"Jesus!" He turned back to the cabin, forehead bleeding, and yelled, "Everybody okay?"
The assault team was still strapped in, and nobody seemed the worse for the bumpy landing. The Apache was a tough bird, hero of tank battles in Iraq.
"No problem," came back a chorus of yells. They were already unfastening their straps and readying their weapons.
"All right," he bellowed, killing the power. "Everybody out. Let's take cover and kick ass."
Vance heard the thunder and felt the shock wave almost simultaneously. He gripped the wire, trying to hold on, and felt it cut deep into his palms. The pain seemed to work in opposition to the numbing effects of the shock wave that had buffeted him, assaulting his eardrums and his consciousness. For a moment he forgot where he was, shut out all thought, and just hung onto the wire with his last remaining energy.
In the Agusta up above, Bates was struggling with the controls, trying to keep stabilized as the pressure pulse from the Cyclops swept down the island. The dangling bomb, and Vance, were serving as a counterweight, holding the small commercial helo aright. It was all that kept it from flipping as the sudden turbulence assaulted the main rotor.
The energy that filled the air now had yet another release.
As his eardrums recovered, Vance heard a new roar, deeper and throatier than the sound of the Agusta, welling up around him. Down below, wave after wave of pressure pulses were drumming the air, and he watched spellbound as VX-1 shuddered, then began to inch upward into the morning sky. It was a gorgeous sight, the lift-off of the world's first laser-driven space vehicle.