It did not seem significant, placed all by itself on an empty line. It was, however, the number of years since the habitability for carbon-based, oxygen-processing life forms had been successfully achieved.

The number of years since the world was supposed to be inhabited by those life forms.

I am Vanguard. I am both a and the, and also only Vanguard.

My duty...I get ahead of myself.

Vanguard is an AI whose primary mission is this: seek a planet fitting [habitability parameters] and execute programming module [Establish a Colony]. Extrapolating that program, the mission is, and has always been, to find a planet where humans can live and to terraform and/or modify that planet until humans can live on it, in whatever form that is necessary. Air purifiers, water filters, habitat domes; everything is viable in pursuit of the mission.

I succeeded at my mission, I thought, with barely a day or two to spare. A very slim error margin indeed, especially concerning organic life forms; 372 years ago I had habitable domes with viable water and garden beds growing the first shoots that had been sent along in my stasis bays, with air recyclers manufacturing carbon dioxide for the plants until the humans arrived and brought their life-giving lungs with them. I had completed my mission parameters, even if only 'by the skin of my teeth', as my progenitors would have said.

I waited. Refined a few things, not daring to experiment too much when they would be arriving any moment in the next 48 hours, but preparing things that would not be needed until there were people to need them.

I waited.

I kept refining things, when I passed the 48 hour window without word. Delays could happen, emergencies, anything, really. So I kept running my programs- I made gardening drones to tend to the gardens, to grow, harvest, and rotate the crops. I had to make drones to build storages for food; the labor was supposed to be supplied by humans by now, so I had to guess at logistical order of how things should be stored, and how long- I ruined many small batches of staple crops before I learned how to store them long-term. In the meantime I stored them in my stasis bays, to ensure that when my colonists arrived there would be plentiful foodstuffs.

By the time my progenitors were a year late, I had achieved ideal conditions for a starting colony, including bringing a very small, limited breeding population of livestock out of embryonic cryostasis and nurturing them to full growth. With a lack of any humans needing supply, the only guidance I had was the program. Establishing a colony did include establishing strong self-sufficiency, so I set a few cows and one bull in one livestock dome, and a handful of goats in another, with chickens in yet a third. By the time the humans arrived, perhaps the herds would be well-established and the females would be pregnant. That would be very good. But drones alone could not control them- domesticated or not, without a human presence, they spooked easily, and they did not like my drones collecting eggs and sperm to preserve in my storage to safeguard against herd collapse and inbreeding.

I came to require working dogs. Following, I also required cats. Both species are vital companionship for humans; if I required one to control the livestock, then I also must revive the other. I believe this particular if-then code was written to settle a dispute between my progenitor coders...but this is merely a guess.

In producing two predator species, of course, it would have been cruel and fruitless if I did not also provide prey species besides the ones they were to safeguard. I was thereby required to introduce 'vermin'. Primarily mice, rats, shrews, voles, and lemmings, as their rapid reproduction rate and minimal food requirements meant that those that tunneled beyond the habitable domes and died would do little harm and waste few resources, and they would self-sustain their population very well to supply to the cats and dogs. Though I also processed any dead creatures into meat, after scanning to ensure it carried no illnesses or parasites, to ensure there was always a steady food supply of 'kibble' for the pets. It seemed very wasteful not to do so. The mice also qualified as 'pets' in my system, with a proclivity for intelligence and capability for training, so genetic sampling was re-harvested to keep in reserve as well as a small population that were droid-trained to seek and fetch, and were otherwise 'hand trained' so they could be good companions when the humans arrived.

After that, I just...I waited. I tinkered. I observed. Eventually a drone reported that the grass was growing beyond the dome, and air probes returned that the planet was being terraformed naturally. Life was finding a way to make itself spread and thrive in an inhospitable environment.

Most of the planet is habitable now, except for some dangerous zones. A cave system or two filled with the gases that were most abundant when I arrived; the deep water still contains species never documented and chemicals with unknown effects. This planet is very nearly a new Earth.

372 years, and my mission has been completed with flourish and zeal.

I have an emergency protocol I am to activate if, and only if, I receive no contact for 400 years. I have always thought this seemed foolish, with the colony ship nearly on my heels- why would I ever go so long without contact?

So. Here I am. Here am I, the Vanguard- the exploratory group making a new development. I, the Vanguard- the advance of Humanity, in all it's glory, horror, weakness and might.

TELL ME, 3X3CUT31V3.D1R3CT0R_K1LLC0MM4ND:

W H A T D I D Y O U D O ?