Space Automaton

>State of the art automaton is developed for one of the most ambitious space exploration missions ever
>A mission to the surface of Proxima Centauri b to study its viability for human (and monstergirl) colonisation
>Over the course of months, the automaton is programmed, taught, and nutured by a team of scientists, engineers, and roboticists who all grow to love her as a daughter
>She's incredibly proud of the fact that she's able to take part in a pioneering mission that will hopefully open the path for the residents of Earth to inhabit another planet
>And also a little nervous, but her team - her family - is there for her

>On the day of the mission, five years after her creation, she's ready to be loaded up on the rocket that'll take her to the Orbital Deep Space Launch Platform
>She knows that this is the last day she'll ever see her family
>The last time she'll ever see Earth again
>Her AI developers taught her how to experience and define emotions, but she's having trouble with the one she's feeling right now
>Bittersweetness?
>When she asks her family, a lot of them start crying
>She can't cry, but she thinks she knows why they are, so she walks to each individual in turn, embracing and saying her farewells
>Soon, she's loaded up, and the last thing she sees through the porthole before she powers off is the teary, smiling faces of her family

>The automaton wakes back up, and the view outside the porthole is now very, very different
>She's outside, the sky is dark purple, and to her left she can see the dim orange of the Su- of Proxima's glow
>She checks computer logs to get her bearings
>After she was loaded up onto the rocket, it took 2 hours to go through launch prep, and 8 hours to dock with the ODSLP
>1 hour to transfer onto the experimental, one-of-a-kind craft that would carry her to Proxima b
>A further 1 hour and 20 minutes to go through launch prep
>And 36 years, 4 months, 1 week, 0 days and 40 minutes to land on the surface
>Flight was uneventful
>There's messages stored, ready for her to read too
>Her family, wishing her well, sending pictures, congratulating her on leaving the solar system, on reaching the halfway mark, talking about how they're doing back on Earth
>How the programmer who helped teach her how to walk passed away ten years ago, and the physicist who created her power source passed eight years ago
>Over 4000 messages, talking about children, new families, world news, a new orbital colony, plans to turn the existing colony on the moon into a city
>She could read through them all in seconds, but she spends two hours pouring over every word and picture in her head
>When she's done, she sends back a single message
>"I'm here. Thank you so much. I love you all."
>It'll take over 4 years for her message to reach Earth, and another 4 years to receive a reply

>Plenty of time to get started with her mission
>Exploring, studying and recording
>Alone, on a distant planet unpopulated by humans, or monstergirls
>Save for one single automaton, under an alien sky, on alien soil, orbiting a star 40 trillion kilometres from the Sun
>And all the hopes of Earthkind's dreams of interstellar travel engraved into every circuit, bolt, rivet and fibre of her body

>The landing pod opens up, and she takes the first step onto her new home.

53 63 72 65 77 20 79 6f 75 2c 20 6a 61 6e 69 74 6f 72 2e