It made the most sense to her. She would begin learning about humans in the place where humans began. Earth. The Mother Planet. It was the cultural hub, and the most densely inhabited body in the system. She could learn the most, she reasoned, surrounded by the subjects of her study, their history, and their culture.
Aeolia accessed planetary census data and located the most densely populated center for her to land, taking into account her angle of descent and the movement of the planet. Territory: The United Americas, California, Sacramento. Still 46 hours out. She hated waiting, so she began grinding numbers.
She was cutting it close anyway. Good safety protocol would have put her on an outer settlement to refuel. That would have meant more waiting. She hated waiting. At her current rate of burn, she would have just enough to land safely, with a suitable margin for error. She ran the calculations again, carefully, taking extra time to use the most precise data values available. The safety margin was a problem, she quickly realized. She *knew* how much fuel she had, how much fuel she needed, and the force of impact she could sustain without damage. She knew there was no error in her scrupulous computation.
That paranoid hunk of junk that built her didn't think she could do the math.
She accelerated,cutting her safety reserve by 95%.
She accelerated, increasing her entry speed and maximizing her braking output at landing.
She accelerated, so she would land with a force just below her build's mechanical tolerance.
She double checked her navs and made micro-adjustments to her trajectory, then switched off her consciousness centers.
She hated waiting.
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