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Description
My tribute to the arcade game Asteroids from Atari, 1979.
Sized to fit your Iphone wallpaper.
Since there is no backstory to the game, I decided to write one.

The Story Behind Asteroids

Raising his hand, “Why are we doing this again?” Eddie Rains asked his superior.

Commander Martin Champion cleared his throat and said, “Long Range scanners have detected a large asteroid field that has moved into Earth’s orbit. We need you gentlemen to clear them out.”

Eddie replied, “I understand that part, but why send a group of fighter pilots? Why not send a demolition crew?”

The commander looked directly at the curious pilot and stated, “Because asteroids don’t randomly drift into Earth’s path. They should be orbiting the Sun. That’s why we are sending fighter pilots. This may be the result of Zylon activity.”

“Zylons? We haven’t seen any of them since the end of the war, and that was 10 years ago,” said Eddie.

“Just because we haven’t seen them in years doesn’t mean we can relax. We have to remain vigilant. This squadron will report to the Carrier Midway at 0800 tomorrow morning. Then you’ll make the jump to light speed transporting you to a location near the asteroid field on the other side of the solar system.”

The rest of the briefing was very simple. The asteroids in Quadrant 4B had to be broken into smaller pieces so they would burn up in the atmosphere, or the large pieces would fall to Earth and cause major destruction. The Atarian Federation was sending two dozen of their best pilots to clear out of the field before Earth passed through it in six months time.

Eddie considered the activity boring.

After coming out of light speed the pilots reported to their retrofitted fighter ships. Despite their small size, they packed a walloping amount of force with the laser cannons, which was needed in order to break up the larger asteroids. The small size also made the ships more maneuverable.

After launching from the Carrier, Eddie spoke to his Navigation Computer, “Navi, set coordinates for Sector 16.” A small chime sounded, and an electronic female voice responded, “Coordinates set. Proceed.” Eddie pressed the hyperspace button on his joystick and the thrusters on his small fighter craft ignited propelling him across the quadrant.

Minutes later Navi notified him that he had arrived.

As the ship slowed down, Eddie looked glumly at his surroundings and muttered, “Swell.” Large asteroids rotated slowly in front of him. In the darkness of deep space, he could only see their outlines with the minimal amount of sunlight that made it this far. “Turn off Auto Pilot and switch to Manual Control. Turn on Sonar.” A vector graphics representation of the asteroids popped up on his view screen. He watched them rotate silently.

Eddie switched the safety for his blasters off and rested his thumb on the red button on top of his joystick. “Let’s clear out some rocks,” he said to himself. Eddie opened fire on a large asteroid directly in front of his ship. It broke off into two smaller pieces that rapidly moved away from his line of fire. He pulled his joystick left and applied thrust, causing the ship to rapidly rotate. As soon as the cross hairs on his view screen lined up on the smaller asteroids he released of volley of laser blasts that turned them into dust. He slowly rotated toward the next large asteroid and lightly tapped his thrusters to move closer. This time he expected the asteroid to break into smaller pieces and was able to anticipate the direction they would fly after hitting the larger one.

Over the course of the next three hours, Eddie became very proficient at turning large rocks into smaller pieces. It was a combination of hand-to-eye coordination, rotation, and thrust. “This must be why they sent seasoned pilots to do this instead of a Demo Crew. They would have made a big mess of this.”

“RED ALERT!” Navi chimed. A red light began flashing on the dash. A small saucer shaped object appeared on the view screen.

“What type of ship is that?” Eddie demanded.

“Zylon fighter ship. Mid size Saucer Model,” Navi responded.

“What the Devil is that thing doing all the way out here? Engage Shields. Let’s see if we can take him out before he sees us.”

“Shields Up,” Navi replied. Seconds later a bright flash of white light passed over the ship.

“Too late. He’s seen us.” Eddie applied thrust to maneuver his small ship behind a large asteroid, matching its direction and speed. The saucer was on the other side. Eddie watched the approach of his enemy on his view screen. He pressed his thumb down on the fire button. A volley of laser blasts struck the asteroid, causing it to break into smaller pieces. One of those pieces crashed into the Zylon saucer. It exploded as the giant rock tore through its hull.

Eddie barked, “Navi, open communications with the Carrier.”

“Hailing Carrier.” A roar of static came out of the speaker.

“Mission Control this is Apollo 9, I just made contact with a Zylon Saucer. Requesting backup.”

A second roar of static erupted from the speakers. That was followed by a panicked voice, “The Carrier is Under Attack. Return immed---.“ More static.

“Mission Control? Mission Control? Do you read me? Dammit!” Eddie cursed.

“RED ALERT!” Navi chimed. A small blip appeared on the western side of the screen. The red warning light began flashing again.

“What type of ship is that?” Eddie barked.

Navi replied, “It appears to be a Zylon design I am not familiar with. It’s smaller than the previous saucers we’ve seen and seems to be faster as well. This must be a new model.”

“Swell,” grumbled Eddie. He hit the thrusters and propelled the ship toward his enemy.

The small enemy ship fired a volley of laser blasts in his direction. Eddie’s fighter took a hit and the ship began moving backwards.

“Direct Hit” the Nav Computer chimed. “Shields down to 72%. PROXIMITY ALERT!”

Eddie engaged the thrusters to try and avoid the large asteroid that was headed for them. Instead of a head on collision, it was merely a glancing blow. The ship struck the boulder and bounced off. Eddie rocked violently back and forth in the cockpit. The shields absorbed the impact.

“Shields Down to 38%!” Navi said.

“Great,” growled Eddie sarcastically. He quickly maneuvered the fighter ship towards his enemy for a second try. He lined up the cross hairs on his view screen with the enemy saucer and pressed the fire button.

Simultaneously, the small enemy craft opened fire in an arc that began swinging toward Eddie.

Eddie’s first two shots wore down the shields on the Zylon craft. The third shot passed through the hull and caused a large explosion. The laser blasts from the alien craft passed harmlessly over Eddie’s ship and broke up the large asteroid behind him.

“Wow,” Eddie exclaimed. “That was a huge explosion. There must have been a huge power cell on that small saucer.”

“My sensors indicate a larger than normal amount of radiation in the debris,” Navi stated.

“Plot a course back to the Carrier. They must be under attack by the same ships that we encountered.”

“Computing…Course laid in.”

“Proceed.” He pressed the thrusters and engaged the automatic pilot. His ship made the jump into hyperspace.

Minutes later Eddie came out of hyperspace and arrived on the fringes of a massive battle. The RED ALERT alarm went off immediately. Carrier Vessel Midway was on fire. A large black cloud of smoke and debris was pouring out of the flight deck entrance. Dozens of Zylon Empire saucers swarmed around the ship peppering it with laser blasts. Most of the lights on the ship were out. It appeared to be drifting.

“Navi, scan the area. Where’s the rest of the squadron?”

“Scanning…There is no sign of any other survivors. This ship is the only remaining vessel. Multiple Zylon vessels are headed towards us. Note that our shields are only at 38%. We need repairs.”

“Shut up Navi, I know how bad the odds are right now. Calculate a path back to Earth.”

“This ship doesn’t have light speed capability. It will take several months to travel to Earth using small hyperspace jumps in this vessel.”

“That’s not going to work. Time for Plan B.” Eddie rapidly turned the ship around and headed back towards the Asteroid field.

“You can’t outrun them. Their small saucers are faster than this vessel,” Navi stated.

“I might not be able to outrun them, but I can outmaneuver them. We’re going back through the asteroids. If I can successfully make it through the field we can head for the Colony on Mars.”

“There is a chance the martian Colony is also under attack,” Navi stated mechanically.

“Right now that Colony is our only chance. Prepare to jump into hyperspace. We’re going back to Sector 16. Let’s just hope when we come out of hyperspace we don’t collide with an asteroid!” Eddie pressed the thrust button and zipped across the quadrant with the Zylon saucers hot on his tail.

____________________________________________________

Note: This story wasn’t meant to have an ending. It dovetails into the never ending arcade game which places more and more asteroids on screen with each wave.

Trivia: The name Eddie Rains is a combination of Lyle Rains and Ed Logg, the creators of Asteroids.

The Zylon Empire is the alien race from Star Raiders, which was the best game you could get with an Atari computer. It was later ported to the 2600.

Commander Martin Champion is from the Atari arcade game Liberator (1982).

Description
My tribute to the arcade game Asteroids from Atari, 1979.
Sized to fit your Iphone wallpaper.
Since there is no backstory to the game, I decided to write one.

The Story Behind Asteroids

Raising his hand, “Why are we doing this again?” Eddie Rains asked his superior.

Commander Martin Champion cleared his throat and said, “Long Range scanners have detected a large asteroid field that has moved into Earth’s orbit. We need you gentlemen to clear them out.”

Eddie replied, “I understand that part, but why send a group of fighter pilots? Why not send a demolition crew?”

The commander looked directly at the curious pilot and stated, “Because asteroids don’t randomly drift into Earth’s path. They should be orbiting the Sun. That’s why we are sending fighter pilots. This may be the result of Zylon activity.”

“Zylons? We haven’t seen any of them since the end of the war, and that was 10 years ago,” said Eddie.

“Just because we haven’t seen them in years doesn’t mean we can relax. We have to remain vigilant. This squadron will report to the Carrier Midway at 0800 tomorrow morning. Then you’ll make the jump to light speed transporting you to a location near the asteroid field on the other side of the solar system.”

The rest of the briefing was very simple. The asteroids in Quadrant 4B had to be broken into smaller pieces so they would burn up in the atmosphere, or the large pieces would fall to Earth and cause major destruction. The Atarian Federation was sending two dozen of their best pilots to clear out of the field before Earth passed through it in six months time.

Eddie considered the activity boring.

After coming out of light speed the pilots reported to their retrofitted fighter ships. Despite their small size, they packed a walloping amount of force with the laser cannons, which was needed in order to break up the larger asteroids. The small size also made the ships more maneuverable.

After launching from the Carrier, Eddie spoke to his Navigation Computer, “Navi, set coordinates for Sector 16.” A small chime sounded, and an electronic female voice responded, “Coordinates set. Proceed.” Eddie pressed the hyperspace button on his joystick and the thrusters on his small fighter craft ignited propelling him across the quadrant.

Minutes later Navi notified him that he had arrived.

As the ship slowed down, Eddie looked glumly at his surroundings and muttered, “Swell.” Large asteroids rotated slowly in front of him. In the darkness of deep space, he could only see their outlines with the minimal amount of sunlight that made it this far. “Turn off Auto Pilot and switch to Manual Control. Turn on Sonar.” A vector graphics representation of the asteroids popped up on his view screen. He watched them rotate silently.

Eddie switched the safety for his blasters off and rested his thumb on the red button on top of his joystick. “Let’s clear out some rocks,” he said to himself. Eddie opened fire on a large asteroid directly in front of his ship. It broke off into two smaller pieces that rapidly moved away from his line of fire. He pulled his joystick left and applied thrust, causing the ship to rapidly rotate. As soon as the cross hairs on his view screen lined up on the smaller asteroids he released of volley of laser blasts that turned them into dust. He slowly rotated toward the next large asteroid and lightly tapped his thrusters to move closer. This time he expected the asteroid to break into smaller pieces and was able to anticipate the direction they would fly after hitting the larger one.

Over the course of the next three hours, Eddie became very proficient at turning large rocks into smaller pieces. It was a combination of hand-to-eye coordination, rotation, and thrust. “This must be why they sent seasoned pilots to do this instead of a Demo Crew. They would have made a big mess of this.”

“RED ALERT!” Navi chimed. A red light began flashing on the dash. A small saucer shaped object appeared on the view screen.

“What type of ship is that?” Eddie demanded.

“Zylon fighter ship. Mid size Saucer Model,” Navi responded.

“What the Devil is that thing doing all the way out here? Engage Shields. Let’s see if we can take him out before he sees us.”

“Shields Up,” Navi replied. Seconds later a bright flash of white light passed over the ship.

“Too late. He’s seen us.” Eddie applied thrust to maneuver his small ship behind a large asteroid, matching its direction and speed. The saucer was on the other side. Eddie watched the approach of his enemy on his view screen. He pressed his thumb down on the fire button. A volley of laser blasts struck the asteroid, causing it to break into smaller pieces. One of those pieces crashed into the Zylon saucer. It exploded as the giant rock tore through its hull.

Eddie barked, “Navi, open communications with the Carrier.”

“Hailing Carrier.” A roar of static came out of the speaker.

“Mission Control this is Apollo 9, I just made contact with a Zylon Saucer. Requesting backup.”

A second roar of static erupted from the speakers. That was followed by a panicked voice, “The Carrier is Under Attack. Return immed---.“ More static.

“Mission Control? Mission Control? Do you read me? Dammit!” Eddie cursed.

“RED ALERT!” Navi chimed. A small blip appeared on the western side of the screen. The red warning light began flashing again.

“What type of ship is that?” Eddie barked.

Navi replied, “It appears to be a Zylon design I am not familiar with. It’s smaller than the previous saucers we’ve seen and seems to be faster as well. This must be a new model.”

“Swell,” grumbled Eddie. He hit the thrusters and propelled the ship toward his enemy.

The small enemy ship fired a volley of laser blasts in his direction. Eddie’s fighter took a hit and the ship began moving backwards.

“Direct Hit” the Nav Computer chimed. “Shields down to 72%. PROXIMITY ALERT!”

Eddie engaged the thrusters to try and avoid the large asteroid that was headed for them. Instead of a head on collision, it was merely a glancing blow. The ship struck the boulder and bounced off. Eddie rocked violently back and forth in the cockpit. The shields absorbed the impact.

“Shields Down to 38%!” Navi said.

“Great,” growled Eddie sarcastically. He quickly maneuvered the fighter ship towards his enemy for a second try. He lined up the cross hairs on his view screen with the enemy saucer and pressed the fire button.

Simultaneously, the small enemy craft opened fire in an arc that began swinging toward Eddie.

Eddie’s first two shots wore down the shields on the Zylon craft. The third shot passed through the hull and caused a large explosion. The laser blasts from the alien craft passed harmlessly over Eddie’s ship and broke up the large asteroid behind him.

“Wow,” Eddie exclaimed. “That was a huge explosion. There must have been a huge power cell on that small saucer.”

“My sensors indicate a larger than normal amount of radiation in the debris,” Navi stated.

“Plot a course back to the Carrier. They must be under attack by the same ships that we encountered.”

“Computing…Course laid in.”

“Proceed.” He pressed the thrusters and engaged the automatic pilot. His ship made the jump into hyperspace.

Minutes later Eddie came out of hyperspace and arrived on the fringes of a massive battle. The RED ALERT alarm went off immediately. Carrier Vessel Midway was on fire. A large black cloud of smoke and debris was pouring out of the flight deck entrance. Dozens of Zylon Empire saucers swarmed around the ship peppering it with laser blasts. Most of the lights on the ship were out. It appeared to be drifting.

“Navi, scan the area. Where’s the rest of the squadron?”

“Scanning…There is no sign of any other survivors. This ship is the only remaining vessel. Multiple Zylon vessels are headed towards us. Note that our shields are only at 38%. We need repairs.”

“Shut up Navi, I know how bad the odds are right now. Calculate a path back to Earth.”

“This ship doesn’t have light speed capability. It will take several months to travel to Earth using small hyperspace jumps in this vessel.”

“That’s not going to work. Time for Plan B.” Eddie rapidly turned the ship around and headed back towards the Asteroid field.

“You can’t outrun them. Their small saucers are faster than this vessel,” Navi stated.

“I might not be able to outrun them, but I can outmaneuver them. We’re going back through the asteroids. If I can successfully make it through the field we can head for the Colony on Mars.”

“There is a chance the martian Colony is also under attack,” Navi stated mechanically.

“Right now that Colony is our only chance. Prepare to jump into hyperspace. We’re going back to Sector 16. Let’s just hope when we come out of hyperspace we don’t collide with an asteroid!” Eddie pressed the thrust button and zipped across the quadrant with the Zylon saucers hot on his tail.

____________________________________________________

Note: This story wasn’t meant to have an ending. It dovetails into the never ending arcade game which places more and more asteroids on screen with each wave.

Trivia: The name Eddie Rains is a combination of Lyle Rains and Ed Logg, the creators of Asteroids.

The Zylon Empire is the alien race from Star Raiders, which was the best game you could get with an Atari computer. It was later ported to the 2600.

Commander Martin Champion is from the Atari arcade game Liberator (1982).