right?”

Enlightenment dawns on his face. “Yes… yes, I suppose that’s true! Yes… yes! If you survive the Terran mission, I’ll have the House of Viceroys off my back, and this rolling contraption out of my life, and if you don’t survive, I won’t have two unlicensed earthlings bothering me anymore. It’s win-win!”

You start to object, but Melvin flies over to the rolling computer. “Well, what do you say? Okay if we pilot your warship?”

The computer screen goes blank, and then reads “PROCESSING…” This text flashes for a while, and then it says “WELCOME STARSHIP COMMANDER.”

“Alright!” shouts Melvin. “Come on, Player! Let’s go!”

The computer starts rolling back to the platform. “Wait a minute!” you shout. Pointing a thumb back at the Administrator, you say “That guy says it isn’t safe!”

“Pffftt,” says Melvin. “That’s all red tape. All space travel is dangerous. How bad could it be?”

“I… oh… whatever,” you say, and hanging your head, follow Melvin and the clanking robot back onto the platform. Again a white flash, and suddenly you, the rolling computer, and Melvin are on a different platform, in some sort of… garage? Is it a space station? You can’t tell. There are no windows, just stained cement walls. There is nothing in the room but a rusty looking metal box, about five feet wide, four feet tall, and eight feet long. Stenciled on the side in crooked letters it says “SUPER WARSHIP,” and underneath that is a crude stenciled picture of a pixelated Starship Enterprise.

You look around. “Okay… these are supplies for your warship, yes? But the warship is… which way?” You look around, and see no doors in the room, though one wall looks like it might be able to open up. The computer rolls over to the rusty metal box, and pulls a handle. The back panel comes loose and falls to the floor with a loud clang.

“Wait… you don’t mean…” You look into the crate, and see two low seats inside, on either side of a small television screen with a single joystick and button in front of it. You nervously read the shaky letters on the green TV screen. “STARFLEET TO STARSHIP COMMANDER YOUR MISSION IS TO DESTROY 20 ALIEN WARSHIPS IN 24 STARDATES.”

“Wait, what?” you say, whirling on the robot. “This rusted old crate is our warship?” You turn to Melvin. “I’m not exaggerating here… this is actually a RUSTED OLD CRATE!”

The robot’s screen is blank for a moment, and then reads “OUR SUPER WARSHIP IS INDESTRUCTIBLE” and then “IT IS ARMED WITH NINE PHOTON TORPEDOES AND A PHASOR ENERGY WEAPON.”

“I’m not getting into a rusted old… wait… If there are twenty alien warships, why are there only nine torpedoes?”

“YOU CAN RELOAD AT OUR SECRET STARBASES.”

“Huh,” you say. That almost makes sense. But... “Hold on… how does this thing move?”

“WARP ENGINES POWERED BY PHASOR ENERGY ENABLE FASTER THAN LIGHT TRAVEL.”

All this time, Melvin has been looking the “ship” over. “It isn’t very comfortable,” says Melvin, but the robot’s right, it has hyperwarp, force shields, weapons, and scanners. And I think it’s airtight?”

“You think?” you say, exasperated. “Melvin, it doesn’t even have windows! How can we see where we are going?”

“SHORT AND LONG RANGE SCANS PROVIDE NAVIGATION DATA TO THE GALACTIC MAP,” explains the robot.

“I know it seems nuts,” says Melvin, “but I think we can do this.”

“But… look at the rust! Where is this thing from, Sears?”

“The rust is probably what holds it together. Come on, let’s do this! It’s our only way to get to Solaris.”

You think that over, and sigh. “I suppose you’re right…”

“Come on!” shouts Melvin, “For the Queen!”

Melvin zips into the box, and you clamber in as well, bending down so as not to hit your head. You climb into the hard metal captain’s chair, which lets out painfully loud squeaks as you swivel it back to see the robot putting the rear panel back in place. The robot’s screen reads “GOOD LUCK STARSHIP COMMANDER,” as it clangs the rear panel back into place.

You hit your reset button, and to your annoyance, the number of aliens and stardates on the screen changes. “Hey! Did you see that? I think this thing is flaky.”

Melvin shrugs. “Well, it never did pass safety inspection.”

You give Melvin a dirty look, and push the button on the console. There is a sudden whoosh, and you find yourself floating weightlessly. “Oh come on,” you say, “not even artificial gravity?”

“Floating’s not bad, once you get used to it,” says Melvin. You both stare at the flaky TV screen in front of you, your only connection to the world outside. “Guess we better start scanning,” says Melvin.

Put the Stellar Track cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set both difficulty switches to b. Play until you destroy all aliens, and get a ranking of Admiral. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 33: Space Invaders

“Okay, Melvin, this is the last piece… easy does it…”

Melvin flies over to the Space Defense Station, and you send a signal to slow its rotation, hopefully at just the right time… and… yes! Melvin is quite close to the last installation site. He glides up carefully, and it clicks perfectly into place.

“YAHOO!” calls Melvin on the radio. “We did it!”

“Great job!” you say. “Now get back in the ship, so we can…” Melvin floats in his space suit, looking back at you. “So we can what?”

“So we can… uh… hey, what are we supposed to do next?”

Melvin says, “Well, Christa said this Space Defense Station was our key to getting to Solaris, right? I guess we go inside.”

You think that over. She gave a lot of detailed lecture about how to fly the shuttles, and how to build the space station… but… you never thought to ask what to do once it was built. But, you can see, just like the fueling depot, there is a spot on the station to dock with. “I’m going to dock, Melvin, so we can go inside.”

“Roger that!” says Melvin brightly. “Heading back to the airlock.” In a moment, you hear the sounds of Melvin returning through the shuttle airlock. Soon he is back inside, and you carefully start docking the shuttle so it connects with the station pixel perfectly. “Aaaaannnddd docked!” you say, taking your hands off of the controls. The shuttle does seem docked in place.

Melvin looks over some viewscreens. “These status screens seems to say the Station is now up to pressure – we should be able to go right in.” You are both very familiar with the airlock rituals at this point, given that Melvin did a lot of spacewalks to get this thing built. Out the window, the station looks like an enormous orange donut. It spins to create gravity, and now that you are docked, the Shuttle is spinning with it. You climb into the airlock, and then into the station. It has many docks, and appears to be meant as a landing and refueling station for spaceships meant for defense. Sort of like an aircraft carrier, but for spacecraft. You go down a narrow steel hallway, and emerge into a larger room with many consoles and status screens, all blank. Presumably this place would be used to communicate with a fleet of defense ships. But… there are no ships here.

“Wow – says Melvin. This is like battle HQ! Now we just need a bunch of spaceships, and we can take on those Zylons!”

That doesn’t seem quite right. “Melvin, we don’t even know where Solaris is… I don’t think it’s anywhere near Earth. And the only ship we have is the Challenger.”

As you explore the room, you find something strange in the rear of the console room. Behind all the desks there is a large circular platform, with a pedestal in the center of it. A small sign next to it reads “Multiversal Transporter.” You step up on the platform, and see on the pedestal is a red button, and a dial with a set of cryptic symbols. It is currently pointing at the largest of the symbols. There is a label above the dial reading “LCP Stations.”

“Any idea what this is, Melvin?” He reads it out loud. “LCP Stations… Oh! That’s the League of Civilized Planets! Maybe this transports people to the other Space Defense Stations. Hey! If one of them is at Solaris, we’ll be all set!”

This sounds dangerous. “Yeah, maybe… but… how do we know which one? Are you sure this is safe?”

“Safe?” says Melvin. “We’re currently alone in a space station we built ourselves. You want to talk about safe? The big symbol probably goes to the biggest station. I don’t see a manual anywhere – just press it, and we’ll find out.”

You raise your hand to press it, and hesitate. “Melvin, this is crazy…”

“Oh come on!” he says, rolling his eyes. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

You don’t want to think about that… so you clamp your eyes shut and drop your hand on the big red button. Immediately you feel weird electrical pulses going through every atom in your body, and everything goes white. Suddenly you feel cold, and the whiteness starts to fade… and you hear someone… screaming!

“NO! HELP!”

As the whiteness fades away, you see that you are in a vast chamber in a space station that is under attack. The walls are glass, fifty feet high, and you can see an armada of weird alien creatures dropping laser bombs on the station. The station shakes with each hit, and clouds of smoke come from damaged areas. Across the chamber, at an impossibly high desk, a green man in a metallic green outfit is shouting for help. “NO!” he cries, “It isn’t fair!” Suddenly he sees you. “You there!” he calls. “Quickly! Man that laser cannon!” He points towards a door that leads through the glass to a large laser cannon, twenty feet high, that is mounted outside on the surface of the space station.

“Come on!” shouts Melvin, who zips right over to the doorway. You run after him, shouting, “I knew this was a bad idea!” You go through the door, entering the laser cannon, and realize it is a sort of vehicle. Through the viewscreen, you see clearly above you a laser bomb heading right at you that will surely blow up the cannon and both of you. You lunge at the joystick, and the mobile cannon slides out of the path of the bomb just in time, moving under one of three large shields, giving you a moment to breathe. You sit down and take stock of the situation.

“Okay,” says Melvin. “You be the pilot, and dodge the bombs. I’ll be your laser.” He jumps into a large loading chamber in the center of the room. “I think that’s a fire button,” he says, pointing to your console. You try pressing it, and Melvin goes shooting out the top of the cannon, blowing a hole in the bright orange shield. A moment later he rematerializes in the chamber. “Yowch!” cries Melvin. “Could you aim this thing at the aliens, and not at giant concrete shields?”

“Sorry,” you say, gliding the laser cannon to the left, but carefully keeping an eye out for more laser bombs. “I don’t think this is my day for big red buttons.” The grid of weird digital aliens marches back and forth above the station. You take aim, fire again, and again Melvin shoots out the barrel of the cannon, this time blasting an alien to pixels.

Melvin reappears. “WAHOO!” he says. “I love being a missile! Thirty-five aliens to go! Let’s do this!” The controls of this tank-on-a-track are very smooth, and you feel like you might be able to take on these weird aliens… as long as they don’t get any faster…

Put the Space Invaders cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select 1, and set the difficulty switches to b. Play until you exceed 9999 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.

Chapter 32: A Challenger Appears

Fighting difficult crosswinds, you traverse the desert, gently approaching the runway, put down the landing gear, and with a slight bounce, you land Space Shuttle Discovery! Melvin checks the fuel gauge: “Yes! More than 7500 units left! We did it!” You high-five, which is strange, given his lack of hands. The Shuttle was incredibly difficult to pilot, especially to do so efficiently, when that training satellite kept moving around. And landing was no picnic either! Until Christa had explained it, it never would have occurred to you that during re-entry, there was no way to maintain signal with ground control.

You exit the Shuttle, and walk down a flight of stairs that someone has put into place. At the bottom, you see Christa, beaming with pride. “Nice job!” she says, saluting, and then shaking your hand. “You really paid attention!”

“It wasn’t easy,” you admit with some exhaustion, “but we never could have done it without your lessons.”

“On behalf of the AASA, I have something for you,” she says. She holds out a distinguished looking folding case with the agency logo on it. You take it, and open it up. Inside are two patches. First a round one that reads “Space Shuttle Pilot”, and then an oblong patch with wings that reads “Space Shuttle Commander.”

“Wow!” shouts Melvin. “What an honor!”

“You’ve earned it,” says Christa. “And to think, when you walked in, I wasn’t sure you could handle baggage! Now I wonder if maybe you might be going to Solaris after all.”

“Do you think we can get there?” asks Melvin.

“Well,” she says, “one step at a time. I told you about how we need to rebuild our Space Defense Station to get back into the League of Civilized Planets. Do you think you’re ready for that mission?”

“Absolutely!” shouts Melvin.

“Don’t I get a say in this?” you ask, feigning irritation.

“Oh… sorry…” Melvin apologizes.

“Just kidding,” you joke, “it seems important, and we did handle that last mission, even though it was REALLY HARD! I guess we can try to rebuild the space station.”

Christa takes a deep breath. “Okay,” she says, “then follow me.” Again she leads you to the golf cart.

“Wait a second,” you say. “Won’t we be flying the Discovery again?”

“Oh no,” she says, climbing into the cart. “It’ll take a couple weeks to prep it for another mission. You’re going to pilot… Challenger.” Something about the way she says that feels slightly eerie. You ride quietly as you head back towards the terminal, partly because you need a rest, but partly because you are thinking. You approach the terminal and drive around it to the other side. You see planes of various colors taking off and landing on runways all around. As you round the terminal, you see the other Shuttle in the distance. It is enormous, just like Discovery was when you approached it. But something about Challenger is much more ominous. You look up at its silent, foreboding shape as you draw near. You turn to Christa, who looks up at it with a solemn expression as she drives up to it, and suddenly you remember. Suddenly it all comes flooding back to you, and you start to panic.

“Stop!” you say. How did you not realize this before? Christa stops the cart. “What’s wrong?” she says, looking at you with concern.

“Yeah, what’s the problem?” asks Melvin.

“This is the Space Shuttle Challenger!” you say with alarm.

“Well, duh,” says Melvin, “What did you think it was? The Good Ship Lollipop?”

Your breathing speeds up. You don’t know how you forgot, but somehow you forgot, and now you remember. You remember that horrible day. The day that the Space Shuttle exploded, and everyone on board died. You loved the Space Shuttle, and everything it represented about the beautiful future of humanity. The day the astronauts died, a part of you died, too. You feel like you are having a nightmare. You can see Challenger exploding in your mind, those terrible forking cloud trails. At the same time, you see it before your actual eyes, ready for launch, living up to its name, challenging the very sky.

You turn to Christa, ready to tell her how insane this is, how you remember that horrible day when six astronauts and a teacher… and… a teacher…

Christa seemed concerned at your distress at first, but then she seemed to understand, and became calm, almost serene. She looks down for a moment. Then she looks at Melvin. “Melvin, can you fly up to the Shuttle, and see if it’s ready for takeoff?”

“Oh… sure thing!” says Melvin, and zips off.

You look at Christa. She’s just pixels… everything, and everyone here is just pixels. But you know exactly who she is. “You’re… Christa McAuliffe, aren’t you?”

She nods, and looks at you calmly. “Yes… that’s right.”

“But, you… you…”

“Yes, I know. I died on the Space Shuttle.” She smiles, sadly. “You see, that happened in 1986… but here, for me, it’s always 1984.”

This doesn’t make sense. “So… it never happened?”

She sighs. “No, it happened, I’m sad to say… in the real world. It just never happened here. That’s why I stay here.”

You’re completely confused. “So… you’re… what? A time traveler? A ghost?”

She laughs. “No, it’s simpler than that. I’m more like… a memory.” She pauses. “You see, this whole place is made of memories. And not ordinary ones, but memories of what people aspire to be. I spent my life aspiring to be an astronaut and a teacher. I succeeded at those in real life, but here, here I can do so much more. Do you know how many shuttle flights I’ve made here? Hundreds. Almost a thousand. And the number of people I’ve taught how to fly… well, I’ve almost lost count. It’s a wonderful place, and I’m glad to be here.”

You look up at the Challenger, and see Melvin zipping around it, giving it a sort of inspection. “But… the Challenger… is it safe?”

She smiles, leans on the steering wheel of the golf cart, and looks up at the towering Shuttle. “Oh yes, definitely. I’ve flown it hundreds of times. I can promise you nothing will go wrong with the O-rings on this shuttle.”

“Is there… a way I can… rescue you? Take you home?” Your mind races, and you start talking fast and loud. “Since this is 1984, does that mean we can… prevent the disaster? Is that why I’m here?”

She puts her hand on your arm. “No. No one can change the past, not in the real world. Like I told you, I’m a memory. I’ll be here, teaching and flying, as long as there are people to remember who I was. Don’t be sad about it, a memory is a wonderful thing, and this place is silly, but I love it.”

“Are you… sure?”

She laughs. “Yes, definitely. Let me ask you,” she says, smiling, “what is your quest, right now? Something about Solaris, right?”

“Yes… right… Queen Stella needs us to retrieve the Starstone of Solaris.”

“Ha, right,” says Christa, laughing. “I suppose the Krylons or someone stole it.”

“Uh… the Zylons, actually.”

She laughs again. “Right, right, Zylons. I always mix those up. So… you’re going off into outer space to fight the Zylons, so you can bring the ‘Starstone of Solaris’ back to the Queen, is that right?” she says teasingly.

You feel kind of embarrassed. “After going on your training mission, it all feels… silly. Just… crazy kid fantasies.”

Now she gets serious, and almost a little angry. “And what’s wrong with crazy kid fantasies? Where do you think things like the Space Shuttle come from? From serious adults thinking rational thoughts? Wrong. Sure, most people set aside their crazy fantasies when they grow up… they forget about them, and live boring adult lives. But a few of us, we hold on to those crazy kid fantasies, and use them as fuel to make wonderful new things come true. That’s why I love it here. And that’s why you need to help the Queen recover the treasures. It’s the only way to preserve the memories that this place represents. I know this place has been falling apart, it’s why I’ve been so busy at the airport… there just aren’t any Players anymore to solve our problems. And… until you got here, I… almost forgot who I was. But I remember now! So, go, Player. Go build that space station, find that Starstone, and save the day. The world depends on it, in ways you’ll never know.”

Just then, Melvin zips over. “She looks good! A little different than the Discovery, but I think we can handle her.”

Christa starts up the golf cart. “Did you check the O-rings?”

“Sure,” says Melvin. “They look fine. Why?”

Christa smiles at you. “No reason. Come on, let’s get you to Solaris!” She drives the golf cart up to the elevator. You get out, making sure to take your patches with you. The door opens and Christa says, “This mission will be different, and in many ways, much harder.”

You and Melvin look at each other in alarm. You say, “Remind me… what are we doing exactly? How do we build a Space Station?”

She hands you a diagram from her folder. “All that practice docking was for a reason. When you fly Challenger into orbit, you will find a few orbiting satellites. One is a fuel station, one is a factory that makes space station parts. And in the highest orbit, you’ll find the ruins of our old Space Defense Station. Your job is to take parts from the factory, and install them onto the SDS. I’m glad there’s two of you. One will need to stay in the shuttle, the other will need to do a spacewalk to get the parts and put them in place. Everything is very fragile. Bump a part, it breaks. Put a part on the wrong way, it breaks. Collide with comet fragments while flying, and your parts will break.”

“Wait… comet fragments?”

“Yes… a comet flew through recently, and… left a kind of minefield between the factory and the station.”

“That… sounds terrible.”

“It’ll take some fancy flying,” she says, punching your shoulder, “but you can do it.”

A thought strikes you. “Hey! Why don’t you come with us!”

She smiles. “No, no. Shooting up Zylons? That’s not really my thing. But don’t worry… you inspired me. I’ll be doing a science mission on Discovery just as soon as it’s ready again. I had forgotten how much I love space science… but my memory is starting to come back.” She looks at you meaningfully. “And I have a feeling that I’ll remember a lot more soon.”

“Will we see you again?”

“It’s hard to say. But don’t worry about that. You have a mission, Player!” She snaps you a salute. You straighten up and salute her right back. “Thanks for everything, Commander McAuliffe!”

The elevator doors start to close. Melvin asks her, “After we rebuild the station, is there anything else you need us to do?”

“Don’t forget me,” she says.

“I never will,” you say to the closed doors, and the elevator starts its rise.

Put the Shuttle Orbiter cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select 1, and play until you successfully build the space station. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.