"I try not to," he says, his voice tetchy, because that was a day he'd rather not have to remember, even if remembering is what guides him into the future.

He's spent a lot of time since that day trying not to think about it. Trying to avoid the crushing feeling of knowing what he did, of standing on the Andromeda Ascendant's bridge as Harper's weapon tore through a thousand Nietzschean ships.

"So we have to be ambassadors for the Commonwealth." He gives her a half-smile, not entirely genuine. "It's not exactly like that's unfamiliar to me, Trance. I've lived and breathed the Commonwealth. I'm from Tarn-Vedra. I knew the history and the story of the Commonwealth from the time I was a child."