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sustainable speed. There was no worry about re-entry right now. The satellite was making little course corrections now and again, carefully keeping them in a stable orbit. Even if Charline did let go she wouldn't fall. She'd just drift along at about the same speed she was already moving, pretty much relative to the Satori and the satellite.
    "Almost there," she said. "Few more feet and I'll be at the thing. It's big."
    It was large for a satellite. But then, he knew from experience that it was loaded with ordinance. No telling how many missiles were housed in there. Plus the AI computer system itself. No matter how high tech the Naga were, it stood to reason that a real AI would take up a fair amount of physical real estate. Charline would probably have at least a guess, and would likely chuckle at his image of some desk-sized monster computer.
    "OK, I'm here," Charline said. "Working my way over the hull looking for an entrance."
    "What makes you sure there is one?" Dan asked.
    "It asked me to come over there earlier, remember? It wouldn't do that unless it had a way to accept visitors for verification."
    "Makes sense. Can you ping it back, ask it to let you in?" Dan asked.
    "Tried, but it isn't talking," she replied.
    The plan wasn't that complicated, but there was still a lot of guesswork involved. Charline had several C4 charges in a pouch of her suit. To make them work she was going to need to get inside the satellite, though. The hull looked strong enough that if she placed the charges outside the hull they wouldn't be enough to disable the AI. She was going to need to be in there. Place the charges. Then get out before they blew.
    As plans went, Dan thought it was likely to get her killed, which is why he'd objected so strongly. But he couldn't think of any better ideas so he'd reluctantly agreed. Now that she was finally over there though, it seemed even crazier than it had when she first suggested the idea.
    "Found a hatch!" Charline said. "It's got the right port. Going to plug in and see if I can hack it open."
    Charline had one of the laptops with her, but it was completely disconnected from Majel. She was hooking it up directly to the Naga systems. All the AI over there needed was a whiff of Majel and a back-door into the machine, and it would attack. Majel was their best chance at being able to quickly reboot the computers and get the heck out of here. They couldn't afford to let anything happen to her.
    "It's opening up," Charline said. She sounded excited.
    Dan's own mood continued to feel subdued. This didn't feel right. If the AI was so smart, then why was it letting her inside with explosives? Even a dumb computer could detect and identify threats.
    "Be careful," he said. "I really don't like this."
    "I'm inside," Charline said. "Going to see if I can find the main computer as soon as this airlock cycles."
    "OK." Dan watched the screen carefully. He tapped the laptop sitting next to him, activating the microphone. Something was rotten about this whole scenario. It was time to speak with their own AI.
    "Majel, what's your analysis of this situation?" he asked.
    "Please clarify question," she replied.
    "Why is the Naga AI letting Charline in there?"
    "Unable to determine due to insufficient data."
    Dan sighed. He'd rather hoped that Majel would be able to tell him something he didn't know. "Speculate."
    "Processing," Majel replied. "Possible interpretations include: the Naga AI is damaged or faulty - low probability as it appeared to be fully functional while attacking this ship's computers. The Naga AI believes Charline is Naga - improbable as sensor readings would tell it otherwise. The Naga AI believes that Charline represents no threat - which would indicate it has the means to neutralize her explosives. Highest probability is the third solution, with a ninety-three point seven percent probability."
    Which was pretty much the same thing he'd already been thinking, but it was nice to have a second opinion.