Jack of Harts

When the leading edges of the Alpha Centauri New Voyager Program probe swarm fired the energies of a star back at the trailing probes, they drove themselves directly into Cen A. They died, but their combined lasers impacting on fully-deployed solar sails brought the surviving probes down to a speed where they could successfully perform a breaking maneuver around Cen A, through to Cen B, and then back in a giant figure eight. The probes swept back and forth throughout the Alpha Centauri system until they finally achieved a stable orbit. That was how the AI Council came to Alpha Centauri.