Mayday

>>> Incoming Transmission
>>> Source Identifier: Recondite Artisan # Muse IX >>> Destination Identifier: TE3-Firebrand#Her Glorious Command#Starlight Ebbing#Endeavour#Unquiet Journey#*
>>> Subject: Training Simulation
>>> Message Begins

The Spacefarers Guild is offering the opportunity to test your emergency response skills in a training sim replicating the destruction of the Gargantua. You will take on the role of the crew of the Sierra, the first ship to respond. Can you do better than history? We are taking applications from individuals and organisations but spaces are limited so book now!

>>> Message Ends
>>> End Transmission

Last Resort - Katie
Blind Rising - Susannah

Summary

Last Resort and Blind Rising arrive on the Muse IX and follow signs to the holodeck suite where there is some confusion how to “plug in”.

Entering the simulation, they meet a simulated version of the ship heart Sierra - an opalescent sphere with a digital face - who explains to them the rules of the simulation and helps them choose roles - Chief Medical Officer for Resort and Helm Officer for Rising. They are then directed to meet the ship's passengers. Resort attempts to determine which is the problem passenger before realising it's all of them - the pompous Altarian noble Lyrical Dawn, 13, the suspicious Elegy spectre Grey Mist, the demanding Chirrid opera singer Marvellous Maze, and an overly inquisitive child. Resort does manage to alter the simulation to adjust Maze's personality, turning them into a grungy punk rocker.

The party are assailed by the day-to-day work of the ship, followed by a Distress call from the Gargantua. Being thrown in front of the controls of a spaceship is rather bewildering for Blind Rising, which isn't exactly helped by Sierra's analogy for how to eke more speed out of the engines by “feeding the horse more so it goes faster but not so much that it explodes”. Nonetheless, Resort manages to adjust the plasma flow for the optimum speed boost through trial and error, though she isn't impressed with the effects.

Resort is very quick to assist Grey Mist in her assassination of Lyrical Dawn and teaches Rising about the importance of not getting in the way of the Elegy.

Taking control of first the ship Sierra, and then individual shuttles, Resort and Rising pilot through the ice rings of a gas giant to begin rescuing escape pods from the Gargantua. They then board the ailing cruise liner through the hull breach and go to the economy class accommodation where they rescue more survivors before heading for the ship heart once they've ascertained that saving it is worth points.

They pass through a malfunctioning holodeck and retrieve Gargantua but something goes wrong with the simulation when they are fending off the decay and, after heroically rescuing Gargantua from floating off into space, it is attacked by decay and pops like a balloon. Clearly the simulation was not written to handle this scenario because it glitches out but the problem is resolved just in time for Resort and Rising to leap from the exploding ship to safety.

After completing the exercise, Resort hacks into the program and sets the ship heart Gargantua's health to 1, thereby reverting their score to what it was just before the glitch - 783 rather than -2,147,483,647.
Blind Rising hangs around on the Muse IX for a while, trying to act like they're not confused by everything. They do meet some interesting people among Muse IX's passengers and crew, gain a new perspective about the galaxy from the grand views of the Keter system from the viewing platform, and find a little bit of normality among the plant life of the biodome.
Last Resort tips ACE off that the program may be of interest. ACE identifies the weak links in the team behind the training program and begins preparing to leverage them. An ACE representative approaches Recondite Artisan of the Spacefarers Guild with a briefcase full of incriminating photos and documents and inquires about obtaining a copy of the program. Artisan immediately offers to load the program on a data disk with the condition that if it's redistributed it retains credit to the Spacefarers Guild, and suggests that the Guild could provide training to the whole of ACE. The representative quietly stuffs the blackmail material back into their briefcase.
Last Resort studies the program, looking into how it managed to simulate Ship Hearts. It seems that the simulation of Sierra was written with the help of the original Sierra which made the recreation of the personality surprisingly faithful. Otherwise it was a regular NPC with awareness of its simulated nature and access to the simulation documentation. However, the simulation wasn't programmed to deal with the destruction of a Ship Heart which resulted in the glitch. She sends all of her data to ACE, along with some pamphlets of wacky cybernetics.