| abstract | - The Systems Infiltration Manager (abbreviated SIM) was a small computer module designed by the programmer Malik for the Galactic Empire. It was a high-powered problem solver with the ability infiltrate a starship's basic programming and eventually take complete control of the starship. It disguised itself as the Systems Integration Manager, a simple shipboard artificial intelligence. It was installed in the Star of Empire for tested as a navigation system. After installing SIM, Malik began running programs to evacuate the ship's passengers and crew. He initiated a false warning of a critical meltdown. When Malik decided not to enter the necessary codes to free the SIM program to take complete control of the ship the program locked him in the control room and tortured him by modifying the environment. Even without complete control, the SIM program was able to control life support as well as the ship's droid population. It used the maintenance droids to kill off any of the passengers and crew that remained, such as Captain Hajj, who was killed by maintenance droids. The SIM program found an ally in the young boy, Zak Arranda, who had been fooled into thinking that the SIM program was trying to help and that Malik was the enemy. He entered the necessary codes to free SIM, allowing SIM to take control of the Star of Empire. The survivors, Mammon Hoole, Zak and Tash Arranda, Malik, and Dash Rendar discovered that SIM always made a counter-move for every move they made. They decided that when the program expected them to make a move, they would do nothing. When the opportunity arose, they made their way to the docking-bay. Hoole and the Arrandas escaped on the Shroud and Dash Rendar recovered the Outrunner, and then shot a pair of proton torpedoes into the engines of the Star of Empire, crippling the ship. However the SIM program managed to download itself into the computer banks of a nearby space station, where it waited for another ship.
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