“Did you find what was wrong with the equipment?” she asked one of her engineers.

“It seemed to have been hit by an electromagnetic pulse,” one engineer said.

“What? How could it have been hit by an electromagnetic pulse when it was inside the Anti-magnetic shield?” the captain asked. That clearly didn’t make sense.

She started looking at the different readings and the engineers helped her.

Ning watched from behind, looking at the research team at work.

“I can’t understand half of what they’re talking about,” Saphandra said as she sat next to his ears.

“Well, I barely understand it as well, so I can’t blame you,” Ning said and watched.

“Captain, look,” one of the researchers pointed at something. “At the same day the Depth Perception reader was taken out, the planet had reversed its polarity. Could that have been the trigger behind the electromagnetic pulse?”

The captain quickly checked the information and was excited for a bit that she found the answer. However, she couldn’t help but shake her head.

“The polarity reverse was too slow to have caused this. The Anti-magnetic field would have reversed polarity along with it and the equipment would have never been damaged,” the captain said.

The group was back in a slump and they started going through the hundreds of different data that none of their programs could, unfortunately, help them with.

They searched for more information, but Ning had already found the answer thanks to the system. He wondered if he should help, but decided to wait since there was no hurry.

After a few minutes, one of the engineers noticed something. “Captain, look, the ship was orbiting around the north pole of the planet when its polarity shifted to the south,” the engineer said.

“Huh? Yeah, but that’s still too slow. As I said, it would not have affected the ship,” the captain said.

“Yes, but what if there was a solar wind that struck the planet right at that time? If its polarity didn’t match the Anti-magnetic shields, we could’ve been hit by a burst of Electromagnetic pulse generated in that instance.”

The captain’s face got thoughtful as she considered the possibility. Suddenly, her eyes brightened and she started looking through the various data.

“Here it is! Reports of solar activity had been seen, but they dismissed it since solar winds cannot possibly harm a ship,” she said. “However, due to unfortunate timing, while being on top of a magnetic pole, they were hit by the charged particles, and the equipment was damaged.” 𝑂𝒱𝗅xt.𝗇𝓔t

“Yes, that makes sense,” the other engineer nodded.

“Look into other possibilities, but we might have found the cause,” she said and started searching for any evidence that would disprove this theory.

However, Ning knew that there would be none as the captain and her crewmates had hit the nail on the head.

He waited for them to figure out that there was nothing else that could’ve gone wrong, and returned to the ship while they went to inform the captain of the problem.

Since this was an isolated event, and the chances of it happening were astronomically small, they easily replaced the equipment and let the captain know there was nothing to fear.

As long as the engineers on the ship kept track of solar activity during the polarity shifting period, they would be fine.

After finishing all of that, the ship flew off from the mining station and the group flew back towards the Service Station.

Ning went back to the room with the Space Drive and helped them carry on with multiple jumps again.

Once they were close to the station, Ning had no choice but to wait half an hour before they arrived back.

He walked up to the bridge and waited.

“Captain, do you have any family members?” he asked.

“No, master,” she said. “Most of us federation members that go on a voyage are chosen from those that won’t be missed greatly, so usually we are ones that don’t have a family.”

“What about those that do have a family?” Ning asked.

“Those end up remaining in a single place to work so that they can visit their families,” the captain said.

“I see, you do have to be away for years, huh? What about friends? Do you not have those either?” Ning asked.

“I do,” the captain said. “But most of my friends are back home at the center of the galaxy where time runs quite slowly. So, even if I spend many years here, most of which is spent sleeping in a cryo-chamber, they will still remain the same age as me by the time I return. Which we are allowed to after about 20 years of service as per the time back home.”

“Oh, not bad. How many years do you have left?” Ning asked.

“About 10 more years,” the captain said. “Or if we’re talking outer space, about 900 more years.”

“I see,” Ning said.

“They spend quite a lot huh?” Saphandra said.

“They spend it asleep most of the time, so they don’t feel the time moving,” Ning said.

The ship arrived back at the station, and Ning teleported back into the room that he had bought for himself.

To his surprise, a whole day had already passed. “We only spent half a day near that planet though. Was the time difference that bad?” Ning wondered.

Ning quickly forgot about it and started preparing to go play the games that everyone seemed to love so much.

“Let’s go buy whatever it is that is needed,” he said and walked out of the room to go to a store.

He apparently had to buy a human-sized capsule to play the game and it came with a cryo-freezing ability where everything but your mind was inactive.

“I wonder how that works,” Ning thought. He looked at the price of the capsule at around 3000 Credits and was quite surprised at how expensive it was.

Still, he was drowning in credits, so he thought not much of it and bought it.