“We will carry them, now.” Fleet Captain Geronimo Fontana spoke as he stood on the expansive stage in the auditorium. The stage was bare save for a row of occupied chairs. Command officers from ships and the station sat in waiting, tightly gripping PADDs with the names of the dead. The room was filled with crew, officers, civilians, and more.

Fontana pushed on, “It is not an easy thing to stand here today and speak of those we have lost. We are gathered around a pool of grief and mourning to remember the lives and loves lost.” He paused. The duty of leading a memorial service was not new to him. He had experienced plenty of them in his time in Starfleet. And yet…it was never an easy thing to do. “Today, we will read their names. We will pause to remember them. We will allow ourselves to shed tears, cry, and feel the loss. Tonight, we submit ourselves to the altar of grief. The sacrifice that brought us to this point was not made willingly. It was made in a fight we did not wish to have…and if the choice had been given to us, we would have declined.”

He turned the page and set his eyes across the gathered host, “Yet, the choice was not given. We are Starfleet officers serving the ideals of the United Federation of Planets. Words like liberty. Equality. Peace. Justice. Progress.” He held those words in a long pause before he continued, “There is an additional unspoken ideal-risk. We put on the uniform and step into our assigned duties with the repeated warnings from our academy instructors and commanding officers.”

He let a long pause echo through the auditorium. “Captain Kirk once made a daring statement about risk. There was, in his words, ‘enormous danger in any contact with life and intelligence as fantastically advanced as this’. It is hard to imagine what life was like in that time, given our limited understanding of the universe around us, with its vastness, full of unknown danger. They firmly and ferociously believed in the great possibilities of knowledge and scientific advancement, just in the next sector…the next system. That there was an undeniable risk and the real possibility that lives would be sacrificed in service of that ideal.”

The room remained silent before him. He turned the page. “We came to the rimward to make a difference. To bring the ideals of the Federation to one of the last expanses in the final frontier. We have paid for it. We may not fully comprehend the sacrifice made in our stead today. We may not completely understand it in the days to come. This is part of the risk of becoming a part of Starfleet. It is a risk to put on the uniform. It is a risk to stand up for those in need. It is a risk to stand sentinel with our friends and allies against the great threats of our time.”

He shifted his stance, “It is a risk that must be taken. And it is a risk we willingly accept. Many of us here today can tell stories of loved ones who have fallen in service to that risk. If today is the first time loss has left a wound on your soul, know this. Today, as we mourn, look around. You are not alone in this journey. Each of us shares this burden in kind. Together…we can make this journey of loss as one. Together we can find our way out of the grief that clouds our eyes…and feel the sun’s warmth upon our faces again.” He turned to the men and women behind him, “We will read the names for the remainder of the ceremony. You may leave at any time. Each name will be read and placed upon the station’s Wall of Remembrance. Thank you.”

He tapped at the other PADD on the lectern and read, “To absent friends. To those we knew, and to those we pause to remember. For the memories. For the laughter. For the life you lived and the legacy we will not soon forget. To absent friends.”

The crowd responded, “To absent friends.”

Fontana began to read the names.