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The silence in the armory was smothering.

It was late, and the ship's running lights were at half-strength. Apart from the delta shift personnel covering the bridge and any other vital stations, most of the rest of the crew were asleep. But for some there would be no sleep this night.

Certainly not for the man who stood gazing at the sleek still shape of the torpedo casing, visualizing what it contained.

"So you finally did it, hey, Loo-tenant?"

For all his grief, it came out as a cry of accusation.

In the silence he could hear the British accent, terse and flat. I had no bloody choice, Commander.

"Choice! You and your goddamn choices!" He twisted his fingers in his hair. "You spent so much time tryin' to figure out a way to die a hero! God, just how much did you hate yourself!" He spun around and walked to the wall. Stopping there, he punched both fists and forearms against it and rested his forehead between them. "Weren't we enough?" he asked softly, sadly.

In his mind's eye he could still see the motionless body on the biobed in sickbay. Phlox had pulled up the sheet over the ruined torso. When a man throws himself onto a grenade – even a home-made one – the results aren't pretty. The transporter had brought him up in seconds but he'd probably been dead even before he dematerialized.

The rest of the landing party had been left in the chaos down below, their military escort trying to keep them safe in a situation that had suddenly exploded into extreme violence. There had been no question of continuing the visit, of taking their place as a go-between in this miserable little civil war on this wretched little planet in the ass-end of nowhere. There had only been the necessity of getting back to the shuttle in one piece before any more grenades were thrown, and getting back to the ship alive. Jon's eyes had been green glass in a face blank with horror, but he'd been holding Hoshi up, protecting her, and he couldn't give way to his feelings. Trip and Travis had drawn their phase pistols and taken up station on either side of the captain, facing outwards over the shoulders of the soldiers as the mob bayed for their deaths too. Slowly – agonizingly slowly – the little band shuffled back away from the lake of blood on the paving towards the courtyard where they'd landed the shuttle barely five minutes earlier.

The shuttle had taken off the instant the escort managed to beat back the crowd a safe distance from it. The sound of thrown missiles landing on the hull outside had almost no meaning in the silence within. Nobody spoke all the way back to the ship. They all knew what the outcome was going to be: the detonation had punched the slight body upwards, and the crimson stain had been flooding into the back of his uniform even before his shattered chest hit the floor again. The captain sat on the bench at the rear of the shuttle, cradling a stunned and weeping Hoshi in the curve of one arm. Travis piloted, his sunny good humor gone as though it had never existed. Trip sat beside him, staring blankly through the windshield at the planet that had looked so goddamned harmless when they'd arrived.

Phlox, brilliant as he was, couldn't work miracles. But as long as ship and shuttle remained out of contact, it was possible to believe he could. To maintain that fiction for just a little while longer, before the reality broke over them all.

The doctor hadn't covered up the face yet, though he'd wiped it clean of blood and dirt and closed the sightless grey eyes. Reed hadn't been killed outright: the marks of his final agony were still on him. But something about the line of the tight mouth shut on clenched teeth spoke of a grim satisfaction, as if to say, 'Duty done, Sir.'

Captain Archer had stood and looked at the body for a long while before drawing the sheet up over it.

The armory staff had taken charge as soon as the formality of a post-mortem was over. The body had been washed and cleaned and eased into the dress uniform he'd cordially hated wearing; the two polished rank pips had gleamed for the very last time under the sickbay lights. After obtaining permission from the captain, the men and women who'd made up his team jury-rigged a bier from duratanium support rods and carried their dead chief through the silent ship down to the armory, where they'd placed him in the torpedo casing as gently and carefully as though he were sleeping and they feared to wake him. The senior officers had watched in sorrowful silence.

The funeral service was scheduled for noon tomorrow, ship time. A period had to be allowed for personal farewells. Jon had been the first, and had left just as Trip arrived, walking off towards his quarters with head low and shoulders bowed in grief. T'Pol was holding the bridge just in case the situation below on the planet escalated into anything that seemed likely to offer any danger to the ship, and would attend later, if Vulcans believed in such formalities towards a dead colleague – it hardly seemed the time to ask. So now Trip had the armory to himself for half an hour, except that three times that wouldn't have helped him to find the words he needed.

Slowly he detached himself from the wall and turned about to survey the silent, gleaming cylinder waiting on its launch platform. His anger was spent. There was nothing left but loss and loneliness.

"I guess you really didn't have any choice, did you, Lieutenant?" he said as the tears began spilling down his face. "You always said that was your job, protectin' us all. An' if you hadn't done what you did, there'd be more than one goddamn case down here waitin' to be shot into space. But hell, Malcolm..." His mouth worked. "I'll look after the ship for you. And you don't need to worry 'bout any of your guys, I'll look after them too. At least till..." The word 'replacement' wouldn't come out of his throat. He swallowed the lump in it with difficulty. An' the Cap'n'll make sure they get a real fine officer like you were, but I guess he'll have told you that already. "I might even see 'bout gettin' that extra power for the armory relays you were naggin' me about yesterday, how 'bout that?"

The echoes played with the sound of his dragging footsteps as he came closer. At last he put out a hand and touched the metal. "I'll get this over with now, Malcolm, because I think you'll be embarrassed enough tomorrow with what Jon's gonna find to say about you. I guess all I have to say now is 'Thank you for everythin'.' And I'll never forget you."

Silence. But he could imagine the half-smile in the darkness. You're welcome, Trip, my friend.

The End.

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