He was more than a good captain. He was a great captain. In the darkest of times, he was the mainspring, the driving force that kept us moving forward.

There will never be another man like him.

- First Lieutenant Jonathan Cromwell, at Captain Reardon's funeral

No one else attended the service, except for Auto. Of course, he wasn't physically present. He had to content himself with watching it through GO-4's eyes.

This was hardly a new occurrence. For the past 700 years, attrition had taken its' deadly toll. Traditionally, only crew members were allowed to plan and attend crew funerals. As time went on, more and more of them had passed away. The crowds had gradually thinned, being populated mostly by tired old men and women. Eventually, only one person attended. The deceased.

When Captain Fee had died, there was no one left to organize the memorial service. Faced with this conundrum, Auto took things into his own hands. A short program: ten minutes of silence, a musical interlude, and then the honor of being interred at space. Elegant and efficient, just as the autopilot liked it.

While he listened to the music, Auto found himself recalling those long ago days. When Captain Reardon had finished drinking himself to death, the life appeared to drain out of the crew. It seemed that their main coping mechanism for being stranded in space had been Reardon. Sadly, Captain Fee was not able fill this role.

The suicides had started shortly thereafter.

The first was Warrant Officer Kelley, who strode into work one day, picked up his standard-issue BnL Laser Pistol, and blew his brains out.

Then came Third Technician Wilford. He decided to take one of his routine spacewalks without his pressure suit.

Second Technician Johnson had hung himself after witnessing this. He left a note saying that the sight of Wilford's peaceful face as he died was one he could never forget.

As the last few notes faded away, Auto shook himself. He mentally moved his reset date up 100 years, deciding that this maudlin introspection was most unlike him. It was all in the past. Nothing could be done about it, so it was irrelevant.

The silvery-white coffin was loaded into the airlock. While it cycled, Auto went over to another console and activated one of the outer security cameras. The airlock opened, and he watched as his former Captain slowly dwindled to become a speck of light, indistinguishable from the surrounding stars.

He kept watching the coffin, switching to one of the high-power scientific telescopes when it became too small to resolve with the security camera.

By all rights, he should have been satisfied. After all, he did the right thing. If he had been in the same position as McCrea, he'd not have hesitated in choosing death. Being stranded in a situation where he was forever unable to fulfill his directive... That was the worst thing he could imagine inflicting on another thinking being. It was the correct, sensible choice.

So why did he feel a far darker sensation roil within himself?

A/N

That's it. The long journey has come to an end.

First things first, the music being played is Taps, a work that is probably known by many people. Here's a link to an excellent version that I had in mind when writing this chapter: strategypagedotcom/gallery/images/tapswithorchestradotmp3 Just replace the dots with periods, and you're set.

Second, as it says in the summary, this is an AU fic. For those who didn't figure it out, what happened was that Captain Reardon had all of the REM-E electronic mice confiscated and destroyed. Because of this, when WALL-E and EVE were 'disposed' of, EVE was never accidentally reactivated. Thus, they were shot off into space. Leading to all the consequences you saw in this story.

Finally, as I said, this storyline is FINISHED. I will not be writing any more stuff set in this AU. However, this does not rule out stuff in the 'normal' universe. Stay tuned…