The computer pinged to Alexander that it had finished processing the data.

He'd been taking the time to finish repairing the strand, since he'd have to do it eventually anyway, and was running new sims on its viability when the notification came.

Pausing the sims, he looked over the data results.

The system had charted when all of the major errors had cropped up in the DNA over the past few years, and he wanted to collate that data to see if there was some rhyme or reason.

There was, he could see immediately in the visualization, a pattern.

The major abnormalities began about a year ago. Before that the incidents were far fewer and less severe.

There was one incident, a gap, then they started appearing regularly. But there was no pattern beyond that as far as he could tell.

He ran some tests against major events the ship had gone through, but these were far more numerous than such events.

The first did correspond with the Leviathan they'd encountered a little over a year ago. That made sense, but any pattern he might extrapolate from that fell apart quickly. They weren't having anything like this much contact with Leviathans!

So it must not be that specifically. It might have triggered something else. Perhaps some minor damage in the ship? A weakness in radiation protections? Whatever it was, the levels were so minimal as to be undetectable to sensors, because of course they scanned for radiation leaks.

He was starting to get frustrated, though. This was not his speciality, but it was interfering with his work. Why the hell couldn't it just be something obvious?

Grumbling, he realized that his frustration stemmed, largely, from tiredness.

Looking at the time, he realized how much he'd let slip away. Shit.

He'd put himself into Busy mode, and saw that Pirra had sent him messages, picking a low-enough importance that it hadn't interrupted them.

A thoughtful thing . . . which also meant he hadn't gotten snapped out of his own head in time to spend the evening with her.

Well, he had no one to blame but himself, he thought ruefully, starting to pack up.

The DNA was fixed, it would still be here in the morning.

Leaving his office, he hurried back to the apartment.

Letting himself in as quietly as he could, he saw that everything was dark. Pirra was already in bed.

On the one hand, he was glad she hadn't stayed up for him, she had to be tired after her day of work. But he also regretted that he had missed her.

Peeling back the sheets, he tried to slip into bed without waking her, but of course failed.

Her eyes opened, the sudden white of them in the darkness almost startling, if he hadn't been so used to it.

"Sorry," he said softly. "I didn't mean to work so late."

Her eyes slipped half-closed in sleepiness. Unlike human eyes they did not rotate much in the skull, and the nictitating membrane that protected them from light and such slid half over them.

"It's fine," she sang sleepily. "Sometimes I work late, too. On exploding spaceships." She smiled slightly.

"This wasn't that dramatic," he admitted.

"But important, I'm sure," she replied, sounding even more distant with sleep now.

He leaned in, planting a kiss on her head. She lifted her head and pressed against his cheek, her way of returning the affection.

"Good night," he said softly, settling in. "Tomorrow we'll do something fun."

She mumbled something that was incoherent.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Alexander was exhausted, but the thoughts of his work continued to crowd his mind. He tried meditation, but he'd never been good at it.

He lay awake for a long time.

*******

The command center of the Craton was bustling with activity.

In the Captain's chair, Urle sat, interfacing with the ship's computer via a finger contact point.

In a few minutes time, the testing of their expanded magnetosphere would be complete, and they would begin their movement towards the relic temple.

Urle was not nervous about the technology. The manipulation of magnetic fields, even frighteningly powerful ones like what they were about to create, was an ancient technology, well understood. Even swelling the protective field to fully encompass the Raven's Ghost was not an issue.

They always had an external field to protect against stray cosmic rays and other natural sources of radiation, so the equipment was there. The same technology was used to contain the heat and radiation of a solar furnace - seven of them - in their reactors. So projecting a larger and more powerful field outwards to protect against the radiation of the Van Allen belt around the temple was child's play.

As an added protection, they would be using their magnetosphere to contain a cloud of plasma, which would serve as an extra barrier against high-energy electrons as they whipped around the ship.

But they wouldn't have a lot of space, and no Captain liked having another vessel as close as the Raven's Ghost would have to be. They couldn't keep tens of kilometers of distance between them, as was the usual minimum for two free-flying craft. Instead the Raven's Ghost would have an area of just a few square kilometers around the Craton. To leave that area would mean lethal doses of radiation in only a fraction of a second.

If it were a Union ship so close to them, he wouldn't be concerned. But this was a heavily-modified civilian craft, whose maintenance history and crew he did not know. What decisions - particularly foolish ones - they might make if things got dicey was an unknown.

Rachel Zhu finished speaking to one of her officers, and turned to him. "Captain, we have finalized our course with the Raven's Ghost."

"Good. Engineering?"

Cutter clacked his jaws and nodded. "Are prepared to enlarge magnetosphere at your command."

Everything was ready. He steeled himself. "Enlarge the magnetosphere, begin building up the plasmasphere. Prepare to move as soon as they are stabilized and the Raven's Ghost is in position."

"Field engaged," Cutter said. "Stabilized. Flooding area with plasma. Stabilized. Both fields ready, Acting-Captain. We are operating just over peak expected efficiency."

"My commendations to you and your engineers," Urle said. He confirmed all of the data himself in a fraction of a second, as well as the Raven's Ghost being steady in her position off their port beam. "Angle us in towards the station."

The ship began a long yawing turn. Normally they'd only rotate and thrust one way, but it was easier for the Raven's Ghost this way. It kept position.

"We have entered the radiation belt," Cenz called. "As has the Raven's Ghost."

"Radiation levels on the ship?"

"They are remaining constant, Acting-Captain."

"Good. Keep our heading and bring us in."

Their curving course would let them reach the temple in two hours. Looking at the drones they'd put outside the field, he measured the radiation levels.

It made no sense for there to be a massive magnetic field out here, or this much radiation. Such a thing needed a source, and it did not even seem to be centered on the temple.

Just another bizarre aspect to all this.

The temple grew in size on the scopes as they approached.

"Switching to actual size," Cenz called. The view changed, the distance increasing - but it was still vast.

25,000 kilometers in width, the temple was beyond massive; twice the width of the Earth. There were plenty of planets bigger than the Earth, but structures? No. Not solid things like this. It was insane, engineering on a scale that dwarfed them.

"Approaching the inner safe zone," Cenz called. Urle glanced at his chrono and saw that two hours had nearly passed.

"Bring us to a stop just outside it," Urle said.

The edge of their field would come near the safe zone; they could bring them together to let landing craft through in safety, but keep the Craton outside. The idea of bringing the Craton into the safe zone had been brought up, but Urle had decided against it. It was not that taxing to maintain the magnetosphere, and they did not know anything about the protected area around the temple.

Best to stay where space behaved in a predictable way.

"Raven's Ghost," he messaged. "We are in position. The show is yours."

"We copy you, Craton," Nadian replied. "We'll be setting out in just a few minutes."