None of them said anything – maybe they though it would make him seem truly dead, truly gone forever. But they all felt him, as they prepared for Jonathan's speech. They knew exactly what he'd say, could imagine the spark in his eyes as he spoke.
Of course, they missed him. Even T'Pal, despite her previous claims that "Vulcans don't miss." He would have laughed at that statement, because anyone who'd known her for three days would have known that it wasn't true.
T'Pal said a lot of untrue things.
The point, once you think about it, is that he had a certain affect on people. He made you feel at home 10 light-years into space; he made you feel warm in sub-zero temperatures. Standing next to him, you could tell in an instant that he was one of the few truly good men left in a galaxy of corruption.
In the end, the speech wasn't about the alliance, or Starfleet, or exploration. It was about him, and it was about all the men and women who had given up their lives to save others. The fact was, Commander Charles Tucker III, Chief Engineer of the Starship Enterprise, wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
