A relatively new tractor.
Only eight hundred hours.
It should have been easy.
It wasn’t.
It started.
Idled.
Then after six minutes, multiple communication codes appeared and the machine shut down.
Maya checked harnesses.
No bypass.
No obvious tampering.
Grounds good.
Power stable.
CAN bus resistance correct.
Modules communicating until they weren’t.
She swapped a known-good termination resistor.
Same problem.
Checked charging voltage.
Stable.
Battery.
Good.
Pulled diagnostic history.
Dozens of intermittent communication faults across unrelated controllers.
That pattern often meant wiring.
She inspected every major harness section.
Nothing.
By midnight, still nothing.
Clayton stood nearby.
Deadline seventeen hours.
“You should sleep.”
“No.”
“You can’t think.”
“I’m thinking.”
“You’re staring.”
“That’s part of thinking.”
He handed her coffee.
She took it.
Then looked at the tractor.
“What changed?”
Clayton frowned.
“What?”
“When did this one first fail?”
He thought.
“Three months ago.”
“Doing what?”
“Feeding.”
“Weather?”
“What?”
“Hot?”
“Cold?”
“Rain?”
“Dry.”
“Location?”
“North pasture.”
“What happened?”
“Shut down.”
“Restart?”
“Eventually.”
“Then?”
“Again two days later.”
“Where?”
“Shop road.”
“What was happening?”
Clayton shrugged.
“Nothing.”
Maya stared at him.
“What was attached?”
“Feed wagon.”
“Same both times?”
“Probably.”
“Wagon electrical connector?”
He blinked.
“What?”
Maya was already moving.
The feed wagon sat outside.
She opened its electrical connection.
Corrosion.
Not enough.
She traced the cable.
Near the hitch, insulation had rubbed through.
Intermittently, the exposed wire could short the tractor’s accessory circuit.
But that should not kill the whole CAN network.
Unless—
She ran back inside.
Checked auxiliary power distribution.
Someone had installed the wrong-rated protective diode during a previous repair.
When the trailer shorted, voltage spikes fed back into the control network.
Not sabotage.
Poor repair.
The machine itself was fine.
The attached implement was crashing it.
Maya laughed.
Clayton stared.
“What?”
“Your tractor isn’t broken.”
“That’s good?”
“Your feed wagon is trying to murder it.”
By 1:30 a.m., they had repaired the wagon harness.
Replaced the protective component.
Tested.
The tractor ran for an hour.
Then two.
No faults.