Empire (Empire 1)

Glad I have my life, thought Cole, as he did so often. Rather my life than anyone else’s that I know of.

“As for you, Captain Coleman,” said the President.

“Oh, I’m going with Reuben,” said Cole, without thinking who he was talking to.

“You are?” asked Nielson.

“I’m in his team,” said Cole. “I’m his number two. Whether he likes it or not. I was assigned.”

“I was thinking of reassigning you. We need a military spokesman with your

—”

“Mr. President, you wouldn’t take a fighting machine like me and waste me in front of cameras, would you? You need to watch First Blood again and think of me as being about as articulate as Stallone.”

“Rambo couldn’t have said the sentence you just said,” Cecily said.

“You said Major Malich could choose his own squad,” said Cole. He looked to Reuben for support, half expecting him to say, Obey your commander-in-chief.

“He’s right, Mr. President. I need him more than you do.”

“Then he’s yours. This meeting is adjourned.”

As they came out of the President’s office, there were several people waiting to get in. Sitting on a wooden bench, not looking eager to enter, was a slender man of perhaps thirty-five, who looked like he played tennis a little, and swam a little, but mostly read books through those rimless glasses and wrote brilliant essays with those slender, graceful fingers. The poster child for what every professor wanted to grow up to be, and what every politician wished he could put on his posters. Cole had never seen him before, but couldn’t take his eyes off him.

The tennis-playing professor rose to his feet and held out his hand to Rube. “Soldier Boy,” said the professor.

“Professor Torrent,” said Rube. “I go by Major Malich now.”

So this was Averell Torrent, the young hotshot of the NSA’s office who had just been nominated to be NSA as his boss bumped up. The Torrent whose essays on history had been all the rage a couple of years ago. Since he was a Princeton professor then, Cole had assumed it was History For Liberals, meaning that it would be elaborate explanations of why whatever the Republican administration was doing was wrong, complete with references to global warming and the need for negotiations under all circumstances. Therefore he hadn’t read it. But Reuben knew him, and even if he was a little prickly about the “soldier boy” greeting, Rube was showing him deeper respect than he had shown to President Nielson.

“So the President has brought you aboard,” said Torrent.

“Both of us,” said Rube, including Cecily. Then he indicated Cole as well. “All three of us.”

Torrent looked at Cole somewhat quizzically. “Very powerful sermon on Fox last night,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Cole. But he thought: It sounded to you like a sermon?

“We have some interesting new armaments that are being rushed out of prototype to meet these mechs,” said Torrent. “I know you’re a dirt-and-languages kind of soldier, but you have to love some of the new weaponry, Major Malich.”

“You got something that will trip a two-legged tank?” asked Rube.

“We’ve got a foam that dries in two seconds and then won’t let go. Basically, you glue them to the ground like gum.” Torrent grinned. “Some of these geniuses in weapons development must be thrilled to have a chance to use some of this far-out stuff.”

“As long as some of them didn’t moonlight by coming up with the Progressives’ weapons in the first place,” said Rube.

“And magnets,” said Torrent. “You lay them like mines, and anything big and metallic that passes within twenty feet is pulled toward it and can’t get free. And grenades that are all Shockwave, no flame. Hit one of those mechs with it, and everything comes loose inside. Lovely things.”

“I’m glad our troops will have something, said Rube. “Have they figured out what shot down those F-16s?”

“A hyperpowerful EMP.”

“That would suck up so much power the city’d black out,” said Rube.

“They think it might be laserized, so you get a lot more clout for the kilowatt. Whatever it is, it wipes out the electronics that keep those planes aloft.”

“So we’re going to do what, go back to propeller planes?” asked Rube.