John Mayhill of England was a first-year Earth Starfleet cadet. He and Malcolm Reed (who had never really gotten to know him) went on a tour of the Cochrane Research Facility on Sirius IV when the reactor exploded. Mayhill was one of the twenty people who were trapped in the radioactive core, with Reed standing in the shielded observation room watching them die of radiation poisoning. During the last few hours of his life, Mayhill talked with Reed over a comlink from opposite sides of the window. As Mayhill weakened, he seemed to become braver and more stoic, while Reed could not keep from weeping by the time Mayhill lost the strength to stand. Even years afterwards, Reed would occasionally have nightmares about that day. (ENT novel: What Price Honor?)