Chapter 44: A Galactic Maze

The interior of your ship is like an oven. Sweat is pouring down your face, and the controls of your ship have gotten so hot you’ve torn pieces of the leather seats out to use as improvised oven mitts to keep your hands from burning. Everything outside the window is a bright orange glow, and still the debris and attacking ships fall down relentlessly. “One more sizzloid,” you think, “and we’re done for.”

“Scan complete!” shouts the Administrator. “Get us out of here!”

You’re so dazed from the overwhelming heat you aren’t even sure what to do, when the Administrator’s tail stabs out at the now red-hot metal “LAUNCH” button. He gasps, and you hear a sizzling sound, as the cockpit fills with the scent of roasted tail, but immediately the ship launches up from the molten planet below, and you find yourself dodging debris as it races at you. Immediately you feel the ship starts to cool as it leaves the boiling surface.

The Administrator taps on his portable console. “I’ve transmitted the coordinates to the ship’s hyperwarp system. You can hit go as soon as we’re out of the atmosphere, and it should take us straight to Solaris.”

You keep rocketing up, and veer away from the path of solar destruction that rains down on Siralos, turning it into a hot ball of plasma. The ship has really cooled down now that you are in space, and you set aside the hunks of leather in favor of manipulating the controls directly. Melvin surveys the combination of ripped seats and melted trim that despoil the once elegant cockpit. “I’m pretty sure StarCruiser interior design won’t be too impressed with your decorating job.”

You ignore his jokes, and as your ship goes speeding by the orbital platform, you point it out toward deep space and punch the WARP button. Immediately two flat planes appear above and below the ship as a hyperwarp wormhole opens in front of you, and you get the weird feeling of being in two places at once. You feel intense acceleration pulling at you, as the warp engines start to whine. The Administrator, gripping the back of your seat, calls out, “don’t… forget… about… warp… focus…”

You do your best to keep the two translucent spaceships aligned, and suddenly the ship rockets into the wormhole, like a paperclip launched by a rubber band.

There is a bright flash, and immediately you are confronted with worlds and worlds and worlds – planets of all shapes and sizes are inexplicably racing by you. “What in the name of Bushnell?” shouts the Administrator, studying his console screen. The ship slows down, and when it gets to a more normal speed the Galactic Scanner appears, a deep blue, showing a complex layout of stars, planets, ships, and other things you don’t recognize.

The Administrator is studying it, and doing instant scans with his portable console. “I… don’t believe this…” he says, under his breath.

“What don’t you believe?” asks Melvin. “Which one of these planets is Solaris?”

The Administrator studies his console, then the galactic map, then his console again. “N… none of them,” he says worriedly.

“NONE of them?” shouts Melvin in alarm. “You mean I’ve been lasering myself all over the place for nothing?”

“Wait,” you say nervously, thinking about the dangers of wormholes, “if Solaris isn’t here, then where are we?”

“I…” he pauses, running multiple short and long range scans. “It… umm…”

“Come on! Spit it out!” barks Melvin angrily.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “There is a lot for me to process here.” His voice takes on a tone of awed bewilderment. “I’ve… never seen anything like this… not even during the wars… but… I think I’m beginning to understand.” He points up at the galactic scanner. “Okay,” he says, “Solaris is not here… but I think it’s not far away. The Krylons appear to have used the Starstone to rearrange matter and space in a way I’ve never seen before. They knew that when we figured out they had both the Starstone and the planet Solaris, the entire universe would come to stop them.”

“We know that!” says Melvin with exasperation. “That’s why they hid the planet… wherever we are.”

“Yes,” continues the Administrator. “But they’ve done much more than that. They have rearranged this region of space into a system of, fourteen… no…” he checks his console, “sixteen quadrants.”

Melvin rolls his eyes, not that he has eyes. “If there are sixteen of them,” he shouts, “WHY ARE THEY CALLED QUADRANTS?”

“Maybe they are in a four by four grid?” you try to add helpfully.

The Administrator studies his console. “I wish that were true… but… no… the quadrants seem to be connected to each other by a strange spaghetti of wormholes. Navigating them will take… some mapping.”

“Well,” says Melvin, “that doesn’t sound so hard. We map out some quadrants, and fly around til we find Solaris. Should be easy.”

The Administrator snorts. “Would that it were so easy. The Zylons have not only twisted up space, but they have pulled a huge amount of stars and planets into this region, forming a sort of maze.” He gestures to the Galactic Scanner. “The areas that show stars are completely impassable due to intense gravitational fields. And, worse, some of the most evil scum of the galaxy are in this area. I see Mechnoids, Gliders, Raiders, Targeters, Krylon FlagShips, Kogalon Star Pirates, and even,” he swallows nervously, “Cobra Ships.” Though the ship is no longer hot like it was, he dabs sweat from his forehead using his tail. “I also see blockader minefields, more wormholes than any healthy region should contain, and what we used to call Corridors.”

“Corridors?” asks Melvin. “Like in a high school?”

“More like wormholes infested with guardians, and with an ion door in the middle that will destroy our ship if we don’t have a key.” Says the Administrator, grimly.

“Yeah, that pretty much sounds like high school,” replies Melvin.

You turn around to face the Administrator. “This seems horrible. Should we just get out of here?”

He shakes his head. “I wish we could. They have space twisted up into something like a Mobius strip. Without the Starstone I don’t think it’s possible to leave here. That’s how they’ve trapped so many worlds in one place.” You hear beeps coming from his console. “That’s also why we’re hearing so many distress signals. They’ve sucked in multiple Federation Planets, and mixed them in with Zylon Planets. Cadets on both are sending out all kinds of distress signals.” He taps some keys on his console. “There is one advantage to that…” he looks over a planetary scan. “If you can land on the Federation Worlds, there will be an opportunity to refuel. And if you if can land on Krylon worlds...” he taps a few more keys, “…yes… they appear to have captured some StarCruisers. This explains why we haven’t had any response from Solaris! All the StarCruisers have been captured!”

“So, what happens if we rescue a StarCruiser?” asks Melvin.

“The ship we are flying now is a multi-ship, like the laser cannon back on the mother ship,” he explains.

“A multi-what?” asks Melvin.

“A multi-ship. Surely you noticed that your laser cannon occasionally got shattered by laser bombs, but you didn’t die?”

“I… was wondering about that,” you say.

“Yes,” says the Administrator. “That is multi-ship technology. If your ship gets compromised, a new ship immediately reforms around you in the moment the old one is destroyed. It works via a sort of pocket of space… it’s hard to describe. Anyway, it means you have three ships, which will help us survive this horror. If you can rescue the Cadets on the Zylon planets, you will secure extra ships that will work with the multi-ship system.” He peers down at his console. “And I have another piece of good news,” he says.

“What?” you ask hopefully.

“Normally, when in a Krylon territory, they send out a massive jamming signal that would reverse the controls of your ship, making it very difficult to fly. But the presence of the Federation Planets has a helpful side effect… they have transmitters that counteract that signal, kicking out the jams, as it were.”

“I guess that’s good,” you say, not really meaning it.

“It’s definitely good,” insists the Administrator. “That is, unless the Zylons attack our planets, and destroy the transmitters. If that happens, the entire quadrant will become a terrifying red zone, and all your controls will be upside-down and backwards.”

You rub your forehead, trying to absorb all of it. “This… seems… impossible.”

“I have to agree,” says the Administrator gloomily. “But this morning I would have thought it would be impossible for an untrained earth pilot to save the Terrans, fight off the Krylons and Dracons, and save the Mothership multiple times. So at this point,” he sighs, “I’m ready to believe anything.”

“See that?” Pipes up Melvin. “Old Greeny is starting to believe in us! Greeny, you start mapping! Player, warp us to… I don’t know, somewhere!” He looks back at the Administrator. “How will we know Solaris when we see it?”

“Due to a peculiarity of the atmosphere of Solaris, it appears to blink when viewed from space,” explains the Administrator.

“Alright then! Warp us somewhere blinky!” commands Melvin.

You sigh, and resign yourself to your most impossible situation yet. “Aye, aye, Cap’n,” you say, mustering up all the hope you can, setting the coordinates, and punching the WARP button.

Place the Solaris cartridge into your Atari 2600. Play until you land on the planet Solaris. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.