Delivery Request

Incoming Transmission 
Source Identifier: Scattered Proposition, 15th Mistic of the Ship Heart known as Unquiet Journey >>> 
Subject: Delivery Request >>> Message Begins:

After catastrophic damage to Mining Sector 26B beneath the surface of Mytene, our great benefactor – Unquiet Journey – has shown an interest in hiring a small team of mercenaries to deliver a message.

With its communication array destroyed, there is currently no way to contact those few remaining souls within Mining Sector 26B without the use of a physical letter. Unquiet Journey seeks to deliver one such letter to a contact known only as Dire Straits who currently resides deep within the collapsed mine. 

If you are reading this message, that means you have been selected by Unquiet Journey as a suitably experienced operative for this mission: one capable of discretion. This mission may involve sensitive information. We ask that you keep such knowledge – and any impertinent questions you might have – to yourself if you wish to take part. 

Delve into the mine, deliver the message, and leave. Should this proposal be of interest to you, I shall be waiting at the entrance to the collapsed mine with the letter for you to deliver.

Deepest Fathom - James
Free Moon - Robin

Summary

The Players delve into the tunnels and find a cult to the Ship Heart Dire Straits that believes it has become Decayed. After some discussion and investigation they determine that's not possible but play along so they can deliver the package from Unquiet Journey.
They find that Dire Straits was heavily damaged in the destruction of the Orion Gate and that Unquiet Journey bonded with it to form a solution, but Dire Straits left before that could be enacted.
They fight through the Devourer of Light state that Dire Straits finds itself in and manage to deliver the cure – the Ship Heart is resurrected by Unquiet Journey's power and calls itself Fractured Dawn - a new and malleable Ship Heart that Dr Fathom takes home.

Fathom fills in Unquiet Journey on what happened, and the Ship Heart is content now that Dire Straits is not in pain. It doesn't reveal the information to anyone else, and allows Fathom to take the Ship Heart to his laboratory.
In his laboratory on Ace's World – to which Free Moon is given access – Dr Fathom bolsters the security and starts researching the Ship Hearts he has there (Fractured Dawn and Infinite Energy) to try to work out what the limits of a Ship Heart's perception are. He quickly stumbles upon the problem that the perceptions of these two Ship Hearts are being hindered by the looming presence of Ace's World which while it is permitting them to remain in the laboratory is not willing to let them have access to the casino. What this does suggest is that the presence of Systems that can be accessed by increase or refine a Ship Heart's perception: but in order to fully answer this question he realises he would need to take them far away from any other Ship Heart. Of course, they can still feel those they are bonded to, and the limits of that seem to be system-wide…