Thomas Hoover - Project Cyclops

Bill Bates, who also had seen it all, had a better understanding of what was under way. It was a massive failure of communications. Thinking as quickly as he could, he started negotiating the Agusta around, situating VX-1 between him and the Apaches. The fucking Delta Force had come in like gangbusters and was shooting at the wrong target. There was no time to try to raise them on the radio, and besides, he only had two hands.

Down below, Vance slammed against the hard metal of the nose, and then rotated, one-handed, to try to take measure of what to do next. It wasn't going to be easy, that much was sure. The payload bay was sealed with a Teflon ring, which was itself secured with a series of streamlined clamps that were bolted from inside, designed for automated control. But… there also was lettering next to a thumb-operated hatch that read EMERGENCY RELEASE.

He flipped it open and, bracing himself against the side of the silver cone to try to overcome the destabilizing down- draft, looked in. A red button, held down for safety by another thumb latch, stared back.

What the heck, he thought, you've got nothing to lose. He flipped the thumb safety, and then-bracing himself to try to slow his erratic spin-slammed a heel into the button. Nothing happened for a second, but then the Teflon clamps on the cargo bay began to click open one by one.

Up above him, Cally was yelling something, but he couldn't make out her voice above the roar of the engines. Anyway, whatever it was, it would have to wait. There was only one thing left to do, and he had to press on. The clamps were now released, but the cargo bay was still closed…

At that moment, he began experiencing yet another failure of nerve. There could only be a minute left, two at most, and he didn't have the slightest idea what to do next.

Then he noticed the heavy release levers, positioned beneath the Teflon clamps and circling the three sides of the streamlined door. Once more bracing himself against the slippery side of the nose, he began clicking them open, starting on the left and working his way around.

Time is surely running out, he told himself. This could end up being the stupidest stunt ever attempted. The roar of the Agusta above was so deafening he could barely think. He felt all of his forty-nine years, a weight crushing down on him with the finality of eternity…

Then the last clamp snapped free, and he watched as the door opened by itself, slowly swinging upward. It was heavy, shaped like the pressure door on an airplane fuselage, and designed to withstand the frictional heat of space flight. But the spring mountings on the recessed hinges were intended to open and close automatically.

And there sat a metallic sphere outfitted with a jumble of connectors and switches. So that's what a bomb looks like, he marveled. It was somehow nothing like he had imagined, if he had had time to imagine.

Now Bates had lowered the helo just enough to allow him to slide inside and take the weight off the line. Finally he could breathe, but again the matter of passing seconds had all his attention. If the vehicle really was going up at 7:48, then there probably was less than a minute left now to get the device unhooked and out.

He looked it over, puzzling, and decided on one giant gamble, one all-or-nothing turn of the wheel. It was a terrifying feeling.

Quickly he untied the wire from around his waist, and began looping it around the metal sphere: once, twice, three times. There was no time, and no way, to disconnect the telemetry, so the device would simply have to be ripped out. One thing was sure: if it blew, he would never be the wiser.

When he had the wire secure, or as secure as he could make it, he looked out the door and gave Cally a thumbs-up sign, hoping she would understand. She did. She turned and yelled something to Bates, and a moment later the Agusta began to power out as the pitch of the blades slowly changed. The line grew taut, then strained against the sides of the bomb, tightening his knots.

Will the wire hold? he wondered, and does this little toy helo have enough lift to yank this thing out of here? It's like pulling a giant tooth.

Then there was a ripping sound as the connectors attached to the sphere began tearing loose. So far so good, he thought. At least the telemetry is now history. If the vehicle goes up now, it'll be orbiting a dud. Mission partly accomplished.

Then the bomb pulled away from its last moorings and slammed against the side of the door, leaving him pinned against the frame, unable to breathe. But he instinctively grabbed the line and wrapped his legs around the sphere, just as it rotated and broke free. As it bumped against the doorframe of the payload bay, he barely missed hitting the closing door, but he ducked and swung free, into the open air, riding the device as though it were a giant wrecking ball.

"Those bastards firing on us have gone inside," Philip Sexton yelled. "Let them wait. Let's stop the damned chopper from egressing." He was pointing through the windscreen of the Apache. "Orders are to keep everybody on the ground."

Manny Jackson hit the pedals. Nothing to it. There, almost in his sights, was the striped Agusta chopper, with a terrorist hanging beneath it. Probably fell out. He was hanging on to something, though what it was you really couldn't tell through the thin mist.

It didn't matter. The guy was open and in the clear. This was the beginning of what was going to be a marvelous operation, taking these bastards down. With a feeling of immense satisfaction, he reached for the weapons station.

And then his world went blue.

Cally stared out the open door of the Agusta and felt her heart skip a beat. A beam of energy, so strong it ionized the air and turned it deep mauve, seemed to be engulfing Michael. Staring down, she was almost blinded by its intensity. He was there, she was sure, but where she could not tell.

Then it shut off for a second, and she realized it had been directed toward the base of VX-1. Next came an enormous clap of thunder as the splintered air collapsed on itself, sending out shock waves. Just like lightning, she thought. The Cyclops is sending energy as though it were lightning…

Then the blue flashed again, and this time it began microsecond pulses, like a massive strobe light. All the action was now highlighted in jerky snippets of vision, as unreal as a disco dance floor. The air around the beam was being turned to plasma, ionized pure atoms… but the next burst of energy came from the propulsion unit of VX-1, which slowly began discharging a concentrated plume out of its nozzles, a primal green instead of the usual reds and oranges of a conventional rocket.

The Cyclops had just gone critical, right on the money, ionizing the dry-ice propellant in VX-1. Would the impulse be enough to lift it off? she wondered. Was Isaac's grand scheme going to work? Years had been spent planning for this moment. She felt her heart stop as she waited for the answer, totally forgetting the man who was dangling just below the chopper, bathed in the hard, pulsing strobes.

As Manny Jackson grappled for the collective, blinded by the intense monochromatic light engulfing him, a clap of thunder sounded about his ears, deafening him to the roar of the Apache's turboshafts.

What in hell! Had one of the nuclear devices been detonated? No, his instincts lectured, he was still alive. If it had been a nuke, he would be atoms by now, sprayed into space. This had to be something else.

Now his vision was returning, the blue receding into quick flashes, and the chopper seemed to be stabilizing. Maybe, he thought, I'm not going to be permanently blind. But I've got to get this bird on the ground. We'll just have to take our chances. Then the realization of what had happened finally sank in. The damned Cyclops laser had switched on. They had arrived too late…