. . . and in a flash he remembered, and pulled a business card out of his pocket, then pulled out his smartphone and dialed the Washington number of a man he knew was just a few flights upstairs. “Mr. Cohen, this is Dr. Toby Nukaga, the chair of the event . . . fine sir, thank you, and again, thank you and Secretary Barbeau for attending.
“Sir, I just received some very disturbing information that I think the secretary should know about and perhaps act upon,” Nukaga went on almost breathlessly. “It is in regards to the Starfire project . . . yes, the so-called space solar power plant . . . yes, I say ‘so-called’ because I have learned today that it is not by any stretch of the imagination a solar power plant, but a well-camouflaged space-weapon program . . . yes, sir, a military directed-energy space weapon, disguised as a student engineering project . . . yes, sir, the information was told to me by someone very high up in the project, very high up . . . yes, sir, I trust the source completely. He was taken in, just as I and my university and hundreds of engineers and scientists around the world were sucked into cooperating with it, and I wish to expose this frightening and outrageous program before any more harm is done . . . yes, sir . . . yes, sir, I can be upstairs in just a few minutes. Thank you, Mr. Cohen.”
Nukaga had hurriedly starting packing up his tablet computer when a text message came across its screen. It was from the head of Students for Universal Peace, one of the international environmental and world peace groups attending the conference, and the message read: Our protest plane was shot down by Starfire space weapon near rectenna site. We are at war.
INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF RESPONSIBLE SCIENTISTS CONCLAVE KEYNOTE ADDRESS
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
LATER THAT EVENING
“It is my pleasure and honor to introduce a person who certainly needs no introduction, especially to this assemblage,” Dr. Toshuniko Nukaga began, reading from the script that had been provided for him from Secretary Barbeau’s campaign office. “Stacy Anne Barbeau describes herself first and foremost as an Air Force brat. Born at Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport, Louisiana, she said that the roar of the B-47 and B-52 bombers outside her family’s home just lulled her to sleep, and the smell of jet fuel surely seeped into her blood. The daughter of a retired two-star Air Force air-division general, she moved residences a total of ten times with her family, including two postings overseas, before moving back to her home state of Louisiana to attend college. Undergraduate degrees in prelaw, business, and government from Tulane, a law degree from Tulane, then work in the public defender’s offices in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, before running for Congress. Three terms in Congress were followed by three terms in the U.S. Senate, the last four years as majority leader, before being selected as the sixty-seventh secretary of state. Today, she is a candidate for president of the United States, and if she wins, she will be the first woman to hold that office. I cannot think of a person more suited for that position, can you?” There was a tremendous standing ovation that lasted almost a full minute.