The Long Watch by Robert A. Heinlein, 1948. Heinlein hardly ever disappoints, but this story of the solitary soldier wasting his own life to save Earth is grippingly told and pushes all the "I-want-to-be-a-hero-and-martyr-too" buttons for me.
Nine ships blasted off from Moon Base. Once in space, eight of them formed a globe around the smallest. They held this formation all the way to Earth.
The small ship displayed the insignia of an admiral--yet there was no living thing of any sort in her. She was not even a passenger ship, but a drone, a robot ship intended for radioactive cargo. This trip she carried nothing but a lead coffin - and a Geiger counter that was never quiet.
From the editorial After Ten Years, film 38, 17 June 2009, Archives of the N.Y. Times
Read Robert A. Heinlein's The Long Watch
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