Super Space Acer 2 ------------------ The main battle fleet had arrived shortly after Bob Shumway, aka Super Space Acer, finished destroying the final mothership of the Qwertian empire. The shock wave from the explosion had caused his ship, the Snowball, to stall, so Bob had been frantically trying to restart the engines when his radio crackled. "Shumway! Is that you?" Monroe sounded incredulous. "Yup!" returned Bob, his chest swelling with pride. "Super Space Acer, victorious yet again! You people didn't have to come out with ME on the job!" "Get that pile of junk spaceship outta here! We have work to do!" "But, I just destroyed the Qwertian mothership!" "I don't care WHAT you did! You're in the way! Move it!" Bob could hardly believe his ears. After all he'd done, they weren't happy with him. He still couldn't start the engine, and eventually he had been towed back to the base mothership. Nobody there was happy with him. It seemed the pilots were mad because he took their glory. The strategists were annoyed because he was supposed to have been blown up and decoyed the Qwertian fleet. The admiral was upset because he was back on the ship. Of course, his boss, Stan Rockwell, was glad to see him. "Screwed up again, eh Shumway?" he growled. "I've got a position for you not even YOU can mess up." "Not now, Stan," said Bob casually. "I've got pilot-work to do." "Wrong," retorted Stan. "Admiral says you're an EIGHTH-level sanitation engineer now. You're working the garbage dump." With that, Stan grabbed Bob by the collar and dragged him down the hall. The garbage dump was about one square mile of trash. All the garbage generated by the ship was placed here, until the yearly visit to a garbage planet where it could be dumped. People who worked in the dump were sent there to stay out of the way, and little more. "Now stay out of the way!" yelled Stan as he threw Bob into the dump. The door slid shut, and Bob was alone with the trash. After some time, the Snowball joined him, apparently beyond salvation. This gave Bob something to do during the long days in the dump, as he worked on restoring and improving the ship. At night he slept in the cockpit, and dreamed of fighting battles, and more importantly, getting a hero's welcome. Eventually he had the Snowball back in running form, better than ever. Occasionally he opened the huge garbage bay doors, and flew out for test flights. The ship was small and slow enough that modern sensors did not detect it, so he could fly without problem all around the mothership, which scanned for larger threats. It was during such a test flight that his early-warning sensors suddenly went crazy, picking up a large object approaching him and the mothership at great velocity. Before he could even react, a large, mechanical object had attacked the mothership, and sprinted away. Bob was stunned. It had happened too fast to know what happened, until he scanned the mothership. Whatever had struck had known what to hit. The bay doors were all destroyed, twisted masses of metal. Communications transmitters had also been blown out. The mothership seemed to be just sitting, unable to launch any kind of attack. "Who would have done this?" Bob asked himself. "The Qwertians?" It had to be. They must have had something more than everyone thought. Bob turned his ship's tracking systems on, and began to follow the ion trail left by the retreating attacker. Suddenly an intercepted transmission came over his radio set. "Battle computer test completed successfully. The Union is crippled, and will be unable to attack us until after completion of the unit." "Excellent! Return the unit to the construction zone. It's a shame it doesn't yet have the power to destroy their mothership rather than simply cripple it. No matter. Soon, it won't matter what anyone has!" "Roger. Battle computer is within solar system. You may activate planetary penta-field now." "Now activating pent....." the transmission faded out. "What the...?" asked Bob. He activated a long-range scan in the direction of the transmission. He found a small, 5 planet solar system. An energy shield of immense proportion was being generated, apparently by the five planets themselves. Bob was stunned, but he pressed on, determined to learn more. Already he had forgotten his last experience. The Union was in trouble, and Super Space Acer was needed! Upon getting closer, he noted the shied was being generated by a specific point on each planet. He programmed his battle computer for his plan of attack. The area around each generator was heavily monitored, so he'd go in low, from a distance, and fly up to the generator. Once he got in, he could destroy it. Once all five were destroyed, he should have no problem finding and destroying this new 'battle computer'. Super Space Acer never fails! Loading the game ---------------- Playing ------- Moving the joystick will move your ship in the same direction. Pressing the fire button will fire the current weapon. Press the space bar, or the fire button of the other joystick, to change weapons. You can pick up new weapons by flying over the flashing boxes with letters in them. They are as follows: L - Laser dual power forward shot S - Spiker dual power rear shot 3 - 3-way fires forward, and up and down W - Wave wide forward shot H - Homer homes in on enemies You will also find symbols for the Helper (-O-) and Shield (=) Every level you will fly along the surface of a different planet. At the end of each planet, before the generator, is a guardian, who you must defeat. Your computer will scan at the beginning of each level and locate the guardian for you, as well as it's weak spot. Planet Verti is a lush garden world, but it's no picnic. Stay alert, and watch out for Draga! Planet Hadon is hot, literally! A world of fire and lava, you must always be on guard. If the Phoenixs don't get you, the twin seekers might! Planet Aquo is completly submerged in water, so you must fly through underwater caverns. Everything's out to get you, and the Monfish is waiting! Planet Rocko is just that... rocks! Very active rocks, too, as your presence triggers attack after attack. Even the planet itself will try to stop you from even SEEING Lobship! Planet Frois is completly ice-covered. Perhaps once like Aquo, it grew too cold to maintain liquid water. It's still dangerous, as you delve deep into the ice in search of the ice fort! After that, Super Space Acer, you're on your own! Good luck! Ending ------ You get 3 lives. The game ends when you lose all lives, or destroy the battle computer. ========================================================================== by M. Brent - not for commercial use - harmlesslion.com