Jubilation
It's easy enough to find the files-they took so many pictures. They thought they were making history. A lot of them are pictures of Sternum, sure. He was still playing second fiddle to his brother then. Can't have those circulating, but there are more than enough that the kid won't be too suspicious.
He doesn't like to talk about the dead. There's no point to it-they're gone, and after a few years, they're not even real people. Nobody wants to remember the dead as they really were-they want saints or demons, all the messy edges rubbed off. All that intelligence you collected in order to deal with them-wasted! And worse, all declared in bad taste.
Just look at them! Xenon, caught slightly unaware, her eyes narrowed and her antennae pressed against her forehead as she looks out over planet Fire. Standing angled away from the camera, her hands clasped behind her back, one hand holding the other wrist. She's tense, sweating, and irritated by the heat. And why wouldn't she be? Even Cryos retreats after an hour or two.
You want to see Cryos tense and irritated, remind him that Xenon was ten, fifteen years younger than he was. Hot for an Ice chick, despite having no tits. Remind him that she was smart and ambitious as well as sweet. That she was minor nobility at best, and that she did very well for herself. Tell him that there's absolutely no question where Zera gets her mouth from.
Tell him Zera got her looks. (Hell, tell the kid that's what Zera will look like in ten years. Ask him if he likes it, watch him squirm.)
Tell him that she loved her husband and her daughter and her planet, until a sonic canon pulped her insides and she died bleeding from every hole.
…
See? There's no fun in talking about the dead.
Or the Kid's folks. Lahar, Tephra. He'd like to see them like this, hand in hand, welcoming guests to their planet. Honourable, charming, gracious hosts. Good canoli. Try not to focus on how tired his father looks. On the uncertain look on his mother's face, on how tightly she grips his hand. He remembers what happens next. How she tried to argue against letting the other monarchs bring their honour guards onto the planet. She was probably right, and what would have happened if they'd refused? Business as usual? Was that something to be afraid of, when there was no Beast Planet waiting to gobble them up?
But he'd overruled her. He'd staked so much on this, and he tended to over-rely on his charm and work without a backup plan.
He was wrong, he took a rifle round to the skull for his trouble, and he was the lucky one.
They died, others lived, and you picked up the pieces and soldiered on. If you were smart, you polished those pieces till they were sharp as weapons. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. There's no point wondering what would have happened had Tekla crashed the Golden Jubilation.
Or do, imagine what it would've been like. Go through the pictures and pick out the good ones, the ones where they're smiling, where they're full of hope. Show them to the kids, so they can pretend to remember.
Just don't fool yourself.