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.