Over the next fifty days, the crew of the Terra Twin poured over every scrap of information they had collected from the object. When the Argus arrived, they had more questions than answers.

  One of the greatest mysteries was the gravity anomaly. The sphere’s mass was measurable and solid, yet no amount of calculations could reconcile its gravity, which was only half of what it should have been.

  “This makes no sense,” Jamie said, staring at the readouts. “A mass this size should exert way more gravity. Are we missing something?”

  Russell rubbed his temples. “Unless there’s some exotic physics at play, I can’t explain it. Either it’s hollow in a way we can’t detect, or… I don’t even know.”

  The material composition was equally perplexing. The iron-nickel alloy was not naturally occurring; it had been fused from multiple source ores, with various impurities embedded in the metal.

  “So, it’s artificial,” Jeff muttered, tapping the console. “Someone—or something—built this thing.”

  The evidence was undeniable: the sphere was an artifact, a constructed object. The sheer scale of a nickel-iron structure this large suggested that whoever created it did not think in small terms.

  The sphere defied other known astrophysical principles. By all previous knowledge of celestial bodies, it should have generated a magnetic field—but it didn’t.

  “That’s just weird,” Nigel Sapps, the commander of the Argus, remarked. “Even a small asteroid this dense should have a measurable magnetic field. This thing is breaking every rule in the book.”

  Even stranger, its reflective properties were inconsistent. While the sunward side of the sphere reflected light as expected, its ability to absorb energy was phenomenal.

  “So, what happens to the energy?” Jamie mused. “It’s being absorbed, but where is it going?”

  Then there were the parallel lines discovered by Jamie. Unlike the rest of the alloy, these lines contained absolutely no impurities.

  “It’s like the builders used a different process for these parts,” Jamie noted, examining the data. “If this was some sort of circuitry or a conductor for energy…”

  The same high-grade material composed the dish-like structure they had identified on the surface, now referred to simply as "the dish."

  Inside the sphere, sonar scans conducted by Russell and his team revealed even more astonishing findings.

  “This is incredible,” Russell breathed, looking at the scans. “The columns… they extend for miles. And the core, it’s completely sealed off.”

  “No air, no gases,” Jamie added. “Nothing. This thing is a dead zone.”

  Jamie’s non-visible light photography provided the final clue. The dish structure reflected all infrared and ultraviolet light, making it brilliantly visible against the sphere’s otherwise light-absorbing surface.

  For three days, the crews of the Terra Twin and the Argus exchanged information, visited each other’s vessels, and took the opportunity to stretch their legs—if only metaphorically.

  On the fourth day after the Argus’ arrival, the crew of the Terra Twin enjoyed a rare moment of respite. Commander Nigel Sapps officiated a wedding aboard the Argus, uniting Jeff Calan and Jamie Chung in marriage.

  The ceremony was simple but joyful. The cramped quarters of the Argus’ common room were transformed with makeshift decorations—strips of metallic wiring twisted into garlands, soft lighting from recalibrated panels, and a small bouquet of preserved flowers someone had managed to bring on board.

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Nigel said with a grin. “And may your ship always have functional life support!”

  Laughter rippled through the room as Jeff kissed Jamie to cheers and applause. Someone had managed to produce music, and soon, the crew members were swaying in an impromptu dance. For a few hours, the weight of the unknown sphere was forgotten, replaced by warmth, camaraderie, and celebration.

  The newlyweds’ crew remained aboard the Argus overnight, taking advantage of the change in environment.

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  Russell Carlin, meanwhile, found himself drawn to Argus’ maintenance engineer, Debra Hilds. They met in the ship’s maintenance bay, where Debra was troubleshooting a finicky cooling vent.

  “You ever notice how everything breaks the second you actually need it?” Debra muttered, wiping a smudge of grease from her cheek.

  Russell chuckled. “Story of my life. Need a hand?”

  Together, they worked in companionable silence, exchanging glances as they passed tools back and forth. When the vent finally hummed back to life, Debra leaned against the console with a satisfied smirk.

  “Not bad, Carlin,” she said. “I might just keep you around.”

  Russell felt a flicker of something unexpected—something pleasant. “I wouldn’t mind that,” he admitted.

  Their easy banter continued over the next few days, and more than once, they found excuses to be in the same room. Some anomalies aboard the Argus, like the proximity sensors failing to register their location, became background noise compared to the growing connection between them.

  On the ninth day after the rendezvous, Commander Sapps and the Argus’ scientists presented their conclusions to Jeff. They now believed the sphere was not merely a structure, but a spaceship—or perhaps a pod from an even larger vessel.

  “I still can’t believe it’s just been sitting here for over a thousand years,” Debra murmured. “And now, we’re the ones knocking on its door.”

  With these findings in mind, the Argus team proposed their next step: entering the sphere. Their objective was twofold—explore the central core that the Terra Twin’s instruments couldn’t reach and attempt to activate the dish in hopes of contacting whoever—or whatever—had created the sphere.

  The mission ahead was daunting, but the potential discoveries were beyond imagination. If the sphere was truly a vessel, it meant that somewhere out there, an unknown intelligence had once traveled the stars—and possibly still did.

  Jeff didn’t know why, but something about their plan made him uneasy. Commander Sapps had asked if Charon Mining would accept replacement value plus twenty-five percent for two of his ore hoppers. Argus’ only manned outboat was simply too large to navigate the jumbled interior of the sphere. Jeff relayed the request to Charon’s general manager, who accepted without hesitation.

  Russell and Chuck ferried the two fully repaired ships, numbers two and three, over to Argus and docked.

  As soon as Russell stepped onto Argus’ docking bay, he found himself wrapped in Debra Hilds’ arms. Chuck, standing just outside the inner bay door, waited patiently for his friend.

  “How long do you think you’ll stick with this?” Chuck asked.

  Russell exhaled, still holding Debra. “I’ve got my ten years in, and all my comp time saved up. I’ll be resigning from UW Science soon. We’re due to put in on Charon before returning to the core, so I’ll see Commander Sapps before then.”

  He pulled her close, and they kissed gently. “I love you,” Russell murmured.

  “I love you too, Russ Carlin,” Debra replied.

  “I’ll wait for you,” he promised, their hands slowly unclasping. He turned and walked away from the docking bay, resisting the urge to look back, knowing it would only make leaving harder.

  Chuck noticed his friend’s long face and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Welcome,” he said, “to the ranks of the hopelessly in love.”

  Russell gave him a wry look. “What do you mean?”

  “Just that sooner or later, everyone meets their soulmate. And sometimes, it hurts a lot more than others.” Chuck sighed, shaking his head. “My wife and I were engaged for eight years—she had to finish college on Mars first. Believe me, Russ, missing them never gets easier.”

  As they were ferried back to the Twin in Argus’ outboat, Russell found himself feeling more pride than remorse about leaving his newfound love.

  Back aboard the Twin, the engines were cycling, heating molecular hydrogen for injection into the fusion drive pod. Russell and Chuck settled into their g-beds, preparing for their three-week trip home.

  Meanwhile, Argus positioned herself one hundred meters from the sphere’s surface, waiting while the two hoppers finished cutting a one-hundred-foot-diameter circle into the structure.

  Once the cut was complete, twenty-five five-hundred-ton charges were placed into angled core holes around the perimeter. If everything went as planned, the detonation would blow the “hatch” clear at all edges.

  The hoppers attached an eighty-foot, three-inch-thick cable, anchoring one end to the hatch and the other to the sphere to prevent it from drifting away. As Commander Sapps backed Argus another five hundred meters, both hoppers moved to a safe distance, hovering three hundred meters to the side of the soon-to-be-loosened hatch.

  “Fire in the hole,” Debra Hilds announced. She triggered the charges, watching as the massive disk swung out into space. It reached the end of its cable, then began to swing back toward the opening.

  Both hoppers turned their drive engines toward the hatch, firing attitude jets in front to slow its momentum. Gradually, they nudged it back into place until it settled gently against the sphere.

  Hopper number two remained in position to keep the hatch open, while number three core-drilled into the hatch’s inner surface and fused another three-inch cable into the hole. The other end of the cable was carried to the sphere’s surface and planted securely.

  Debra Hilds activated her comm. “Commander, we’ve got the door open and tied back.”

  “Good work,” Sapps replied. “Permission granted to enter the UO. Plant two AV relays—one inside, one outside.”

  Two black cylindrical shapes detached from hopper number three. One magnetically locked onto the outside edge of the hole, while the other entered the sphere and attached itself to the inner lip. The Argus’ science staff now had full audio-visual access to everything the hoppers would encounter inside.

  Debra took a breath, ready for what came next. “We’re going in.”

  She swallowed hard, gripping the controls tighter than she needed to. This was the moment they had been working toward, yet a gnawing unease settled in her stomach. What if there was something inside they weren’t prepared for? What if the structure reacted unpredictably to their intrusion? No, she couldn’t afford to think that way. She forced herself to breathe evenly, focusing on the mission ahead. Whatever lay beyond that threshold, she would face it head-on.