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Mollute.
    "Leave him," said Cole. "He's past caring, and we need to obliterate all trace of him."
    They rode the shuttle in silence back to the Teddy R. Cole went directly to his office and poured himself a stiff drink, then contacted Jacovic, who was still on the bridge.
    "Sir?" said the Teroni.
    "Kill the Navy ship," said Cole. "Obliterate all trace of it. Sooner or later they'll figure out what happened to it, and maybe even who was responsible—but later is better."
    "Yes, sir," said the Teroni.
    A few minutes later Sharon entered his office.
    "I heard what happened," she said.
    He stared at her and made no answer.
    "I'm glad you survived."
    "Forty-three men didn't," he replied. "All for a piece of melted metal."
    "The fortunes of war," said Sharon.
    "We're supposed to be better than them," answered Cole grimly. "This was not the most auspicious beginning."

 
    "Three more hours, sir," said the image of Domak, a warrior-caste Polonoi.
    "Until what?" asked Cole, who was sitting alone in his office, watching a musical entertainment on a holoscreen.
    "Until we're inside the Republic," answered Domak.
    "There shouldn't be any welcoming committee, not if Mr. Briggs has picked the right approach route." He paused. "Let me know when we're actually in Republic territory."
    "Yes, sir."
    "Any word from Singapore Station?" said Cole.
    "Yes, sir," said Domak. "The Navy ships surrounded it, and when there was no opposition, they simply docked and made use of the facilities."
    "Make sure the Platinum Duke knows that, would you, please?"
    "Yes, sir." Domak's image vanished.
    Cole decided it was time to inspect the ship's battle readiness. Actually, the ship was always ready these days, but inactivity bored him, so he began making the rounds. First was the shuttle bay, containing the shuttlecraft that were named after four of Theodore Roosevelt's six children. (They were on their second Archie and Quentin and their third Alice , but somehow the original Kermit had survived.)
    Next came the Gunnery Section, which was usually run by Bull Pampas, but he was sleeping, and the shift was being manned by Bujandi, a Pepon. The infirmary had no permanent patients—Cole considered overnight to be permanent on a warship—and had a full complement of supplies.
    He then went down to the guts of the ship, where he queried Mustapha Odom, the Chief Engineer, about the vessel's readiness, then nodded sagely as he realized he didn't understand half of the technical answers Odom was supplying.
    He stopped by the undersized Officers' Lounge, where he found six of his officers playing various card and board games.
    And finally, when he couldn't avoid it any longer, he went up to the bridge. Over the years he'd come to loathe it. The formality bothered him, and the tendency of normal men and women to speak in sentence fragments the moment they set foot on the bridge bothered him even more. There was a sense among the crew that all important decisions had to be reached on the bridge, whereas in truth he was fully as capable of commanding the ship from his office, or his cabin, or his table in the mess hall. There was nothing that was said or seen on the bridge that couldn't be transmitted to any part of the ship, but still it retained its special aura. Of all his officers, only the dead Forrice had felt no obligation to remain on the bridge when he was the Officer on Deck. As the Molarian used to say with a wink of one of his four eyes, "There's nothing in the Code of Conduct that says which deck."
    Cole stepped out of the airlift, turned right, and began approaching his destination.
    "Captain on the bridge!" Christine Mboya called out, and she, the alien Domak, and Ensign Idena Mueller all stood and saluted.
    Cole considered not returning their salutes, but he knew they'd remain at attention until he did, so he gave them a halfhearted salute. He further resisted the temptation to point out that Christine had left the verb out of her sentence.
    "All this