Counter Admiral Petri Aleksey Gromov was already an honourably retired senior member of the Russian space navy when the Exodus occurred. Official documents and records later found aboard the Renown indicate that he was still acting in an advisory role for the UCCNZFJ military at the time, however, and was in fact attending a meeting aboard the HMCS Sydney when it turned its guns on the UCSS Tokyo as the final culmination of the Escalation. Horrified by what he had seen, he fled on the HMCS Renown and dedicated himself to keeping his ship and his crew safe from any external threats. Testimony given by many of his former passengers - all family members of his crew - indicate that they found him peremptory and overbearing at first, but were eventually won over by his determination to protect his ship, and his occasional visits to their children to befriend them. Even when one takes into account that he commissioned the first new nuclear weapons in the Exodus Fleet, the general picture that emerges is one of an honourable, well-meaning man attempting to prevent a repetition of the worst horrors of the past.
Of course, we can never know how he would have influenced settlement on Terra Libre or how his experience might have informed the shape of the armed forces thereafter, as he was brutally cut down by the murderers Mari Martinez and Barnaby Tuttle whilst aboard his own ship. Although the footage has since gone missing, reports from the time indicate that many people were not convinced that Apparitions were involved in this attack at all, and the theory that Gromov was holding hostages at the time is entirely contradicted by the statements of those passengers on board. It can only be concluded that Gromov's death was a sad and entirely unnecessary loss to the Fleet, just prior to some of their toughest battles.
- an excerpt from Unsung Heroes of the Exodus: They Shall Be Remembered, 2115