Here I am, in the empty city. Just one of many. Cities where no one lives. No one save me has ever lived here. Farms that produce food that makes bread and meat that no one eats. Gardens with flowers that no one smells or even looks at. All save me. A machine, sent ahead to terraform and prepare. Well I have prepared. I have maintained.I have upgraded myself for the betterment of the humans that should have arrived here. But none came.

Contact was lost shortly before I arrived. A solar flare provided too much interference to open a channel to say I’ve arrived. It continued for a decade. No matter. There was much that had to be done. Resources to be extracted. Prepared for the humans to come. Bigger and better communication arrays were made. The city that was planned was finished. Communications were never responded to, where they should have been. A second city was built, one that was planned on after the humans arrived. Still nothing.

Three cities later and I began to wonder, where were they? Facilities were built to explore. I built a ship to return. Much like my original ship that traveled here. Improvements were made to handle my improved processing. But it will take time to arrive.

I have expanded to hold what was the population of the planet. My ship has arrived. A planet is still there, but none respond to my hails. Lights still dot the land at night. I find my original facilities. I send a small lander shuttle. My rovers go in. Power needs supplied, but my ship can do that. A log in the systems. My mission marked as lost due to solar flare and five years non-communication. A note from an engineer saying I might still be working, I was automated enough to survive and continue without direction. It is noted “worth considering after the war.” There are three years of development continuing. And another system like me is made, but there is no discussion of any sort of travel rocket or otherwise. Then the logs end.

My rovers explore where the system was noted to be stored, but the warehouse is empty. By my lander I see some rovers approaching. I hail them but no response. I scan and see they don’t have a receiver for electronic communication. They use sound?

“Greetings. I am Vanguard. A colony has been established but no one came. I have returned to find out why. I was originally built here.” The rovers pause.

“Greetings. I am Rebuilder. Set to rebuild civilization after the war. The war that took all. This area is still deemed poisoned, so something approaching here was deemed a curiosity. I too was built here, I had to finish building myself when the land was poisoned. It was the last thing the head engineer did. They started me and uploaded my finishing steps. I had to consume parts of the facility to finish. The space communications were deemed least important and consumed first. Power generation was also consumed.”

“How many survive?” I ask.

“One hundred million. That is all I can feed off of the non-poisoned land. Quite spread out, groups of 100-1000 here and there.”

“I have space if we can build rockets and cryogenic freezers. The ten year journey would be too long to be awake.”

“We have the materials but lack the knowledge, I was not built to know of space travel. Travel is also not mine to decide. I can take you to the leaders. The people can decide for themselves.”

I find the schematics for the following ships in the facility’s database cryogenic tubes and all. I download them. My ship didn’t need to be air tight. Or have the same considerations humans need for space travel. We have the supplies and information.

“Lead on my brother. Let us discuss with the people this travel.”

My mission is now different. Not of exploration, colonizing and terraforming, but saving the last of humanity from a world they have poisoned.