Adventures of the Starship Satori 4: No Plan Survives Contact by Kevin McLaughlin Read Free Book Online Page A

center of the satellite. The place was much more like a small space station than it was a satellite, she realized. There was even gravity here. It was clearly intended to have a crew, at least some of the time. Charline's hand went to the pistol she'd strapped to the leg of her suit, patting the thing to ensure it was still there. Just in case there was some living company over here.
    Hell, in a pinch maybe she could just shoot the damned AI. She didn't think it would be that simple, though.
    "Dan, I'm proceeding to the center of the satellite. You still hearing me?" she asked.
    "Yes, I'm reading you fine," Dan replied.
    "The charges will go bang in half an hour," she said. "If you can get even a short burst from the engines at that time you might be able to get away."
    "That's crazy," he said. "If you're still in there..."
    "Then I go up too. But the AI goes with me," she said. "We're gonna have a little chat."
    "Good luck with that," Dan said.
    Charline silently thanked him. She was going to need all the luck she could get.
    The space in the center of the little station was small, a round control room with a single stool set in the middle. The Naga had tails. Maybe they all sat in stools rather than chairs with backs? Charline shook her head to clear her thoughts. She needed to stay focused right now, no matter how scared she might be. She'd faced worse situations than this. More or less.
    Somehow that thought didn't really make her feel any better.
    "So what makes you tick?" she asked aloud, sitting down on the stool and examining the consoles surrounding her. The sensor display was easy to spot. Then there was a panel that looked a lot like weapon controls. At least, it was covered with red buttons and had a targeting reticle with the Satori sitting dead center in the middle. The AI had at least half a dozen missiles ready to fire. Shit.
    There was another console with a computer screen and keyboard, but none of the keys made any sense. She couldn't read Naga. But she did have her own laptop and her hand-made adapter. Charline glanced around the console, looking for a port that her plug might fit into. It wasn't hard to find, placed just up and to the left of the main control screen.
    Computer designers might be the same all over the galaxy. Keep the connection ports as simple and universal as possible, and easy to access. It had been a stroke of luck that the Naga rifles all had a port on their sides. Maybe it was used to update the software that ran the guns, or something different entirely. Whatever the case, it was her way into this system now.
    She plugged in and opened up her laptop. The system immediately ran into a series of firewalls that she couldn't hope to hack with this machine. Instead, she typed a query.
    I would like to communicate with you.
    The response was immediate.
    For what purpose?
    For our mutual benefit , she typed.
    There was a short delay before a tinny voice came from her laptop speakers.
    "There is no point to communication. You will cease to exist shortly," it said.
    "You can hear me?" Charline asked. "And you know English?"
    "This unit assimilated all of the information from your systems as they were deleted," it said. "Your language was among the data absorbed."
    Well, that was a plus. And a minus. How much additional data had this thing collected? Charline tried to recall what else was on the computer. Was there information about Earth? Nothing precise, probably. It wasn't like they had Wikipedia on their systems. But ship's logs, jump data, and lots of other clues were probably among the things the AI had downloaded from the Satori. If there were enough clues in the data, it might let the Naga find Earth. That would be disastrous. She had visions of a fleet of Naga warships in orbit, pummeling her homeworld.
    "You say I'll cease to exist soon?" she asked. She needed to keep the thing talking and find out what it knew.
    "By your own hand. Your devices will kill you."
    "The bombs ought to